Of A Bookshop Busk

I enjoyed a long busking session yesterday in Downham Market. I was outside the West Norfolk Deaf Association Bookshop for three hours in celebration of its fifth anniversary since opening. Normally completely solo I shared the day with John Preston, Yve Mary B and a man called Stuart. It is one of my favourite busking places and the people in the bookshop are always incredibly friendly. It also happens to be a very well-stocked bookshop and I recommend a visit to any visitors to the town. It was also, for a few very wonderful months, a monthly venue for musical performances. Unfortunately circumstances saw that period forced to come to an end.

There always turn out to be more people passing by this spot than one might expect and yesterday was certainly no exception judging by the tips. Of course, many people wanted to donate to the WNDA, but several were also generous in tipping individual performers. One man sticks out in my mind. He stopped for a while during one of John's songs and decided we needed to be lectured on how to perform for the public in the street. He said he had been observing us from a shop across the road, but I think he just made that up. Apparently we ought to have been raising spirits or moving people to action in the face of the problems facing the citizenry. It being my turn to sing next I sang "Obstacle Race", which he acknowledged was an upswing in the mood. He went on to cite the failure of the Brexit project as an example of how we should be addressing ourselves to doing something positive. I would have sung my "Referendum Rag" to him, but he'd had enough and went to fix other problems around the town. It was John's turn to sing a song, so I lost the moment, but after that I sang it anyway.

Of Further Busking Adventures - Part Nine (Downham Market)

Today was a busking adventure of a slightly different kind. No.8, The Old Bookshop, was celebrating its fifth anniversary and had invited some local musicians along to play outside the shop. Since this was not on land owned by the town council I did not need to get prior permission, just turn up and play, which I did. I thought I was last on the list which began with someone called Stuart, continued with a set from the rather excellent Yve Mary B. John Preston and I turned up at the same time, so we played a song each taking turns until he had to go and I just carried on. I ended up playing for about three hours which was rather a lot of fun. As is usually the case in Downham Market, friends turn up out and listen for a bit before moving on. John sang his songs acknowledging our increasingly barmy world in his characteristically apocalyptic baritone. His guitar playing is somewhat idiosyncratic. One has often encountered bass players who ruin their playing by trying to play like guitarists. John is quite the opposite. He plays guitar like a bass player and has just added a small amp and some effects too. It is by no means the sound of his four-piece band, but it is an engaging and interesting style. 

After one of his songs a man approached who happened to be one of those experts who always have ideas about what one should have done instead. "You should sing more upbeat songs. I've been listening from across the street and you are too gloomy. No one will give you any money. People want to be cheered up, not driven to suicide!"

That was, of course, very rude of him, but he felt entitled to pronounce his judgement. He may have been listening from across the street, but I don't think he could have been listening for long because he did not seem to have registered that I was the singer of the previous song and my style is very different from John's. I don't think he had listened to John's lyrics either, because they are often double-edged and very witty. As I was waiting for him to finish he decided that we should be using our talents to write about the important stuff, like the effect of leaving the European Union. Given that most people in the town voted to leave the EU one might have assumed he was also a leaver, but it turned out he was in favour of remaining. I'd have treated him to my "Referendum Rag", but he'd had enough and wandered off.

The sun carried on shining.

Of Further Busking Adventures - Part Seven (Spalding)

Once again I have to apologise for months of inactivity on here. It has been very eventful. If I remember correctly I left Part Six having just had a TIA in Norwich. As a result of that experience I spent a couple of days in hospital and had a a few mostly inconclusive tests. I was also grounded for a month and wasn't allowed to drive. Of course that means no more busking either.

When I recovered from that and was strong enough to load up the van with the instruments I revisited old haunts and managed to get back into the busking habit again. It was indeed great fun. It has been a long time and so much has happened, but I'll just add a few mostly shorter essays in order to try and catch up. 

Today I went back to Spalding and met some of the lovely people there on their "Pumpkin Day" The town was very busy and, despite the continued worries about the Covid pandemic and its latest mutation, families were out in force. Several people came up to talk and the citizens were incredibly generous.

