ABERGAVENNY’S growing army of buskers took a serious hit recently when Monmouthshire County Council’s licensing and regulatory committee decided to pull the plug on the less talented and more tone-deaf amongst our borough’s street entertainers.

In days of of yore, an avalanche of complaints regarding “poor quality music” and the sort of singing voices which could grate a brick, seemingly fell on deaf ears. Unfortunately the vocal gymnastics and tuneless gyrations of many of these have-a-go Charlies didn’t.

Yet it looks like the gig’s finally up for the chancers, dancers, and plucky songbirds who have bucketfuls of enthusiasm but only an extremely limited repertoire of songs with which to torture innocent pedestrians with.

Like a stern, albeit slightly camp big Greek god, MCC have decided to pick up Simon Cowell’s big axe and separate the wheat from the chaff by approving a set of guidelines which will separate those who lighten up the streets of Abergavenny with three chords and a honey-laced vocal, and those who darken our doorsteps with their dreary dirge.

The hellish cacophony of performers pumping up the volume and trying to drown one another out in amplified versions of the same old chestnuts is, for most people, an aural nightmare without equal, and something which begs for a swift and merciful end.

Yet, in music, as in all things, taste is subjective. One man’s barrel of drowning cats, is another man’s sublime symphony. As such, buskers have queried how guidelines on sound levels, quality of entertainment, and location will be implemented.

It’s a good question. Because despite being responsible for introducing the world to the hell and horror of Ed Sheeran, busking is a time-honored tradition throughout Britain and Europe.

In medieval times when pestilence and pock stalked the land, so too did the humble busker. Weary of foot, but musical of spirit, these maverick maestros would wander gaily through our cities, towns, villages, and hamlets, lifting the spirits of a desperate people who lived on a steady diet of squirrels and dirty water.

So treasured was the busker’s worth, merchants and venture capitalists would invite these wandering minstrels to their storefronts and to their public squares. Because where the song and dance men went, a happy and consuming public would readily follow.

Over time the busker’s art has become neglected and undervalued, but these tenacious disciples of Mr Bojangles still serve a vital role in today’s corporate environment and look-a-likey landscape.

On a final note, it is said to be whispered in feverish tongues by the madmen and monks who are rumored to hold court, albeit in dwindling numbers, in remote caves above Clydach, that, “When Monmouthshire’s streets are without the sweetness of song, something terrible has gone wrong.”

Take heed MCC and always remember - he who pays the piper calls the tune!