Third Street performers bring personality and entertainment to the outdoor promenade shopping center.
AUDREY REED
A&E Editor
Audrey Reed / A&E Editor
Chris Wilson Sings by request Simon and Garfunkel’s “Mrs. Robinson.”
In most malls the only sounds are the registers and easy listening music playing on a speaker system. But,Third Street Promenade is no regular mall.
Instead, this area in Santa Monica welcomes the talented, the funny and sometimes the weird to the outdoor shopping center.
These performers are at different stages in life. Some hoping to be discovered, some at the very beginning of thier career and others are trying to make a living.
“I never planned to juggle,” performer Bret Wengeler said, gripping a Rubik’s Cube he uses in his act. “And I never planned to juggle my entire life, but it just kind of happened and it just kept on happening.”
Wengeler, along with many of the performers, came to The Promenade in search of a new job or a way to advance his career. In doing this, the performers give The Promenade its famous atmosphere.
“Musical Boot Camp”
For the performers, working on The Promenade is different from any other venue.
“There’s no better place to try new material because there’s an instant reaction,” singer/songwriter Chris Wilson said. “People are walking and you have to stop them. If you do that, you’ve got something.”
Wilson began playing on the promenade six years ago as a way to be recognized by the music industry.
“People tell me how wonderful my act is,” he said. “But for every 10,000 people who say good things, there’s always one jerk who says something mean, like my voice is too high.”
Audrey Reed / A&E Editor
Kirra Kehoe raps to her own beats.
Kirra Kehoe, aka Shirley Good, is one of the youngest performers at age 10. Kehoe only raps original music that she composes herself. She uses some hip-hop songs as a base and then adds beats and her own lyrics. She prefers rapping at competitions to at The Promenade.
“It’s more fun [at competitions] because you have an actual crowd and they take the time to watch you,” she said. “Here people just walk on by and are like ‘eehhh.’”
Wengeler agrees attracting people is one of the harder aspects of performing.
“Having performed that stage routine for years, I’m used to having the audience right there,” he said. “I’m still learning how to gather and keep a crowd. It’s trained me to be a better performer in the long run.”
Gathering crowds isn’t always a problem for street acts, and they have tactics to help with attracting people.
“To me it’s all the same,” said Carlos “Psycho” Miller of the acrobatic dance group Street Bandits. “Either one [performance is] a larger crowd or a smaller crowd, it doesn’t make a difference. [Gathering people] normally starts by playing music or warming up. Some people are watching and they are quite distant from us, so we try to bring them to our location.”
Another struggle for performers is actually getting motivated to go to The Promenade.
“Having regularly scheduled gigs, I had to be there because I’m working for someone else,” Wengeler said. “With this, I only have myself to answer to, and I’m a lousy boss. If I don’t show up to work, I’m pretty easy on myself.”
However, the idea of a street performer isn’t attractive to record companies, said Wilson, who has his own self-titled album.
“There’s still a stigma -– you are still a street performer,” he said. “I stopped trying to get industry people to come out to The Promenade because they think there’s a reason why I’m a street performer.”
History of performers
Just like their acts, the performers have interesting histories.
Chris Wilson, a native of upstate New York, came to Los Angeles to begin his singer/songwriter career. He got on MTV’s “The Cut,” which is like “American Idol,” in 1998 and won the viewer’s choice award as well as second place in the overall contest. Now he is signed with a small, independent record label and tries to get his name out by performing.
“There’s something great about Santa Monica,” he said. “If you play too many cover songs, audiences want you to play more original stuff.”
One of Kehoe’s original songs, “Surfer Girl,” helped her secure a spot as a finalist in SunLab, an all-ages rapping contest. She is the youngest finalist.
But music isn’t her only interest. Kehoe also competes in long board surfing contests and is the current West Coast Champion for girls 12 and under. Her parents accompany her when she sings and her father acts as her master of ceremonies.
“I perform to have fun,” she said “The bonuses are you get to get money to buy things afterward, like dessert or clothes and toys.”
Wengeler followed a different path to The Promenade. He began juggling at 10 years old and later worked for cruise ships and carnivals. In addition to juggling. he works in retail.
“I’m making more money doing this in less time than I was in a ‘real’ job,” he said.
