The future of going to a concert and rocking out to your favorite band with all your buddies is uncertain. With most of the world in some sort of lock-down for the foreseeable future, bands, artists, crew, and the industry as a whole are trying to figure out how to not only play live music but make some money to keep the bills paid. So what do we do?
Catherine Sisco, the wife of Alzie Sisco, a drummer for a local New Jersey jam band called Newton Crosby, came up with a solution, Busking Down the House. For those not in the know, busking is a term used for subway and street musicians playing for tips. Cat's idea was for the members of Newton Crosby and other local NJ artists to start a Facebook group where they could play live for their fans. In addition, there would be links to their PayPal and Venmo accounts for people to donate directly to the artists playing (if they so desired). After just a few days on line, this concept became an instant success and is spreading like wildfire all across the country with new musicians and followers added daily. It's immediate success intrigued a local NJ News station which in turn did a little news story about Catherine and the start of Busking Down the House. Click HERE to check in out.
As you would imagine, once the word got out about the group, many other artists wanted to join the party. Tim Palmieri, the guitar player from Kung Fu (a jam band from Connecticut), and Brock Butler, the guitar player from Perpetual Groove (a jam band from Georgia), were the first major artists to sign up and be apart of this blossoming group. Each day the list of artists wanting to play grows, and this Facebook group has gone from meager beginnings to a full-on pandemic success story.
The Busking Down the House Facebook Group was created in mid-March, and now present-day has 32,000 members and many artists playing in their selected time slot 7 days a week. This started off small and has blown up big-time, going global with artists entertaining from all over the world. As Busking has progressed, one of our good friends Paul Giza has stepped up big time reaching out to artists from many different genres of music, asking if they would like to join the group and play. As you would imagine most are very polite in their response and are super stoked to be apart of what's happening.
Moving forward, the live music industry will have to wait and see when we are all allowed to attend a concert again. As we wait, Busking Down the House allows us to not only see our favorite artists live, we also can see when your friends join the party, connect with them in the comments section, have some fun, and donate to support our favorite bands during this tough time throughout the industry.
If you are an artist or a band that would like to join the group and play, I have included here the official Busking Down the House announcement on their Facebook group page below. Remember this a FREE group - its free to join, free to play, and free to watch. Any artist can add a link to their stream for donations to their PayPal or Venmo accounts. Please contact the admins of the page, Catherine Sicso and Paul Giza, to setup up your time slot. Thanks to everyone involved with Busking, helping to keep live music alive and well during this rough time. Let's keep the party going until we are allowed to go back to see live music with our best friends!
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Photojournalist - New Jersey
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