Diary of a Music Man: A Video Blog

The following entries chronicle my experiences as a busker (street performer) and singer-songwriter in Los Angeles. When I am being the singer-songwriter (my new CD is available here), I perform my own material in clubs, songwriter showcases, etc., and when I busk, I play oldies and classic rock mostly.

FIRST ENTRY: One of my first nights busking (playing in public—usually outdoors—for tips). I had been thinking for a while (years, actually) that I would like to busk. There were many reasons for this desire: 1) It beats sitting at home practicing, 2) It's real-life experience playing a wide range of songs in front of all kinds of people: old, young, really young, homeless, affluent, parents, teenagers, rowdies, couples, singles, families, you name it, 3) You can make money, 4) You can take risks and expand your guitar playing and singing because even if you mess up, it's no big deal since the crowd is in motion for the most part, on their way to their movie or their restaurant, as opposed to sitting inside a club, fixed on the performer and 5) I had always admired people I had seen who had the courage go out and do it.

Of course, it seemed easier to not do it. I think we have ways of "forgetting" about doing the things we want to do that are risky, where we could "fail" (the reason I put that in quotation marks is that I don't believe we ever fail, as long as we keep going toward the goal). The first night I went out to busk, I had my guitar on my back, my amp in my hand and a music stand and microphone stand under my arm—heavy load! I hadn't played a note of music and I was already covered in sweat—on a spring evening! I arrived just across the street from where I intended to play and I nearly "forgot" why I was there. Suddenly ANYTHING ELSE IN THE WORLD seemed far more important. I just had to "grab the remote" away from whatever internal force was trying to get me to turn back, hit the bypass switch and just make my body go across the street, set up and start playing, which I did. This video is from a few weeks later, when I first started video'ing, on my brother Pete's recommendation (thanks, Bro).

SECOND ENTRY: Tonight, I lost my concentration on the music, deciding instead to fixate on unfamiliar equipment (different guitar than I am used to) and strange atmospheric conditions (hecklers, competing performers, bad lighting). Concentration on these factors, rather than on the music, coalesced into "not one of my better nights." Sure, I still made okay money but artistically, communication-wise and performance-wise, it was just scattered. Tonight was one of the few times I used a rhythm machine (on songs like The Cars' "Let's Go," Cheap Trick's "I Want You to Want Me" and The Plimsouls' "A Million Miles Away") but I really had not practiced enough with it so, I was more of a distraction than a rhythm aid. Afterward, momentarily shaken, I wondered if this busking thing is really for me. After a while, I realized that the evening's apparent failings were but a minor bump in a long road ahead and I then went from being a deflated inner tube to being a new steel-belted radial. The long-gone night and the strange conditions became but an egg-sized pothole shrunken to nothing in the rear-view. ("Did you feel something?") I continue rolling along.

THIRD ENTRY: No matter what anyone tells you, you are writing the book. "But I'm not a writer," you say. Maybe not with a pen & paper or typewriter or laptop computer but you are nonetheless the writer. The story is you.

Mysterious, eh? Not entirely. If you took any situation you are in or problem you feel you have and you were to look back, you would find a point at which you decided to have it. At this point, you are probably wondering what I am getting at. Here it is: be careful what you conclude, what you decide. You will end up living with it. This evening, I ran into problems trying to find a place to set up and play. There was a time when I would have jumped to all sorts of conclusions, along the lines of, "I can't find a place to play" or "I need something stable" or "I am just a loser." You think these are perhaps idle utterances, but they actually do have an effect, usually because one is not even aware he is making these decisions but they are effective just the same. I remember having a car with air conditioning and breaking the air conditioner while messing around under the hood. At some point I concluded that "I can't have air conditioning." And wouldn't you know it? I have never had a car since that had air conditioning or in which the A/C didn't break early on. I know. Seems mystical. It isn't. Watch the video (and don't jump to negative conclusions).

MORE "DIARY OF A MUSIC MAN" HERE