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A job, a gig and a hustle

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A job, a gig and a hustle

Category Archives: musicians

teach-in and discussion re: busking laws

12 Friday Apr 2019

Posted by DW in gig, musicians, New Orleans

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buskers, MACCNO

Street Performers, come learn about your rights! The Music and Culture Coalition of New Orleans is hosting a FREE teach-in and discussion re: busking laws in New Orleans.

The meeting will provide a discussion and Q&A session for the rights and responsibilities of street performers and law enforcement, which will include participation from a civil rights attorney. This open dialogue looks to establish a safe space for performers to 1) ask questions, 2) express concerns, and/or 3) discuss incidents without enforcement agencies present.

Wednesday, April 24, 2019 at 2 PM – 3:30 PM
Buffa’s Bar & Restaurant

1001 Esplanade Ave, New Orleans, Louisiana 70116

In Memoriam: Scotty Cathcart Hill (1947-2018)

02 Saturday Jun 2018

Posted by DW in gig, musicians, New Orleans

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buskers, gig, hustle, New Orleans, Scotty Cathcart Hill

In Memoriam: Scotty Cathcart Hill (1947-2018)

A lot of people don’t realize that Scotty was an individual that made it possible for everybody to play on the streets,” says trumpeter Gregg Stafford, who began performing with Hill around 1975. “His band was the first band out on the streets of New Orleans,” Stafford continues, as he remembers what a struggle it was for Hill to stand up against complaints from shop owners and harassment by the police to keep his group playing outdoors in the French Quarter. “Many a time we had to go to court, we were issued a summons, arrested and went to jail.”

Hill’s French Market Jazz Band’s spot was on the corner of Royal and St. Peter streets and, according to Stafford, most of the musicians who worked regular gigs on Bourbon Street in the early 1980s would join the group on their days off. “We were making more money in two hours on the street than they’d make in six hours in a club. We were the only band on the street.”

Royal Street clarinetist/band leader wins 2016 Big Easy award

22 Sunday Jan 2017

Posted by DW in musicians, New Orleans

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buskers, Doreen Ketchens, work

                    Best Clarinetist – Doreen Ketchens.

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If you haven’t seen her perform, then get on down to Royal Street most days and be prepared to be blown away.

http://www.offbeat.com/news/winners-last-nights-best-beat-music-awards-photos/

The ‘You Get Paid, I Get Paid’ campaign

20 Friday Jan 2017

Posted by DW in artists, musicians, New Orleans, photos

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Blue Linen Night, Mardi Gras Indians

“This cause is personal to me because my family has been taunted by photographers about how much they have sold my daddy’s image for, and they even tried to take photos at his funeral without permission,” states Cherice Harrison-Nelson, curator of the Hall of Fame, big queen of Guardians of the Flame Maroon Society, and the daughter of legendary Big Chief Donald Harrison. “But this is bigger than my family – the green paper provides evidence of how widespread this disregard for the artistic skill of Mardi Gras Indians has become. We will use it to further advance the ‘You Get Paid, I Get Paid’ campaign we launched during last year’s Blue Linen Night.”

The green paper was completed as part of a broad coalition that is advocating for greater equity in New Orleans cultural economy and tourism industry. Organized during Foundation for Louisiana’s 2014 Equity Caucus and funded by the foundation’s TOGETHER Initiative, this working group is developing a survey, app and other tools to help culture bearers gain more control over the economic aspects of their work.

http://www.foundationforlouisiana.org/news/18/mardi-gras-indian-hall-of-fame-releases-quot-green-paper-quot-revealing-impact-of-image-exploitation-on-local-culture-bearers

Keeping Your Artists Close to Home 

18 Wednesday Jan 2017

Posted by DW in musicians, New Orleans

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housing, Reckdahl

Article is by Katy Reckdahl, a great local writer.

Policymakers have debated how best to support the city’s culture in a time of rising rents and stagnant wages. If done correctly, artist housing slated to open next year in the former Andrew J. Bell Junior High School in the Treme neighborhood could provide an important model for cities looking to preserve and support traditional culture through affordable housing.

“We have the opportunity to show how vibrant arts are essential to our humanity in New Orleans,” said Stephanie McKee, the artistic director of Junebug Productions, a nonprofit that will be based in one of Bell’s community spaces.

 

In late 2005, not long after Katrina, musicians Harry Connick Jr. and Branford Marsalis asked Habitat to establish several dozen houses that musicians could qualify for through sweat equity along with a 20-year, interest-free loan.

But, early on, Habitat found fewer musicians qualified than it had hoped. It hadn’t predicted the level of bad credit and outstanding debt or the general lack of documentation. So Habitat reworked its process, using specially earmarked money from donors to help some musicians pay off small outstanding debts and working with many others to find alternative ways of proving income for the Habitat-underwritten loans.

“Normally, we get tax returns and wage statements,” says Marguerite Oestricher, Habitat’s chief advancement officer. “But with the Musicians’ Village, we had to get pretty creative. Because many musicians live in a cash economy, we’d ask them, ‘Where are you working?’ and we’d take a note from a club owner, saying that so-and-so plays here two days a week.”

Though it took some heavy lifting to create, the Village is now bustling with musicians. The delinquency rate on loans there has been very low, Oestricher said.

 

 

Learning from their artist-housing predecessors, Butler and McKee are going to start convening meetings for potential tenants by early 2017, even though the property won’t start taking applications until the fall, to encourage them to get their paperwork in order.