I have been mostly in writing mode this week - blog essays and a new song under way - so I’ve not made time for busking since last Saturday. However today the weather was so beautiful I really had to go and perform somewhere, didn’t I? I had promised myself I’d go back to Spalding after my last visit there, so today was that day. As before, the people were lovely! I used to go when the tulip carnival happened, but today was apparently pumpkin day. There were so many smiling faces, the market was throbbing with families and there were so many stalls it took me a while to find a spot where I could set up. I found the doorway of a closed-down shop and used that to spread out from. The only other street entertainment, apart from amplified Adèle being pumped through a sound system by a local rock school, was a Morris side. So many people wanted to stop, listen and thank me for my music. So many children wanted to dance. Some Poles and Latvians wanted to have photographs taken with me, and that was like being in Venice. Spalding really is a rather splendid place. 

Thank you Spalding! I'll be back 😎

Of A Return To Spalding

 I have been mostly in writing mode this week - blog essays and a new song under way - so I’ve not made time for busking since last Saturday. However today the weather was so beautiful I really had to go and perform somewhere, didn’t I? I promised myself I’d go back to Spalding after my last visit there, so today was that day. As before, the people were lovely! I used to go when the tulip carnival happened, but today was apparently pumpkin day. There were so many smiling faces, the market was throbbing with families and there were so many stalls it took me a while to find a spot where I could set up. I found the doorway of a closed-down shop and used that to spread out from. The only other street entertainment was a Morris side apart from amplified Adèle being pumped through a sound system by a local rock school. So many people wanted to stop, listen and thank me for my music. So many children wanted to dance. Some Poles and Latvians wanted to have photographs taken with me, and that was like being in Venice. Spalding really is a rather splendid place. Thank you Spalding!

Of Thoughts On Busking

I have explained the story of why I turned to busking in my mid-sixties as a source of income this year. For a while I didn't realise that there were rules, laws and Byelaws that govern the work of the street performer. During my first couple of weeks I simply went out, set up and played. Most of those sessions went off without a hitch. I only discovered that rules existed after receiving two "yellow cards". The rules can be complicated and they vary a lot between towns. On a nearby Borough Council website there are rules that specifically mention the main town, but there are two other towns in the Borough and they don't get a mention. What the Borough Council has left out of the website information is that each town council has its own set of rules and byelaws. I've been stopped from busking in the other two towns. In one, busking is limited to market days, a Friday and a Saturday, permission must be sought and granted for each performance and a copy of one's Public Liability Insurance must be lodged with the town council. In the other, busking is prohibited in or near the Bandstand or along the seafront. The main town centre does not limit performance places, but maximum time in any one spot is limited to one hour. In another town outside this area I went to County Council, District Council and Town Council offices all within the same town and could not find anyone to give me any sensible or helpful information. I ended up setting up in a good spot in the pedestrianised town centre and talking to one of the "town centre wardens" who was actually most helpful and accommodating.

Thinking further afield some places require a prospective busker to fill in an application form in advance and agree that town's code for street performers. Some of these want a photograph and a registered name and address. Some want to see a YouTube video as part of the application process. Some require the performer to wear an official badge. Some require the performer to carry a copy of their PLI. All of this assumes that busking performances are planned sufficiently in advance of the proposed visit and take no account of health, weather or other personal challenges to going out on a specific day.  Some councils allow the sale of personal merchandise while others forbid it. Some only allow it with the purchase of a trading licence. Remembering whether performances are unlimited in time or limited to two-hours, one hour or half-an-hour and how long should be left before being able to return to a particular spot (sometimes an hour, sometimes not on the same day) can be confusing. Some towns specify and limit busking spots, some require a spot to be booked in advance while others say set up anywhere, but be prepared to move on if requested by a business owner. Some allow amplification while others don't. Most say that if amplification is being used it should not interfere with other activities. Some specify a minimum distance between different acts, some specify not to set up within earshot. Some say that once the hour or two-hours are up, a busker should be willing to surrender the spot to another waiting performer. Some claim to have devised their rules to avoid the danger of busker wars breaking out. That may be a possibility in a city housing a large and concentrated population, but I have never seen such a thing. Since setting out on this path most other buskers I have encountered have been very supportive and considerate of each other. The only problem I have encountered was with the "karaoke soprano", who probably wasn't aware of how loud she was.

