We Took the Streets [EN] from Geschikte Gasten on Vimeo.

Joost Biesheuvel has created one of the best documentaries on busking we’ve ever seen. Beautifully shot, with great interviews and highly talented buskers, it’s an endearing, engaging exploration of the art form.

A short documentary about three of Europe’s most successful street-musicians. Each telling their own personal story behind their success, we discover that all cases of succes come from the same, slightly unexpected angle.
Could it be that the street nowadays is one of the most powerful places to perform as an artist? Is the American dream literally to be found out on the streets?

We emailed him with questions last year, and are only just posting his answers below.

Nick Broad: Why did you choose street performers?
Joost Biesheuvel: Well, I knew right from the start I wanted to make a documentary about people; real people with ambitions and struggles like we all have. In specific, the ambitions and struggles I was looking for in my subjects were that of the creative kind. Since I was looking for ‘real people’ we can all identify to, I was more or less looking for the ‘little guy’. The underappreciated… The ones that don’t very often get the chance to talk about their lives. Being a musician myself and never having dared to take it to the streets, I’ve always felt that the Busker is ‘the little guy’ and the underappreciated musician. So there was my subject…

NB: How much of the final product had you planned before you started shooting? What changed?
JB: As you can read in my previous answer, not all my assumptions about buskers were exactly right. In the beginning I suspected the’re would be some stories of really poor people, just managing to make enough money to keep doing it. And that there would be a bunch of really sad stories how the’ve come to live like this. And although I still think that these stories exist, those weren’t the ones I found. After searching google, and watching maybe a couple hundreds of YouTube video’s, I found out that some video’s had been watched for over 2 million times. Could it be that, because of smartphones and YouTube, the streets have now grown into a powerful stage for musicians and other performers? Is the American dream out to be found on the streets?

NB: What did you learn about street performance that surprised you, if anything?
JB: The most surprising thing I’ve learned about street performance is the fact that it’s not really necessarily a local performance anymore. I mean, nothing really is, when the whole world is constantly capturing their every day and putting it out on the web. How exaggerated that may sound, if you’re able to really surprise someone who’s not expecting anything, you’ve made their day slightly unusual which is exactly the kind of thing people are likely to capture and share these days. So I guess in a way, being surprising and adding something inspiring to someones day is more important than making great music.

NB: Have you ever busked? If so, when, why, and how did it go?
JB: No, never… I think my music is not really suited for street performing because it’s quite intimate.

Joost Biesheuvel – Soldier – 3fm (debestesingersongwriter) from Joost Biesheuvel on Vimeo.

NB: You went out looking for the little man, and found people who are becoming famous thanks to the attention they get when people post videos of them online. There are some issues around this. Of course, they are “public” performers and play in the “public domain”, so does this give people the right to post footage of street performers on YouTube? Some buskers don’t like it. But is it always beneficial?
JB: I wouldn’t know what’s legal or illegal when it comes to posting video’s of artistic performances. But I must say that it feels weird to say that people can’t film something tanking place in public. I mean, in a way YouTube is a public domain to. One could almost call YouTube ‘the virtual street’. At least that’s how I see things. I can definitely understand why buskers wouldn’t like people filming their performance, but I guess that’s just how people respond to something special these days. I think the biggest concern for a busker is to get his/her name attached to the video’s people post on YouTube, otherwise I don’t see how that busker would benefit from the exposure.

Also, coming back to what’s right or wrong in exposing someones work in public, online or offline, many buskers are playing covers these day’s and would officially have to pay royalties over the songs they play. On the other hand, when a busker plays it’s own work and its gets a lot of hits on YouTube without the buskers name attached, he also misses out on a lot of royalties. So the bottomline is: It’s never really fair or unfair with these things because it’s relatively new and so damn hard to keep track off. If you don’t want people filming you, put up a sign out saying ‘don’t film me’. If you do like people filming you and you want to benefit from it as much as possible put a sign out ‘My name is …. , don’t forget my name when you’re posting video’s online’.

NB: Have these buskers made you think about “busking” differently? You say you went looking for stories of the underappreciated, the struggling, but found some successful performers making a decent living. Have they changed your opinion of what it means to be a busker?
JB: I don’t think my thoughts about buskers have changed a whole lot, but I never would have thought that busking led to traveling the globe like Daniel Waples does. I mean, as long as there’s a city with decent streets you can busk off course, but a busker being invited to perform on television and festivals all over the world is something different. The biggest thing I learned about busking is that it really, truly is the one thing that these people enjoy doing the most, referring to Daniel Waples and Papy Blues. In prospect I was suspecting it to be more of a financial necessity. The other thing I learned is that In some cases it just works as the perfect promotion for an act that does not necessarily want to be busking. So in my opinion being a busker can mean several things but buskers who merely do it for the love of busking definitely give the most meaning to the word busking.

NB: You say that people take videos of performers who have surprised them, and that this means it is more important now to be surprising. The buskers you have filmed certainly are unique. Do you think they could have found commercial success the traditional way? Or has busking provided a career when traditional outlets could not?
t’s hard to say something useful about this matter, but I think the only act who could have become successful the old fashioned way are ‘The Bottle Boys’. I don’t necessarily think the could have been signed by a mayor label, but being signed by Carlsberg or any other beer-company is a sure thing. I also do recall Daniel Waples telling me he had been offered to join STOMP, a big-time percussion ensemble who use unusual objects to make music, but he had to sign an exclusive deal forcing him to give up busking and so he refused the offer.

The Ironic thing is: Everything that allowed these buskers to become successful on their own (the internet, YouTube, information want’s to be free and all that), is exactly the thing that has really put the pressure on the traditional music market, forcing labels to only sign a ‘sure thing’. So that being said, I think non of these buskers would never have been signed by any label the traditional way One of the reasons for that is the same reason they became successful anyway.

NB: This isn’t a question, but I have always felt that the element of surprise is one of the beautiful things about busking: the streets make every performance seem more immediate, more improvised, more personal, because it is less formal, less expected. This is one of the reasons why I think street performance is so important for us. It bursts our bubbles, and makes us really live in the moment, even if it is just for a few minutes.

Anyway, to finish I wanted to ask you a really general question. Do you feel that busking is “important”? You may take that question to mean anything you like!
JB: I think you’re absolutely right! Although there are many forms of busking and I’m not a big fan of all of them, I think buskers can add great value to a street or even a whole city. A busker can allow you to daydream even while you’re in a rush. A busker can allow you to think about home even when you’re far away. A busker can be the only clear memory you’ve got left of a city you once visited. A busker can be just as important as the food, the weather and the architecture. We just notice it less when they’re not there, but does that make it less important?

You can find him here:
www.streetsofeurope.com
www.geschiktegasten.nl
joost@geschiktegasten.nl