The cable channel MSG, as in the Garden, will unveil an original show called NYC Sound Tracks, in which it searches for the best subway musician in New York. Here’s a pretty cool promo for it on YouTube.

MSG is hosting a launch party at Metrazur in Grand Central July 1, during which subway musicians will perform.

Our money’s on Geovanni Suquillo and that rocking version of Sultans of Swing that’s actually worth skipping your morning 6 train for…assuming, of course, you’re not too busy and your boss is on vacation.

Fun piece in today’s NY Times about musicians auditioning to be part of the Music Under New York program that sees performers jam on the subway platforms.

The 70 who were invited to audition yesterday included a cellist, violinist, a variety of guitar heroes, and one guy playing the kora–described as “a 21-string instrument fashioned from a large gourd wrapped in cowhide, with a wooden neck and handles.”

About 20 will be chosen to join the 100 currently permitted to jam underground with Music Under New York. They were judged on “quality, variety, and appropriateness for the mass transit environment.”

Each musician got five minutes on the upper level in the main concourse, across from the New Haven Departures board. One after the other, they pulled their battery-powered amplifiers up on wheelies and tried to impress the judges. Periodically, a transit police officer walked through with a bomb-sniffing dog.

Every day this week, there’s been a colossal scrum at the top of the stairs heading down to the subways beneath Grand Central, as a busted escalator has forced more people onto the up staircase.

Adding insult to injury, I spied a black and yellow MTA service flyer in the broken escalator today. Escalator will be fixed by October 31, it reads. Halloween’s over, folks.

So it was a general state of anxiety approaching the subways this morning, compounded by a guy further jamming up the turnstile area by repeated failing to properly run his Metrocard through the reader.

“Try it the other way!” shouted his female companion from the other side of the turnstile. Is there another way?

But the agita was assuaged (awesome alliteration, eh?) by the sounds of flamenco-infused rock and roll filling the subway area. A long-haired Latino named Geovanni Suquillo, aided by a small amplifier, was noodling through the solo in “Sultans of Swing”–fittingly enough, a song about virtuosos playing in underground dives–on his acoustic guitar.

It was worth slowing down for, if only for a minute.