'IT'S THE WAY they throw money at me sometimes - it cuts the spirit of my song,' says Paris Metro musician Bady Alhassane. 'Every 50th person throws a 50-centime piece, every 70th person throws a euro. Otherwise, it's just the tiny stuff. On a good day I'll get about Euro20 (HK$190), but I'm generally playing for between 12 and 14 hours. Sometimes, I play until my fingers ache. One day, a man came up while I was playing and just stood there listening for ages. When I finished, he clapped, gave me the thumbs up and dropped a 100-franc note (Euro10) into my bag. I think he was American.'
No such luck so far this year for Alhassane, a lanky Malian with greying hair who strums his guitar in an office foyer close to Bastille, about a 40-minute stroll from the Eiffel Tower. Dressed in a cheap sports jacket, stonewashed jeans and faded sneakers, he looks nervous. He's next in line at the annual auditions held by RATP (the Parisian public transport company). The prize? An official badge granting access to one of Europe's biggest musical audiences: the Paris underground, a labyrinthine concert hall of 368 stations and six million daily commuters.
The audition, usually spread over six weeks, is a sought-after chance to earn official minstrel status below the city's celebrated pavements. Paris is a city of a thousand subterranean melodies. In peak hours, between 500 and 1,500 guitarists, saxophonists, drummers, violinists, rap artists, Peruvian flautists and free-style vocalists play within the 104-year-old underground network. However, the RATP issues only about 150 badges a year; hence the anxious crowd before each audition.
'It's not legal to play without a badge,' says Roberto Arciniega, one of a seven-member panpipe band waiting its turn in the RATP foyer. 'If you don't have a badge, the police come and give you a Euro30 fine, which becomes a Euro60 fine if you can't pay straight away. That's about what the whole band earns in a day.'
At 10am, the audition begins. One by one, or group by group, musicians descend a spiral staircase into a small basement to perform in front of a five-member selection panel. Musicians introduce themselves and get to work. Panellists jot notes or read through band biographies. Repertoires range from Hungarian folk dance to French jazz manouch, from duets and quartets to an entire symphony orchestra. Each performance is prefaced with a few words between band members and panellists.
'We have the entire world represented here,' say Antoine Naso, RATP's cultural attache. 'We try to have all the musical categories represented too, and there are a lot of quality acts to choose from.'