Some towns make a point of selling themselves as welcoming of street performers. Some of these have a reasonable, laissez-faire attitude to performance expecting performers to manage amongst themselves according to some unwritten "Busker's Code". Many acknowledge that street performance contributes something important to the ambience of a town by adding colour and joy. Some places ban performance altogether and any attempt to flout such a rule is very heavily "policed" by private security companies. One often needs to be able to distinguish between municipal precincts or privately owned ones. The rules allowing performing in either kind of space are not always clear, although a private space is more likely to display a prohibition notice if they don't want buskers.

I suppose this chaos of rules and the insignificance with which most people regard street performances mean there is less likelihood of national law becoming the norm and setting the precedent, so it will remain incredibly confusing, specially to the newcomer. There is, thankfully, no such thing as a "busker's licence" although there are private security firms that appear to think one is needed. Most of this confusion I am learning to negotiate ... mostly requiring a quick trawl through a council website. However, there is an attitude I find difficult to deal with and that is where the rules are there simply because someone thought they were a good idea for "keeping the peace" whatever that may mean.

As noted in previous essays I have been prevented from working for eighteen months. All my work was cancelled with the first lockdown. Fortunately I live frugally and decided not to avail myself of any of the funding available to others while I had some savings that would keep me going. However, busking is not a high-reward activity. I count it a win if I earn back what it costs me to park the van, but I rarely reach the hourly 'living wage'. The best I have managed was a late in the day decision to drive to a town fifty minutes away and play for seventy-five minutes one Monday. I took £35.32 but that included giving a CD to someone who gave me a very generous tip. The parking fee was £2.00. That is very much the exception and I would say I usually expect to manage about £5.00 an hour. Among the poorest examples over the past months are:

• one day of busking (required to move on every thirty minutes with no return to the same spot that day) - no cd sales allowed, earnings from tips £15.35, parking fees £10.00;
• half day of busking - tips £6.33, parking £5.00
• half day of busking - tips £0.00, parking £4.00
• on the day of my medical emergency I played for about an hour and earned £6.02 in tips, with parking at £6.00

Some people, thankfully not a noticeable majority, equate busking with begging. Clearly I am going to disagree with this point of view. I have worked hard to develop my playing skills over several decades and a song can take me weeks or months to write, compose, learn and rehearse. I earn nothing from creating my music until I am able to perform it or sell a recording. I have yet to recover my costs of recording from sales. It could happen at some point in the future, I suppose, but it hasn't happened yet. I do not consider sharing my music, the fruits of my labour, in the street to be begging. I am offering my skills to people who choose whether or not they like it enough to offer me a tip. I understand why a local council might choose to regulate the sales of merchandise. However, buying a trading licence at many times the cost of a cd, when a single sale during a day's busking is definitely not a given, is throwing away my hard-earned cash. By selling my own CDs I am unlikely to be depriving a trader of their sales. My recordings are not available through traditional distribution networks so they never reach the shops. Of course, these days, the majority of smaller towns don't even have what we grew up calling a "record shop". The banning of CD merchandise is often simply a mean-spirited response from a local council that likes to generate rules. To put this in context, in my first twenty-five days of busking I sold four CDs. With sales like that, I am unlikely to put anyone out of business apart from myself!

I am a self employed sole-trader, who keeps good records of income and expenditure. I am scrupulous in declaring my income and pay all my taxes. I don't like dealing with forms and record keeping so I employ an accountant to deal with making sure my records are in order each year. I do, however, find I resent greatly having to go cap in hand to a local authority begging for a spot to perform, a place to carry out my work. I resent even more that they can decide on which days I am allowed to work when, for example one council only gives permission to busk on a Friday or a Saturday. How is one expected to earn during the rest of the week? I suppose there's always the dole or universal credit ... oh wait 😠

I feel another campaign coming on.

