Buskergate!

Last Sunday was weirdly beautiful: in the mid-high 70's, sunny, balmy. That night, I slept with the AC on. In November. In New England.

During the day, I walked for a while in the Boston Public Garden. Even though the flower beds are pretty much retired for the year, the park is always gorgeous. And on Sunday, it was packed with strollers. And buskers.

There was a guy doing a nice version of Elton John's "This Is Your Song."

There was the jazz, pop, and American songbook guitarist/singer whose real job is performing in restaurants, but who started coming out to play in the Public Garden during covid, when his restaurant jobs dried up.

The bagpiper was there, as was the one-man band - a hippie-dippy character right out of the 60's who was playing "Mr. Tambourine Man" when I walked by.

I didn't see either of the Mexican singers - the caterwauler or the fellow with a more restrained voice - but I may have missed them.

There were three Chinese violinists playing - separately, not as a trio - what I believe to be an erhu. (Yes, I did have to look it up.)

Maybe there were a couple others that I'm not remembering because, admittedly, I was choosing my paths so that I didn't have to go past them all. I like to give buskers a few bucks, but if I'd given a few bucks - actually, my current rate is $5 - to all of them, my Sunday in the park would have set me back too much, and I would have run out of the fives I carry in my pocket for busker and panhandler encounters.

Anyway, I haven't done any close examination, but I believe all of the buskers there were the real deal who were actually, singing and/or playing. Sometimes the singers are accompanying a music track, but all of them (as far as I know) are actually performing.

But across the country, there's apparently an epidemic of fake buskers.  

Posing as buskers, scammers have been miming

 playing the violin to pre-recorded tracks to solicit donations from unsuspecting passersby.

Police across America are issuing warnings about a new major ‘nationwide emergency’... involving violins.

Over the last two years, reports of scammers pretending to play the violin, posing as buskers on the street, have swept across the USA.

These miming musicians will move the bow of a violin along to a pre-recorded track, which is usually stolen from another creator. (Source: ClassicFM)

I don't know if I'd characterize this as a "'national emergency'", but we really don't need any more ersatz, any more faux, any more flim-flammery than we already got going on all fronts.

Instead of simply leaving cases out, so passersby can leave money – like most buskers do – these con artists will usually have someone with them either collecting money, or play against a sign pleading for money to help with rent, bills, or other financial issues. Some falsely claim to be sick or raising money for a poorly relative. 

I'd be more forgiving if they were just playacting at performing, rather than larding on a sob story. But sob stories can work.  

I know this because I know that I have given money on occasion to someone with a good story who I'm pretty certain is full of shite. He/she doesn't really need to get back to Lawrence. Or need gas money. Or diapers for their kid. But if someone's going to go to the trouble of spinning out a tale...

When I give someone money (street people edition) I usually chat with them for a few minutes, directing them to St. Francis House or the Women's Lunch Place or just having a bit of a convo. I'm sure some of the stories are bogus, but enough of them are real. Or real enough.

I don't usually speak with the musicians, as I don't want to interrupt them. Sometimes I'll just say something like "Sounds great" or "Thanks" while I'm tossing a bill in their guitar case or bucket. But they do take breaks, which is how I know that the one guy's usual gigs are playing in restaurants. (He's very talented.)

Anyway, I don't think any of the musicians I come across are faking it. No bogus buskers in Boston yet. At least not where I'm wandering. 

But it's a problem in plenty of places, and there's a suspicion that the fake buskers are part of an organized scam of "finger-syncers" who drive from state to state, trying to stay a step or two ahead of the law. Some of the states where police have warned about this scam: Florida, Texas, Maryland, Michigan, and Arizona. It's also occurring across the pond, in the UK. 

The instrument of choice is the violin. Electric violins are relatively inexpensive - cheaper than a cello or sax - and easier to carry around and fake than the oboe or the accordion. Plus pretend violining is less obvious than someone who is, say, lip-syncing Beyonce. After all, most of us us might not recognize the work of the actual violinist - say, Itzhak Perlman - in quite the same way we might figure out that the person "singing" isn't actually Ed Sheeran.

Real violinists are taking the scammers on, confronting them for their fakery and posting videos on TikTok. The fakers, the real ones rightfully say, are insulting to people who have studied an instrument, are taking away their ability to make a living, are making people doubt the honesty of honest buskers 

Sure, there are worse problems in the world than someone pretending to play the violin. Still, I don't blame real musicians for being pissed off. 

And I will keep an eye out in Boston.

Most of the musicians I see are regulars, and as far as I can see, aren't fake. None of them are violinists, either. Other than the Chinese men with their erhus. And I'm pretty sure they're not faking.

Anyway, now I have a jokeworm in my head, based on a very old joke.

A man is walking around the West Side of New York, back in the pre-smartphone directions-at-your-fingertips era, and spots a man carrying a violin case. "How do you get to Carnegie Hall?" he asks. 

The answer from the violinist? "Practice!"

Something that the Buskergate violinists will really never have to do...