“We know that there are certain documents that they have to have to apply,” she said. “So we will ask, ‘Can we connect you with someone who can help you get your taxes done?’ Or ‘Even if you don’t have a bank account, can you get a letter from your employer to confirm your income?’”

“We want to get on top of this before this process even begins,” she said. “We’ve got to just keep pounding away at it. There will be no other opportunity like this.”

Keeping Your Artists Close to Home – Shelterforce – National Housing Institute

Subway singer going up

18 Sunday Sep 2016

Posted by DW in musicians, people

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Music Under New York, New York City

After the marriage ended, Ms. Ridley established herself underground. She became affiliated with the Metropolitan Transportation Authority’s Music Under New York, a program under which selected musicians perform in the transit system. She appeared twice a week at a designated spot. She said that no money was ever stolen from her and she was never assaulted.

And she developed her act, learning to work an audience that wasn’t inclined to stand still. She figures that thousands of commuters over the years have sung duets with her.

Ms. Ridley relishes these connections: “We’re face to face,” she said, describing the appeal of busking.

Subway singer going up

15 photos of New Orleans street performers 

06 Tuesday Sep 2016

Posted by DW in gig, hustle, musicians, New Orleans, photos

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French Quarter, gig, informal economy, outsider culture

This slideshow of FQ buskers includes a few of the most known and constant performers over the last 35 years. For many of these photos, the scene is so recognizable to me that it is possible that my teenaged self was just off the side, sitting on the ground, taking it all in. To this day, the interaction with and observation of public street performers and hustlers remains a valued part of my daily life.

 

Juggling, dancing, playing music or freezing in time, performers have been a part of the French Quarter landscape for decades.

15 photos of New Orleans street performers | NOLA.com

The Ballad of Big Freedia: How the New Orleans Bounce Icon Was Betrayed By Her City’s Housing Crisis 

25 Thursday Aug 2016

Posted by DW in entrepreneurs, gig, musicians, New Orleans, people, ruthless growth

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Big Freedia, Fensterstock

Alison Fensterstock has written an insightful and impressive analysis of one hard-working performer’s legal tangle and how giggers interactions with authority often end up badly for the creative community. How many people were sorry they accepted aid after Katrina or BP later on when they found themselves mired in red tape over it? In this case, as Fensterstock points out, the ebb and flow of funds when a performer begins to hit their moment can be confusing and disorienting and can result in a trip to the courthouse. Why would the authorities feel the need to do any more than fine Freedia for a lack of good accounting? Why require further punishment? One might think that those in authority want to find ways to punish him and others like him who won’t just go put on the white shirt and black pants and bus that table.

 

Cashauna Hill, the executive director of the Greater New Orleans Fair Housing Center, cautioned that she couldn’t speak directly to the rapper’s case. But “especially for a cash-based economy, the requirement to predict income is incredibly difficult,” she said. “Performers don’t have that kind of set, consistent clear structure.”

 The Ballad of Big Freedia: How the New Orleans Bounce Icon Was Betrayed By Her City’s Housing Crisis | Pitchfork

 

Update: Big Freedia gets probation

Regular gig at Royal and St. Peter

28 Sunday Feb 2016

Posted by DW in gig, musicians, New Orleans

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New Orleans

 

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Doreen Ketchuns with a small band today

Word origins

job
1557, in phrase jobbe of worke , perhaps a variant of gobbe "mass, lump" (c.1400, see gob). Sense of "work done for pay" first recorded 1660. On the job "hard at work" is from 1882. Jobber "one who does odd jobs" is from 1706.

gig
1570 "light carriage, small boat." A job usually for a specified time; especially : an entertainer's engagement, first known use 1926

hustle
"To get in a quick, illegal manner" is 1840 in Amer.Eng.; "to sell goods aggressively" is 1887. The noun sense of "illegal business activity" is first recorded 1963 in Amer.Eng.

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African-American organizing airbnb Alton Sterling Banking barter Baton Rouge Big Freedia Bill Lavender Blue Linen Night book review buskers capitalism Carrie Brownstein Cheryl Gerber Cleveland model COVID-19 DIY Doreen Ketchens drinking culture Evergreen Cooperatives Fensterstock festivals French Quarter Gawker Ghalib gig housing hustle illegal economy informal economy intellectual property interviews Introduction Jackson Square job Katy Reckdahl labor organizing MACCNO makerculture makerspace Mardi Gras Indians Marx Mr. Chill Music Under New York New Orleans New York City Nicole Sallak Anderson outsider culture police Reckdahl renters Rich Campanella Rifkin RIP Scotty Cathcart Hill street vending Sweden unemployment Universal basic income Wandergesellen work Xavier Review

book reviews collaborative commons cooperatives entrepreneurs gig hustle interview job labor musicians New Orleans people photos ruthless growth U.S. economic policy

Tags

African-American organizing airbnb Alton Sterling Banking barter Baton Rouge Big Freedia Bill Lavender Blue Linen Night book review buskers capitalism Carrie Brownstein Cheryl Gerber Cleveland model COVID-19 DIY Doreen Ketchens drinking culture Evergreen Cooperatives Fensterstock festivals French Quarter Gawker Ghalib gig housing hustle illegal economy informal economy intellectual property interviews Introduction Jackson Square job Katy Reckdahl labor organizing MACCNO makerculture makerspace Mardi Gras Indians Marx Mr. Chill Music Under New York New Orleans New York City Nicole Sallak Anderson outsider culture police Reckdahl renters Rich Campanella Rifkin RIP Scotty Cathcart Hill street vending Sweden unemployment Universal basic income Wandergesellen work Xavier Review

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