Of Further Busking Adventures - Part 6 (Norwich - The Karaoke Soprano, A Distraught Child and an Unforeseen Problem)

 I am aware that it has been a couple of months since I wrote anything here. I do actually have a couple of essays in progress, but I am afraid I was very rudely interrupted by a most unexpected event. Remind me to tell you about Downham Market and about the abandoned North Coast Tour!

It was actually the abandoned tour that led me to Norwich on 11th August. The Norwich City Council website present the city as a welcoming place for street performers. That, at least, is enlightened. Despite the fact that Norwich is such a fine city and that I have spent many pleasurable hours there over the past thirty-five years of living in the region I have never examined it from a busker's point of view. There are rules, but they are basically the same as the so-called "Busker's Code" and amounted to do not set up within earshot of another performer, move if asked to do so by a shop-keeper, be prepared to give way to another performer if you been in one spot for a couple of hours. That all sounds very reasonable to me. I wanted to give Norwich a try since it was a) apparently so welcoming, b) our largest local city c) well recommended by other street-performer friends. As with all popular town and city centres though, parking was expensive. 

I parked in one of the city centre multi-story car parks and wheeled my kit towards the market. I didn't know whether I was going to set up somewhere close to the Market or head back up the hill into the main shopping area. I decided to stay near the Market, because there were other performers visible among the shops. I found my spot, set up and began to play.

Contrary to a popular notion of the degree to which the citizens of Norwich appreciate live music, I was on my third song before anyone dropped anything in the hat. There were plenty of people walking by, but walking by was all they did. I was wondering whether Norwich folk are so used to live street performance that they had become more discerning. Maybe I did not come up to scratch? One woman came by and observed helpfully, "You're losing the competition!" Clearly I was although I had failed to register I was in one. Just after I had started to play The Karaoke Soprano had rocked up, plugged in and proceeded to warble her way very beautifully through songs from the shows and some of the usual popular classics. Unfortunately for me and probably any other aspiring street musicians, her volume was set to destroy and I imagined her songs being heard on the wind as it blew through Cromer. I wondered why I was always so careful not to interfere with anyone else's performance. Well, I'd set up and I wasn't earning much so I would see out my three hours of parking (any longer and the rate increased significantly from its already stratospheric £6) and be on my way. 

A family with a very distressed child were trying to sort their problem nearby. Any contribution from me to the city centre audioscape was pointless so I abandoned the song I was singing and launched into my perennial child-pleaser, "Twinkle Twinkle". It pains me that, among the incredible wealth of English language nursery songs, "Twinkle Twinkle Little Star" is by far the most well-known and often the only song a young child appears to know. However, I noticed that when small children are around they do pay attention to this song they recognise. The screaming child did not disappoint and once his attention was drawn to the song by his father he forgot to arch his back and scream as his pushchair protest began to subside. I've seen this happen often and the effect is generally quite magical. Both parents gave me a big smile and the father mouthed a very relieved "Thank you" at me. They made a generous contribution which certainly made my hat look better and they even stayed to listen to most of one more song. I carried on with my set, never becoming any kind of threat to to The Karaoke Soprano. I have to give credit where due, she did have a lovely voice and would doubtless do very well on one of those Saturday evening talent shows on the television. She still wasn't playing fair though!

