Diary Of A Busker Day 106 Sunday May 29th Winchester High Street (opposite Vodafone, Time: 2:10-6:15pm.)
I haven’t been been playing long when so-called “Dangerous” Dave turns up, more or less demanding I play The Third Man. He’ll even pay me, but he’ll have to wait as I’m in the middle of a group of songs with a different tuning. “D’you mind if I sit down?” (it’s a rhetorical question) he says, throwing a rolled up sleeping bag down next to me. If you must. Soon two of his friends join him and they all start talking loudly, which annoys me. I tune up and play his request, he does some weird dance in the street for a few minutes. I finish and he says he’ll pay me a pound tomorrow then they all drift off.
I’m here for four hours playing non-stop. I stand up to stretch for a minute or so a few times but apart from that, it’s all playing. I’ve got a new camping stool which is holding up well, it’s about a half inch higher than the old one, which suits me better.
One of the CPSOs (Community Police Support Officer) – tall with glasses and a beard stops by, “Are you Frank – with the accordion?” Since when does a guitar look like an accordion, and hasn’t he seen my picture in the Chronicle* – with my name under it? Marvin B Naylor, not Frank Williams. I tell him Frank’s gone home, I saw him an hour ago, leaving. “Right, well it’s about the vet bill. The woman who’s dog attacked his (Frank’s dog, Kazoo) says she will pay the bill but she doesn’t want to give her details to him as he got quite aggresive, understandably – after the attack, but she’s given us her details so just tell him to contact one of us when you see him.” “Yeah, OK.” Then some guy who looks homeless – I see him everyday out here, comes up and puts a few coins in the bucket. He doesn’t usually do this, maybe he thinks the “cop’s” hassling me and this is sympathy money, like what happened on the Hungerford Bridge the other day. When this guy walks off, the CPSO says “Well, I’m going to have to confiscate that (the money).” Then, after a second, “Just joking! But I’m sure that guy’s on benefits, though.” Maybe, but he just gave some of it to me. You got a problem with that, copper?!
A tall, bald, well-spoken man comes up during Somewhere Over The rainbow, “You cover a wide spectrum of music. I came by earlier and you were playing Bach, now it’s a song from The Wizard Of Oz.” “Yes”, I say, “It’s the new addition to my set. I’m playing it alot at the moment. I can work 90% of it at home but sooner or later I’ve got to start playing it out here, on the street.” “Oh yes, I know what you mean, I’m a professional musician.” I certainly have played it alot today, in fact, during the last 45 minutes, it’s all I’ve played, apart from 5 minutes when I played a couple of others. I can do this as all the shops are shut and there are no benches around – it’s all “foot” traffic, people just walking by, so no one’s around long enough to get fed up hearing the same song. I got into a bit of a trance with it, I kept going over with very slight alterations, mainly in some of the chord positions – not changing the melody or anything silly like that. The song’s proving popular, mainly with the older folks, of course, and it’s earned a sizable portion of the takings today, which have been very acceptable – £11 an hour, after a slow start. Again I notice that the lack of people around during the last hour hasn’t affected the amount of money in the bucket, in fact today, when there were a fifth of the people there were when it was busy, the takings were more, or maybe it was the song. I’ll give it the benefit of the doubt and name it Song Of The Day.
Earnings: £45.49p.
* Not many people coming up to chat this week, (although a few mention they’ve seen the article in the paper – a possible connection…)