A nearly fruitless afternoon of trying to capture sounds of subway buskers using nearby payphones was salvaged by this reasonable sounding recording. This has a bit of a party atmosphere about it, albeit a subdued, monochrome party.

It’s become more and more of a surprise when I find a payphone that actually works. On this day two phones at Penn Station accepted my 50¢ and connected the call but no sound was heard. Two other phones sounded like they connected the calls but incoming call history shows no record of them. It’s possible I dialed the wrong number but I doubt that. Yet another call was connected but the phone was quickly hung up by a helpful passer by. Tough life.

Any endeavor which depends on the reliability of the public telephone is imperiled from the start, and this project of collecting sounds of musicians and general ambiance through payphones is fraught with wasted quarters.

I was glad to catch at least this one segment, from musicians who are unnamed because no identifying information was to be seen at the performance space.