A man approached. He listened to the end of a song and we struck up a conversation. He was clearly well-informed on matters musical. At some point he asked, "Do you recognise this t-shirt print?" I mentioned that it looked like a Don Van Vliet and he smiled his approval. "It was the picture on the sleeve of "Bat Chain Puller" he said. I didn't feel it necessary to correct him that it was actually Shiny Beast - Bat Chain Puller, although the two are quite different albums by Captain Beefheart and the Magic Band. So, after checking whether I knew some of his favourite singer/songwriters he decided I probably met his standards of knowledge. He asked where I was from and we began to talk about the Fens. I asked whether he wanted to hear "Every Foot Of Progress", my song featuring some Fen history. He sat on a nearby window ledge to listen and I started the song. The instrumental intro and the first couple of verses went to plan, but as I launched into the third verse, the aforementioned very unexpected event occurred. The fingers on my left hand stopped obeying my demands and refused to settle into the correct chord shapes. My right hand kept playing and even my feet kept the drum part going, but I could not play the chords. I remember the effort of will it was taking to stretch my fourth finger into its place to play a simple chord of G major. The other fingers had their own ideas about where they were going to land on the fretboard. I was playing utter nonsense. I also lost all the words to verse three, so I thought, okay, time for a harmonica break. Unfortunately I could not find the right notes on the harmonica either and in the end I had to admit defeat and stopped the song. I apologised to the man and explained what had happened. He thought I'd just forgotten the song. I sat there feeling very sorry for myself as he wandered off into the city crowd. After about five minutes I was able to carry on and played something I knew better without further incident. I packed up and loaded my trolley to head past The Karaoke Soprano, who turned out to be a much younger woman than I had imagined, but who was clearly on a roll, albeit still very loud. She was backed against a wall by a semi-circle of adoring members of the public who whistled, cheered and applauded at the end of a song. I got back to the van and paid for my parking. Thanks mainly to the parents of the distraught child and the Captain Beefheart fan I had enough to pay for the car park leaving two whole pennies for myself.

I wish the Karaoke Soprano well. My set had come to a stop with my first experience of what I was to discover several hours later in hospital and after a CT scan, was a Transient Ischaemic Attack (TIA) or mini-stroke. Great!

Of Harlequins And Unexpected Pleasures

Having had a couple of very washed out days recently in Cambridge and Wisbech I set off for the secret location of Norfolk's Harlequin Fayre, a small festival in one of my favourite places near to a village where I once lived.

My motives for going were threefold:

• I usually enjoy this small, 80% solar-powered, festival
• I'd gone to see some friends perform
• I wanted to see if I could blag a set on an open mic stage

It was also very handy that my band of friends had a spare comp going. I was perfectly happy to lug a bit of equipment around in an attempt to earn the ticket. As it happened, I was able to do a little more than that and was offered an hour-long spot on the "Scrap Racketeers" stage. When not watching my friends play I spent a lot of time in the car park by the van working out and rehearsing a suitable set for the Sunday. That was actually a very enjoyable experience too. Many people fetching things from vehicles were distracted by my noise and came over to see what I was doing. There were lots of compliments and promises to come and see me when I was due to play the next day.

The next day the weather was very mixed. It ranged from hot sunshine to pouring rain. Of course the rain poured down during my set, causing many punters to take refuge in the Scrap Racketeer tent. The majority of these were there for the music, but a small and significantly noisy contingent thought that they could carry on their social life a few distracting feet away. The rain drummed its own rhythms on the roof of the tent and it really didn't help that there were also some problems getting the sound right in the monitors. Not being able to hear myself is one of the reasons I don't much care for amplified gigs. While I'm very happy for the front of house sound to be good, I do need decent foldback, specially in a noisy environment! I know my voice reasonably well enough to "feel" whether or not I am singing in tune and playing footdrums is generally self-explanatory. Some of my guitar chords are a little exotic and, while I do need to know that I'm playing all the required notes, that's usually okay. However, playing harmonica is a different proposition entirely. I could be playing completely wrong notes and not know it if I cannot hear myself. However, given the circumstances I was reasonably pleased with what I produced. There are always a lot of friends in the audience of this event. Some of them had only ever known me in other music or dancing contexts and were surprised and very complimentary to hear me doing something so different. That was extremely gratifying and I thank them for their generosity and kind comments. AJ took some photographs and several people bought CDs. One of a group of young men I'd met in my car park rehearsals actually turned up with his mates and bought four albums! That really was a win of knock out proportions.

Marshlander by Adrian Barber