Update to “Underground Musicians”
I did some more work on this project today. I decided to make the trek out into the MBTA system during evening rush-hour. It’s so damn difficult to go around with lots of camera gear during this time. I had been working on a different project earlier with my friend Mark Tang, and we were riding on the green line together. He was switching trains at the Arlington stop so I decided to get off and see if there were any musicians doing there thing there.
Luckily there was a very interesting guy on the bridge between tracks. I stood there and listened for a while. He was a man in a electric wheelchair, he had one leg, and with that one leg he was playing a tambourine in a similar way you’d hit a bass-drum pedal. He had a guitar in his hands, and he was singing. On the floor next to him was a harmonica. After about two songs, I approached him and asked him if I could take some photographs of him while he played. He was a really nice guy and chatted with me for awhile before he started to play again.
After I finished photographing him, I dropped a few dollars into his guitar case, and thanked him for his time. He reached out with his hand, and I shook it. He said to me, “this kind of thing isn’t what I really want to be doing. It’s just a necessity to pay the bills at the moment.” I felt bad about what he said, and was thankful about my own economic situation. I wish I had gotten his name, but I’ve seen him on multiple occasions, and if I run into him again I will surely get it.
Below is one of the photographs I took of him. I’ll be using two in the final project, but I decided to only show one in this post.
After I finished with him, I moved back down the staircase to the trains. I was going to head to Park Street to find some other musicians. On my way down I was followed by 4 transit cops. I was told to stop and they wanted to speak with me. “Great” I thought to myself. They said it was illegal to take photographs on MBTA property and I would have to leave if I kept doing it. I find it very disappointing when “law enforcement” officers don’t know their own laws. How does that work. Luckily I carry around a printout, from the MBTA Transit Police website that states all of the rules and regulations of photography and the MBTA. I handed it to one of the officers and asked him to read it. They seemed dumbfounded, called in something on the radio, and told me to have a nice day….weird.
As soon as I made it to South Station I heard the faint noise of pinch harmonics. Not a sound I’ve heard from any subway musician before. I got off the green line platform, and made my way down to the “real” subway. The red line. There was a tall kid in the middle of the platform just going at it with his pinch harmonics. I watched him for about 10 minutes. He obviously saw me watching him, and was probably creeped out because 5 or 6 trains had gone by and I hadn’t gotten on any of them.
I waited until he finished a song and approached him. He said his name was Cody, he’s a freshman at Berklee School of Music. This obviously explained why he was so good at what he was doing. I asked him if he knew a few of my friends who go to, or went to his school and he actually knew one of them. Anyways I asked him if I could shoot some photographs of him, and he was all for that. I’m surprised at how everyone has been cool with photographs so far. Below is a photograph of him.
So far I’ve photographed four of these guys and I’m looking forward to finding more of them. I really enjoy being out in the public with all of the people. I normally wouldn’t approach these people, and like everyone else, I have my assumptions about each person, and I have been wrong each time. I could never go into a subway and play music in front of all of the people. Anyways…I’m done with this post. =)