In one of the more novel fundraisers to pop up procuring donations for L.A.-area fire relief, “Busk-Aid” has been set for go hit the streets in the city’s Echo Park district, with more than a dozen artists who are well-known among the Los Angeles music community committed to perform at stations along a bustling section of Sunset Blvd.
Among those playing in the urban great outdoors for charity March 30 will be Dustbowl Revival, Ted Russell Kamp, the Living Sisters (with two out of four members, Eleni Mandell and Becky Stark, on hand), Rick Shea, Tony Gilkyson, Carla Olson & Todd Wolfe, Ilana Katz Katz, the Ruby Friedman Orchestra, Fernando Perdomo and the Hollywood Highsteppers.
The event, which will see all of the musicians performing at stations near the intersection of Sunset and Lemoyne, is being presented in association with the Sweet Relief Musicians Fund, which will donate proceeds to musicians displaced in the fires, with the Wild Honey Foundation providing logistical support.
Busk-Aid is the brainchild of Cary Baker, a music publicist-turned-author who recently published the book “Down on the Corner: Adventures in Busking & Street Music,” and Liz Garo, a longtime L.A. promoter who has produced shows at such venues as the Regent, Echoplex and Spaceland.
Baker tells Variety, “In the wake of the tragic fires, I thought back to the performances at my two L.A. book events – at Book Soup, where Bob Ricketts of the Groovy Rednecks played pre-war blues, and at Stories in Echo Park, where the Hollywood Highsteppers Dixieland band greeted customers on Sunset. So when it came time to think ‘How can I help?,’ a busking benefit immediately sprang to mind.”
Baker has described the event as “modest” in the overall scale of benefits that are happening in the wake of the devastating urban wildfires. But even if it doesn’t match the $100 million that the all-star FireAid was reported to have raised in January, it’s a chance for some of the musicians who know victims in Altadena and elsewhere to do something that feels more to scale for their community.
When he started making calls, he says that “everyone got it – and everyone realized that busking was close to my heart. If anything, we had to call it a wrap before we contacted so many great musicians we could have asked, as we want to keep it to four hours in a handful of locations long Echo Park’s stretch of Sunset.”
It will be a modern form of busking, as far as having a QR code prominently displayed that will link directly to a Sweet Relief fundraising website. “We’re not even the middlemen,” Baker says.
“However,” he adds, “artists are encouraged to open their guitar (or violin) cases for donations to themselves. Two of the buskers — Ruby Friedman from Portland and Ilana Katz Katz from Boston — will have come a long way to play less than a half-hour set that day. They all deserve some sheckles whether they made the trek from Cambridge Square or Culver City.”
Ilana Katz Katz, who is playing Busk-Aid
Courtesy Cary Baker
As far as getting local retailers to go with the flow, Baker says, “Thankfully Liz Garo has some cachet along the Echo Park business district, co-owning Stories and having booked Echo and Echoplex for years. She got some of her favorite fellow local merchants on board, and knew the shops and restaurants which had entrances that lent themselves to a busker standing in them. The event will wrap on Stories’ back porch. Maybe a back porch isn’t as ‘busking’ as a sidewalk. But either way, it will be a great afternoon in the sun, and hopefully raise some funds for musicians affected by the wildfires.”
Many of the performers are of course well-known for what they do indoors, and at night, on a regular basis at local venues. But among those visiting from parts elsewhere, Baker is eager to bring in “Ruby Friedman, who is bringing her full Ruby Friedman Orchestra and using it as a dress rehearsal for her forthcoming album release show, and Ilana Katz Katz, who is pretty famous in the blues world for her music, arts and crafts.”
These free performances will take place in front of the the Echo, Stories BooksCafe, Masa and Señor Fish, all located in the 1800 block of Sunset Blvd., at or around the intersection with LeMoyne St.
The tentative schedule for March 30:
Echo, 1822 Sunset Blvd.
3pm – 3:20pm Fat, Evil Children
3:40pm – 4pm Watertower Boys
Sticky Rice, 1801 W Sunset Blvd.
3:50pm – 4:10pm Craig Elkin
4:20pm – 4:40pm Carla Olson + Todd Wolfe
Masa, 1800 W Sunset Blvd.
4:30pm – 4:50pm Ilana Katz Katz
5pm – 5:20pm Fernando Perdomo
5:20pm The Highsteppers cross the street
Shoe Palace, 1700 Sunset Blvd.
5:30pm – 5:50pm The Highsteppers
5:50pm – 6:10pm Ruby Friedman Orchestra
Stories (front), 1716 Sunset Blvd.
6:pm – 6:20pm Ted Russell Kamp
6:30pm – 6:50pm Living Sisters
Stories (patio), 1716 Sunset Blvd.
7: 10pm – 7:40pm Tony Gilkynson + Rick Shea
8pm – 8:30pm Dustbowl Revival
