Street Music is not a crime

There was a Tshirt that was a staple of every punk gig i went to back in my days in the late 80s. It read "skateboarding is not a crime". Back then like today, people wanted mostly to have their fun and be left alone. And back then as it is today, local government were prompt to make sure that the streets were kept as boring as they could be so that old farts could have a sense of safety on their way to the grave.

This long and convoluted introduction leads to my point: The current push by the Göteborg city concil to ban street music is wrong on every possible level. It is wrong because it points to a non existent problem. It is wrong because it kills street life, it is wrong because it points to music as the root of all evils, and finally it is wrong because it is racism and xenophobia in disguise.

"Vi har inget emot gatumusikanter utan ser det som ett arbetsmiljöproblem. We have nothing against street musicians, but see it as a work environment problems - Bo Ribbenholt, Avenyns företagarförening (Avenue business association)"

It is wrong because it points to a non existent problem: One claim is that the "Noise" generated by street music is creating problems to the "work environment" (arbetsmiljö) of the businesses surrounding them in the main streets (avenyn, brunnsparken, etc. see the map below to see the areas where the ban applies). I should point out that sweden is the country with the best isolation system in the world and that nobody works with open windows working on main street, you would either freeze your balls off our go crazy with the constant traffic. So that for the office workers (read: filthy rich main street bankers). Now let's go on to the second business in the street: Bars, pubs, boozers, watering hole, meat markets, you name them. All of them with blaring music indoor. You mean to tell me that an accordion can play so loud it bothers your customer who cannot hear their top 40 shit? puh-leaze.

One a side note: i worked at chalmers during cortege building week, with one (really bad) song rotating all day long on the blaring PA in the parking lot. painful? you bet. Unbearable? certainly. but i would have never asked my hard at work lawmaker to pass a law against it. unless they already found a law that eradicated poverty without killing poor people.

One more last rant about the ones complaining street music is noisy: YOU LIVE IN A CITY IF YOU WANT TO BE SURROUNDED BY SILENCE THERE IS ABOUT HALF OF SWEDEN THAT IS WAITING FOR YOU UP NORTH!

It is wrong because it kills street life. We live in a city. A city breathes and lives because of what happens on its street. I enjoy living in this town because of its noise, its crowd, and yes, its music. I don't care if it is a peruvian band, a romanian cello player, of a swedish drunk hugging its boombox (remember him?), it is part of the city and it keeps it alive. remove music from the street and what you get is a dead zone like bergsjön and all the other ghettos where no one is outside and every streets look the same. That is a lot scarier to me than having to walk by someone singing, even if that someones really suck at it sometimes.

It is wrong because it points to music as the root of all evil: You read everywhere about the "dragspelmaffia", pointing out that the accordion players are eastern european that channel their street earned money to the maffia. If this is the case, i'd like to tip my hat to the courage of my governmnent for going after goran the musician. That guy was way scarier than everyone else in the maffia organization. I'm sure that once goran is off the street, the maffia organization with crumble, forced teenage prostitute from russia will be freed and get university degrees, and the drug business will cease once and for all.

romanian drug lord hiding the whole production of columbia for ten years, stached in his cello (which also act as a machine gun i'm sure).

it is wrong because it is racism and xenophobia in disguise. Back when i arrived in sweden, every spring there was a very very very drunk/mad man, who would yell songs at the top of his lungs until the end of summer, when he would retire back to his appartment until the warmer days of the next spring. He would be in front of the SEB bank, right next to the booze store on the Avenue, and use a boom box for accompaniment. That dude was funny, if you passed him by. probably not if you stood next to him for hours. he was a pathetic man singing folk songs and that was it. nobody ever mentioned his nationality, race creed or religion. When you read about street performer nowaday in GP, there is a constant: we are being told that they are foreigners. Is this important? does music get louder when played by a foreigner (may i point out that the loudest genre of rock comes from sweden?)? This brings me to my last point. the law banning street music is a racist law in disguise. We just do not want to see poor, foreign immigrants in the nice central streets when our rich white tourists are here. you might as well call the law the "Keep Göteborg Streets White Act".

- Det finns möjlighet att lagföra en person, men det är för omständligt. Först ska vi kalla på en radiobil, ta med musikanten till polisstationen, anlita en tolk, hålla förhör, skriva en rapport, koppla in en åklagare och sedan ska personen dömas till böter. Detta blir tusentals kronor i samhällskostnader.

- It is possible to prosecute a person, but it is too cumbersome. First, we call on a bumper car, take the musician to the police station, the services of an interpreter, hold hearings, write a report, connect a prosecutor and then the person shall be fined. This will be thousands of Kronors in social costs.

Lars Christensen - Policeman.

The law is now up for discussion again and the Left is ammending it. It must be repealed and forgotten. It is wrong on every possible human level and even on an economic level. Lawmakers should be busy with fighting poverty, not poor people, artists and poor artists.

Links : GP article (in swedish) . (google translation here)

In red: the tourist districts, where street music is prohibited between 11 and 15 (up to 17 in the shopping centre)