The Sounds of the Underground Page #4

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singing or playing an instrument,

are sort of part and parcel of

living

and commuting in New York City

and not that you

take them for granted, but

they're there.

The subway. They're not asking

to see you or hear you.

They're not paying money to go

to a club to be like, oh yeah, it's the

Nicola show. No, they're going to and

from wherever they have go to. Job,

interview, boyfriend breaking up

with them, girlfriend breaking up,

any kind of scenario and

they're rushing and you're there.

Oh my god, do I have to listen

to this?

Do I? I didn't pay. I think the

beauty of it, if you want to turn

that around is that if

they didn't expect to hear you,

and they were in that frame or

that zone where they were

rushing and were having a bad day

and were just trying to get

from point A to point

B, but then you got thrown into

the mix. That is

the exciting part. It's like

wow. You know, I can't believe

that I heard that and that

makes your day.

To know that you were able to

change somebody's life, yeah.

(Traffic noises)

And I said and don't get me

wrong. You'll have a f***ing

accident in here.

You got the wrong guy, man.

I ain't got no debts,

I ain't got no wife. I ain't got no kids.

I'm one of the bad people you don't

wanna mess with because

I got nothing to lose.

I will crack

you in the head with this

pan, man. What am I gonna do?

Walk out the door.

The cops still have to find me.

What the f*** is

8 dollars an hour? That's 320

dollars a week.

You go home with 278 f***ing

dollars.

You know what I was doing for

the rest of my money?

I was selling f***ing

weed.

-The business underground

is a raise different from the

top

level. You know how many people

are out of work?

Don't even have their pensions.

Don't even have their social securities.

They have been on the job for 15, 20

years, but they don't have no benefit.

None at all.

(Crowd chatter)

I don't want to be famous. No,

not me.

You can't sue me. You're just like the

person that goes to work every day.

It just so happens that what

you do, people just respond to it.

That's all. -I'm gonna tell Raymond

to stop through some time.

Take care, man. Watch out

for that roadrunner. (Laughs)

That, that, that

that's not how you make magic.

(Footsteps)

If that trickster don't come,

completely and distract you,

the illusion of what he does

won't work.

Because why he's got you

looking at one thing,

(Distant crowd chatter)

that's to draw your attention.

(Saxophone music)

And the magic is

he's got to put 110

percent of whatever it is he's

doing

and that's what this is all about, man.

In order for you to have magic,

you can't be distracted.

-Love is...

To me, love is the most

important thing. You know.

And, even if you don't have

some kind of love

for something or someone in your

life, you can't even create music.

That's love.

If that chemistry is not working

then you're just wasting your time.

And I tell them. When you're

writing a song,

you got to treat it just like

it's a baby.

Like a seed you plant in the ground.

You have to give it water.

You gotta give it

sunshine. If you don't do that,

there's not going to be no love in it.

And what did we just say? Love

makes the world

go around.

(Saxophone music)

(Train sounds)

No matter what you are in this world,

and no matter where you go, it

will find you.

If you're a thief and you go to

Paris, another thief

will find you. If you're a

heroin addict,

and you go to Hawaii, another

heroin addict will find you.

You know what I mean? If you're

a pimp,

another pimp will find you. If

you're a prostitute... You can never

change. Everybody possesses a

look. Or

there's something about them.

Their characteristic that you can detect.

Woo.

(Train sounds)

(Crowd chatter)

(Kissing sound)

I was actually about to go downstairs.

(Train noises)

I'm gonna

put them in my guitar case

so that I can display them

properly.

(Crowd chatter)

(Drum noises) That's pretty loud.

How's that, how's the

Jimbi? Hows's that sound?

-Let's find out.

Oh sh*t.

(Crowd chatter)

We'll start with a...

(Guitar music)

Will you look at me?

You wanna tell me no

Got too much to work to do

so I see you turn back time

ha ha ha. But I got other

plans for you. I got someone

I know that

you can feel it too. So

baby, get me more

I got to have

that something. It's what you

got. Yeah. I got to have

that something

Here I come baby

your diamond in white

I want you baby

so break down and give me that

something tonight

I'm not holding out

for the music industry and

waiting on them

to sign me or give me some big

wonderful golden carrot.

I don't hold out for that. I feel

independent is the way to go.

You have more control over your

art and your CDs and your

sales and all your revenue.

Just artistic control

and nowadays with the internet

and the way things are for

independent art, it's made it

possible to have it accessible

to the public.

At large. So, I think that

staying independent is a great thing.

I would love to be able to open

for somebody big in a big venue

because that would at least

allow me to sell more CDs and

get my music out

to even more of a mass public.

So, yeah, that would be

cool, but the thing that is

sort of like my motto

is don't wait for things to

happen. There's no such thing

as luck in life. There's no such thing

as good luck or bad luck. Luck is-

you make your own luck.

I got to have

that something, ready or not

(Mellow music)

Here I come.

Your diamond in white

I want you baby. So break

down and give me that

something.

If it's a new thing, you tend to

be consciously aware of it more

often

then you are if it's just

happening more frequently.

If it becomes sort of a pattern

or becomes sort of part of your daily

routine where you hear the guy

singing the opera arias or

playing the buckets that are

like

using them for drums or doing

whatever else, dancing.

Or playing the guitar.

-It's just really hard to, like,

be honest in this world at

times.

Well, most of the times.

Yeah

You know that

(Mellow music)

Give me that something,

something

tonight

Yeah, well I don't think that

there is any other way to be but

honest. -The fringes, historically,

tend to sort of influence

the mainstream and the mainstream

sort of moves over to the fringes.

As I said before, you know, so much

of the cultural contributions to

our pop culture, to American

pop culture, have

come from the streets. -You don't

pick being an artist. It picks you.

So, we fly by the seat of our

pants. We

wear our heart out on our

sleeve. We are very

um, fueled by passion. So for

some-

We don't futurize and make

plans the same way

that people that are not artists

make plans.

Being a musician

has its downfalls.

People either look at you as

like

oh cool man. It's alright. It's

really good.

If you're making big money at it,

yeah, then you're like yeah, far out.

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