Busking - Week 3

Hell, I've just been out 5 days straight. Wed, Thu, Fri, Sat & Sun. Did 21 hours total, so just over 4 hours a session.


I am having adventures out there. Tonight (Sunday) I arrived at 5:30pm, and went walking to the loo at the surf club and around the spot before setting up.

There was a "Christian" guy with signs up offering world peace and harmony, etc. He was setup at "my" spot at the Commonwealth Bank. So as I walked past I asked him how long he had been there and how long he was going to stay. Fairly late he said.

His entertainment consisted of banging on both sides of a Tama swingstar mounted tom-tom, probably a 14", but may have been a 12". The striking seemed to be fairly random. He kept it up for a while, while offering to talk to possible converts. Why do they always go out and tout for customers? The Ba'hai' faith teaches that people will seek knowledge themselves, it is not for others to "preach" to them. Anyway, I reckoned he was going to turn more people away than anything else. Anyone truly interested in talking to him would already be a Christian...

Anyway, I setup at the Spa Supermarket, which is along a fair bit from where he was. After about 20 minutes he dashed past, with his drum. He said he was going to the loo at the surf club. I looked up at the spot, and thought, yeah, I'm going there. A couple of women sitting on the bench opposite me offered encouragement and one of them even wheeled up my chair for me and I started to play "Silent Night".

He came back, told me it was his spot and to clear off. I thought "bad luck". Try leaving a parking space here at Terrigal and expect it to be free when you get back five minutes later. Nah, bad luck. Well he wasn't having that. He pushed over the music stand, flung my wheeled chair across the other side of the footpath when I tried to retrieve the music stand, and acted in a somewhat un-Christian manner. He said he'd drown me out with his drum.

I thought, "you asked for it, mate", so setup ONE shop along from him. As for drowning out, well, it didn't work that way. I got good crowds - it's absolutely great when you get some kids dancing away to (say) Rudolph or Santa Claus is Coming to Town, etc. I knew I was having a good night. At one point I got sick of his drumming, so I turned the guitar upside down and started to belt out a bongo rhythm. Within seconds there's guys dancing around, and two guys put money in the guitar case as I was drumming. I was cracking up at that.

Anyway, I went back to playing songs, and the guy just sits there for another hour and a half, to spite me, essentially. He didn't play anything, he just sat, occupying the space, not making any sound. Maybe he was doing better for his cause by remaining quiet?? Not that it made any diff to me, as I was getting lots of gold in the case tonight.

Anyway Sunday was the best night this week. I reckoned Friday and Saturday would have been good, but they were only a portion of LAST Friday and Saturday night. Seems like last week it was all the go on the Fri & Sat. This week it's more spread out, and each night wasn't as busy.

However tonight I was stoked as there was $50 in NOTES in the case (a $10 and $40 in $5s). Plus LOTS of gold. Far more gold than silver tonight. Which means I must be doing something right.

I haven't had a chance at all to practice anything this week. Last week I learnt 21 new songs. This week I've learnt three: "Harley and Rose" [Black Sorrows], "Khe Sanh" [Chisel] and "Standing on the Inside" [Neil Sedaka]. And I love them all. At the moment, my absolute favourite to play is "Harley and Rose". It is so Dylanesque, it really suits my vocal range, and there is much you can do with it vocally. Occasionally I'll just play for my own benefit. I stayed out 5 hours on Saturday, the last hour I was essentially just paging through my book and playing songs *I* wanted to hear. I did Harley and Rose about 3 times in the last hour, and it's a money song. The bit where you do the high "Harley and Rose, they just lost it for a while" in the chorus, gets people's attention, as it breaks through the background noise.

I'm learning how to work the crowd, and I'm getting so much better at playing and singing. I'm absolutely hooked. But I will be having today (Monday) off. My fingertips are absolutely shredded and the callouses are huge. Plus I'm getting some reactive arthritis in the left hand ring finger. I can't bend it down all the way now - but it'll probably be okay when I wake up. Oh, yeah, talk about musician's hours... Goodnight all and sleep tight.