Streetmusic

for 2-channel audio (1982)

Length: 26:30

a sound document about Vancouver's streetmusicians. Commissioned by CFRO, Vancouver Co-operative Radio and CBC Radio. First Broadcast: Spring 1982.

00:00
/
00:00

Streetmusic is a sound document which celebrates the beauty and diversity of Vancouver's street music scene. Featured are Joe Freelander, Art Wheeler, J.J., Malcolm, Spider Spoon, Dan-the-Man-the-One-Man-Band, Ramsey and John Husser, and Charles McCulloch.

Streetmusic occurs on three levels. There is the music itself, which the musicians produce and passers-by listen to; there is the interaction and the chit-chat, the verbal exchange between the performers and the street audience; and there is the street itself, with its noises and intrusions, its randomness and ambience-creating a context for and, occasionally, a musical counterpoint to the acoustic event being played out.

Streetmusic explores the flow and exchange between these three levels of sound. When a street musician begins to play, he or she sets up a little stage. But it is only an implied stage. It is a stage that is constantly open and vulnerable to the surrounding world. The intensity and beauty of this vulnerability is what this sound document tries to convey.

Streetmusic was first broadcast and commissioned by Vancouver Co-operative Radio and has also been broadcast on CBC Radio's "Hornby Collection".