Wengeler’s signature trick is juggling while solving a Rubik’s cube. He developed this in order to create a “gimmick” so people would remember him, he said.
“We’ve all heard of the guy who does the bowling ball or chainsaw. You need something that’s signature, and all my signature stuff requires a lot of props and a big stage,” Wengeler said. “I developed this trick because you can buy Rubik’s cubes anywhere and they are easy to carry. It took me a long time to learn to solve it and juggle at the same time, but it’s been a good payoff.”
What Wengeler likes most about his performances is seeing the audience response to his routine.
“When people come up and tell me ‘that’s the most incredible thing I’ve ever seen,’ is the best part about being out here,” he said.
Not your average mall
The Promenade is known for attracting the rich and the poor, the normal and the weird, the quiet and the loud, but for many that’s the charm of the area.
“It’s great shock value,” sophomore Ben Williams said. “The performers add uniqueness to the shops and entertainment.”
The performers, who can spend more than 40 hours a week on The Promenade, experience the things other performers don’t.
“I’ve had homeless people lay down and curl up next to me in the middle of my act,” Wilson said.
Wilson’s many diverse experiences have prompted a group to film a documentary about his Promenade experience, and they expect to enter it into the Sundance Movie Festival.
Wilson also got his biggest tip of $100 dollars in a very unusual way.
“I saw this homeless lady digging through the trash and just doing weird things before I started singing one day,” he said “She got close to my guitar case, which was empty. I saw someone put in a dollar bill, and next to it in the case was $100 dollars the lady had put in there. By then she was long gone.
“As a follow up, two weeks later I saw her again, and she dropped something my case — a 50 cent coupon off Chicken McNuggets.”
The same woman once interrupted Wilson’s act by undressing herself and making obscene gestures during his performance, he said.
“That’s just The Promenade.”
Rules, Rules, Rules
In order to make The Promenade enjoyable for the street performers and shoppers, the City of Santa Monica developed a code adopted in 1997 to organize the street acts.
All performers must have a permit to perform, which they purchase for $37 dollars from the city. Another important regulation says performers must move locations every two hours so each performer may have an opportunity to get a good spot. Also, to help with competing acts and sound concerns, the regulations state each act has to be 40 feet from the next.
“If you don’t like the regulations, go down to Venice, where there are very few regulations and try to get a spot,” Wengeler said. “The great thing about the regulations is they get you a spot. In Venice, there’s somebody there who says ‘I’ve been here 20 years, you can’t have this spot,’ and there’s a fight.”
Wengeler is also limited in what he can use in this act. Knives and fire, part of his stage routine, are banned from The Promenade. To enforce these rules, The Promenade has a monitor who walks around the area checking for permits and keeping track of where performers are and at what time.
“I’ve tried street performing in Seattle and New Orleans and this is the best place because they have somebody who’s keeping everything in control,” Wengeler said.
Wilson, who generally likes the rules, was issued a $150 citation for being too loud — two decibels over the sound limit.
“For the people who care about it, it works,” Wilson said of the ordinances.
The regulations also help the relationship between the stores and the performers. Wilson tries to be courteous to the businesses in the area.
“I try hard to have a good relationship with the stores because they pay lots of money [to be there],” he said.
But for others the shops aren’t as big of a concern.
“The first year we were here, they weren’t used to us, so they gave us a hard time,” Miller said. “They would complain about the music volume level. But they got used to it, and they have to deal with it. Obviously without us performers, a lot of businesses wouldn’t make any money.”
Any mall, USA
Miller’s opinion on the performers drawing in shoppers is one commonly felt on The Promenade.
“If it wasn’t for the street performers this would just be a mall,” Wengeler said. “It’s that simple. This place used to have off the beaten path shops. But now we’ve got the Starbucks and the Old Navy. You can get this in Boise, Idaho.”
Bigger, international stores have moved in because The Promenade is so special, Wengeler said.
Sophomore Krystal Delgado said she would still shop there, but without the performers, it wouldn’t be the same.
“It’s fun entertainment to watch,” she said. “It brings out the personalities and it wouldn’t be as fun on the weekends [if they weren’t there].”
Wilson agreed.
“There are some crazy things you can only see on The Promenade,” Wilson said. “People come out here because there’s energy and life.”
08-30-2004