Photos by Marnie Crawford Samuelson
PROVINCETOWN — All summer long at about 7 p.m., a group gathers in the alley by the shuttered Old Reliable Fish House. They hang out, finish takeout suppers, smoke, laugh, wait. They’re musicians.
People stroll by, heading to dinner, eating ice cream; drag queens and parents with babies are all part of the nightly parade on Commercial Street. The last golden light rakes across the buildings.
Will Harrington, who has been busking here since he was a teenager, sits at his funky upright piano and growls into a small megaphone: “Get ready to open your wallets, folks. Jazz is about to begin!”
Harrington is originally from Dennis and says he used to busk alone, sleeping on the beach and in the broken shelter of the Old Reliable. Something changed this winter when he went to play on the streets in New Orleans. He joined with others. “We had been playing almost every day and killing it with big crowds,” he says. They decided to start a band. They call themselves the Ugly Vipers and play music Harrington calls New Age Punk Swing.
“I like to try and hit hard when I start,” Harrington says. “Surprise people and get a crowd going.” He and Dusty Daleo, who also plays guitar, lead with raspy, rough, smoky voices reminiscent of early Dylan.
The band plays jazz standards mixed with original tunes by Harrington, Daleo, and singer, instrumentalist, and poet Johanna Rose. New Orleans native Efrem Towns, a founding member of the Dirty Dozen Brass Band, is in the street, affably working the crowd with virtuoso trumpet solos and vocals, then passing the tips barrel.
A guy named Grounstroke with a hobo vibe and stories of riding freight trains sits at a small manual typewriter, trading poems for donations. Grounstroke’s typing, like Harrington’s piano, is percussive. A young girl approaches him. He tells her that she and her friends can do this, too. Just find an old typewriter and set up a table with a sign. Make art that’s direct, immediate, and connects with people, he tells her.
A large crowd gathers. Couples dance. Nowhere to go but here.
