I turned up at "Ain't Nothin But The Blues Bar" off Carnaby Street at 9.30, the advertised starting time for their weekly Monday Blues Jam. But so had loads of other people, some carrying instruments, and the queue to get in stretched back a good twenty yards (I stay out of the way of queues that stretch back a bad twenty yards). The doorman told me there was a one-in/one-out policy and it'd probably take an hour to get in. I have an "I can't be bothered to queue for an hour or come to that even half-an-hour" policy and wandered off.
I knew that "Molly Moggs" on Charing Cross Road had a Diva open-mic night tonight, but decided I'd like to save that for a proper evening out with a few friends and so headed for Leicester Square. Opposite the site of the old Swiss Centre Building was a guy sat in a shop doorway noodling spacy electric guitar. He had some cds of his music on the ground in front of him. I usually give money then take a photo, but tonight I did it the other way around and was immediately warned off taking pictures by the guitarist's associate who stood bouncer-like at his side. I spoke to him a short while later, after he'd stopped someone else doing the same, and he told me the no-photo policy was to prevent people from secretly filming his mate, his mate being called Paul Sebastian. The photo I managed to take was horrible even by my murky night-time standards, so here's a photo of Lester Square (lead guitarist of indie-arty post-punkers The Monochrome Set).
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There are 30 street pianos situtated in various public squares and parks, train stations and markets of London until July 13th. I was going through town this evening so thought a good bet for music would be the piano in Leicester Square. At first I thought that the mighty throng of people gathered around the north-west corner of the square were there for some other reason - a "standing in the north-west corner of Leicester Square and facing south-east" flash mob perhaps. But hidden in the midst of the crowd was a piano and piano player (and a guitarist and trombonist). These guys, playing boogie-woogie, Beatles and Stones, represented "Busking cancer", raising cash for Cancer Research UK. The pianos themselves come under the banner "Play me, I'm Yours" and are an artwork by artist Luke Jerram, presented for Sing London and The City of London Festival. And Sing London are a non-profit organisation set up to unite the city in song. Their site in turn led me back to the streetpianos site and the list of various events going on around various pianos, and with it the dilemma of whether I can allow myself more than one streetpiano experience. I notice, for example, that tomorrow the Camberwell piano will be surrounded by the Camberwell Complaints Chorus...
