Singing streetside for the love of music

When then 15-year-old Holland Mills took up a spot on the sidewalk along San Fernando Road two years ago, and belted out a Beatles’ song, she joined a decades-old family tradition.

Music and street performance has been in the family since Holland’s father, Danny Mills, started playing guitar with friends along Venice Beach during the 1960s.

“It’s a great feeling,” Danny Mills said. “People are coming and going -- you get to talk to people.”

Danny Mills, who describes himself as “a graphic designer by day,” passed on his passion to his children.

“I started playing when I was 13,” said Jordan Mills, Holland’s older brother. “We were camping and he was playing guitar, and I was like, ‘teach me how you do that.’”

The 18-year-old Burbank High School graduate and his father had been spending most of their Friday nights performing outside of Fuddruckers Restaurant on San Fernando Road for nearly a year when Holland decided to join them.

“I’ve always been in choirs,” Holland said. “One day I decided to go out and perform with them, and I fell in love with it.”

Standing on the sidewalk with her father and brother, Holland explained, allowed her to relate with the crowd on a more personal level. Singing on Friday nights, she said, made music a more relaxed, more social activity.

“You get to interact with people,” she said. “Sometimes we have a crowd of people just standing and watching us; sometimes my friends come by and sing along.”

The Friday night performances, however, did not lessen Holland’s interest in choir at Burbank High School. As her parents struggled to pay fees of more than $2,000, the money bystanders threw into the family’s open guitar case helped Holland with those payments.

“If it was something I was kind of iffy about I wouldn’t do it because of the money,” Holland said. “It’s like a second family for me.”

In early December, however, the family received a phone call from the city of Burbank informing them that taking money for their performances conflicts with a city ordinance prohibiting solicitation on city streets and sidewalks. To accept money legally, the family would have to apply for a business license.

After more than two years of playing on the street, the call took the family by surprise.

“We’re not out there begging for money,” Danny Mills said. “We’re out there for the sheer joy of it.”

The trio will continue playing on San Fernando, now with guitar cases closed, he said, but they will have to think of new strategies to raise the money for Holland to attend choir and to participate in the choir’s annual trip to New York.

Mills is looking for a restaurant or venue that will host their weekly performance where they can resume raising money for his daughter.