Quote: (09-23-2014 01:33 AM)Thomas the Rhymer Wrote:
Slightly veering off topic but:
- Do you ever get a chance to game while busking?
- Would you be able to bust out a data sheet on busking?
Busking seems like a great way to force oneself out of one's comfort zone.
A busking data sheet would be pretty long on the ins and outs, I'll try to write it out sometime.
As far as gaming while busking, this is my take:
Gaming while busking is fun as hell. If you aren't putting the music front and center you don't stand a chance. That said, if you are a well practiced musician this can be a fun little foray
As someone with game, confidence and good body language you can BLOW AWAY every busker in your town. Easily. Think about your average busker...dirty, desperate, hunched over. Or a music nerd with tons of talent but no presentation. Fuck that. My corner is a party and you're gonna love it.
It's funny because Roosh and Soup (any myself to some extent) have written how Dj'ing and being in a band isn't a magic bullet to getting laid. I think street performing is WAY better than playing in venues and changes up the equation in your favor for a few reasons...
1) You can stop at ANY time and leave with someone...this is the most important difference
2) You control the set list and energy. You don't have to play to any theme night. I know international pop songs that will hook in Russians, Colombians...whatever...and I know the lyrics in their original language (albeit pronounced TERRIBLY it ALWAYS gets a reaction)
3) On the street you perform at eye level...it's dead easy to start a conversation
4) On the street you don't have to lug a ton of gear around...everything fits into a backpack. I can't count the number of times I thought I was getting action from playing at a bar and when I got back from packing up my huge guitar rig the girl would be nowhere to be found. The mobility advantage of street performing can't be stressed enough
5) There's a bit of a 'forge your own path' vibe where girls, and people in general, think its ballsy to play on the street. I NEVER heard that even once from all my years of playing in bars/lounges
6) Keep out a cheap conga drum while you play...it lures in folks and ANYONE that plays it will tip you/have a small conversation. This bait can bring in anyone from attractive chicks to chubby fat frat dudes so depending on my patience level that night I may or may not have it out.
As far as social benefits....
On weekend nights I get one night stands at the same frequency as if I hit the bars/clubs. Between dealing with bar crowds or playing music it's an easy choice for me to make.
The difference between gaming in bars and gaming while busking is that your targets will more or less choose you...based on your talent level and song selection. I could literally talk all day about how important song selection is.
The right song played with the right musical interpretation can pique anyone's curiosity. The upside to this is that there is very little dealing with bad attitudes. Girls are happy to chat it up because my music puts them in a good mood. After a while of street performing you can read people and develop an ability to choose tunes that invoke the 'omg I LOVE this song' reaction
[I recommend becoming a human jukebox if you're going to play on the streets. Know ten songs from EVERY genre you can think of. This alone is a pretty fun musical challenge and in addition pays nice dividends while busking.]
The downside is that it's extremely hard to catcall a girl walking by and get her to 1) stop 2) listen to you 3)leave her friends/come over so you can spit game...so you get a lot of people that will come up and want to chat and then you have to filter through til you get something good...meanwhile keeping the energy high and being respectful to everyone. Not gonna lie it can be exhausting and I have to mentally prepare if I want to game and busk on the same night
My 'angle', as it were, is to start chatting up girls around/after closing time and see who has friends that let them chat for a few minutes. If their friends won't let her chat or pull her away, there's a high chance they will prevent her from hanging out with me for the night so I don't bother and wait for something with better odds.
If they let her chat, I'll eventually explain to the friends that we kinda hit it off and would like to grab a quick drink to end the night.
Usually I get three attitude categories of girls who come up...
A) The girl who's out loving life and is intrigued by the guy playing music on the corner. A medium lead, gotta reel these in with some game, not too much because attraction is already established. More or less just show that you are normal and confident.
A lot of international girls, aupairs and college age American girls come up to chat, which to me is ideal. No routines, if anything figure out her nationality asap and show that you know something about her country/culture or figure out her college and drop some knowledge about the campus/area/sports culture
B) The super sexual type who will flat out tell me "your music is sexy as fuck" or some variant thereof. For these girls I stop playing, stand up, and lock eye contact/put hand on her hip and go right for the makeout. After the makeout I diffuse the tension with very light small talk while packing up my stuff. Game on.
This is pretty rare, maybe one or two of these a month. The biggest problem is the makeout usually cues motherly instincts in her friends and she gets dragged away/'protected' rather quickly...I still can't get people to get over the dirty/poor/nasty stereotype of street musicians even though I have nice clothes, work out, fresh hair cut, smell good etc.
I think if I didn't start packing up my stuff but just chilled out I would look less thirsty and this is something I'm experimenting with at the moment.
C) Bratty girls who want to say something like "This songs sucks, but do you know XYZ?" Always American 25+ year old chicks that pull this, I politely ask them to go away. They never tip even if you do play their song so I stopped interacting with them and have not regretted it since.
My simple routine is as follows...dead simple and obvious to anyone who knows even a little about game. Nothing revolutionary.
After 5 min of chatting...
"hey it's been a hell of a night, let me go drop off my guitar at my place. Walk with me, I have some liquor, we can chill at the park nearby and I'll drive you home after...I haven't been drinking much tonight."
At this point she either turns her back on her friends and walks with me or goes in for a girl group huddle. I've yet to be shot down, but I have had mother hen girls question me and do their thing. Best approach here is to be calm, steady, and play up the 'quick drink' angle to stress that you're not assuming sex will happen. This usually pacifies these types.
So all that gets her back to my apartment, where we either bang immediately or we drink at the park for a while before going back to my place to 'get the car keys' and I escalate from there.
This whole time I act very low-key/laid back/harmless with the friends but maintain a low, steady voice and very strong eye contact with the girl I want to take home. Usually some light hip touching and I'll ask her to hold my guitar case while I clean up equipment as a compliance test.
Sometimes I'll ask her to count my tips if I know I've had a good night, which she will generally enjoy and 99% of the time she will joke about how now I can take her to a fancy dinner...to which I reply that "now I can finally pay back my drug dealer and bookie, so hope you like McDonalds"
A lot of things go unspoken but the message is crystal clear when I ask her back to my place and she knows what's up before we start walking.
I like my girls confident and sexual and can't be bothered on girls that don't have an overtly feminine energy. If I don't get a strong sexual vibe from her I'll dip out and spit game on my walk home the same way every dude does past last call.
You will get other musicians, usually singers or freestyle rappers, who will jump in and want to jam. If you can't keep up you'll lose their respect and their negative body language will be enough to deter a crowd and kill your momentum. Make sure that you can kick it in multiple musical styles or you'll get clowned on the street.
If you can hang musically, you can get spontaneous crowds to form, other strangers to jam with you, and some truly magical collaborations can happen. It's usually after one of these killer performances that you'll get a girl come up that will be VERY interested in you.
At the end of the night, I had a ton of fun playing music, people usually buy me/tip me drinks, I meet a TON of cool folks, make some cash money and have a good shot at getting laid. It's great and I personally enjoy it much more than hitting the bars.
It's a bit of effort..but so is booking a gig and everything that goes with it...or going out and working the room at a club. This particular goose is great because i do it how I want, when I want, and my logistics are super tight with the bars, a huge park and my apartment all within 5 min walk.