Laguna Beach has an annual "Patriot's Day" parade, (though their long-standing title has been co-opted by the Federal 9/11 day). I thought that if I could get there just as the parade was over, there would be lots of people roaming the streets. And I was right. Unfortunately, the city had apparently called in some extra "law enforcement" for the event.
After about a half hour of playing, an elderly "Beach Patrol" guy came along and, very friendly-like, told me that I could keep playing, but I'd have to shut "that" (amplifier) off. I said, "Oh, OK, but it's pretty hard to compete with the traffic noise and motorcycles and stuff". He said, "They'll be able to hear you!", which is only barely true.
But I dutifully turned the amp off and took off my headset, and off he wandered. I flipped through the book and played only the strummed songs, shouting the words, but it doesn't feel much like music to me. Obviously, I'm harmony-less, but I'm also finesse-less, when I can't fingerpick and sing with some subtlety. I didn't have the guts to turn it back on after he'd gone, 'cuz I figured he'd be back, and about an hour later he did come around again to give me a big grin, and obviously, check up on me.
But, belying my impression of what I sounded like -- and whether or not I "sounded" like anything at all from 8 feet away -- I had people apparently listening pretty much the whole time. I was watching for a "nobody's here" window to pack up and leave in disgust, but I didn't get one for two hours. Or maybe they were just eating their ice cream and smiling at me out of politeness (or the funny hat). Hard to tell.
To top it off, a guy came up and asked me if I had a card, and said I 'had a good sound", and something about being a producer and a studio or something. I'm like, "What -- this?!?". I'm feeling like a Neanderthal out there, banging on rocks and shouting, and he *likes* it?!? Can he even hear it?!? But of course, he'll never call, so I guess it doesn't matter what he heard or thought he heard.
Anyway, I made $21 in tips, presumably entirely out of pity. And of course now I'm all paranoid again to go down there with the amp, though I'm pretty sure the guy was just a "temp" cop, since he obviously hasn't heard of the "look the other way if they're not causing any trouble" policy that the rest of the real cops seem to have in place.
Seems to me like the city ought to have a Maximum Volume law, and not this arbitrary "no electronics" one. There are plenty of modern instruments that depend on electricity to work (keyboards, synths, surf guitar, my harmony box, Warren's lead guitar and effects thereon, April's iPod boombox backing tracks, etc.), and musicians that are responsible enough to play them at reasonable levels (as many of us are doing now). But to have to live under the threat of getting busted for providing the city's citizens and tourists with some entertainment seems uncool.
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