Spring Fall Backwards and Forwards

After a year into this journey now, I am starting to realise more and more about myself.  It dawned on me the other day, that these songs I sing.  I don't just wanna sing them, I want to live and feel them.  Simply playing the songs is not enough, I have to feel like I am living them.  I have to attach my own experiences into these songs.  I wondered why that 'Like A Rolling Stone' gets so many drops, and I realised it's because when I sing that chorus, I really mean it!

It was mid-January, I was busking at Max Euwplein and I was shivering as I was playing.  It was snow and ice all around and I had made like ten euroes after nearly an hour.  This Asian guy stopped and just listened for ages, he was taking lots of pictures and I just remember this moment, that on the last verse of 'Like A Rolling Stone' I was really singing it with scorn "Look at all the princess, all the pretty people, all dancing drinking on the steeple, thinking they have got it made" There was just this moment of connection between the song, the environment, and the people walking by.

I played 'Girl From The North Country' and then I was just too cold to go on, the Asian guy said, can I buy you something to eat?  I said sure!  I was starving.  He kept asking about the songs, and saying how I was really giving something special into them.  We went to this Japanese restaurant and I ordered some hot soup, Chicken and some beer, he ordered the same, but didn't eat or drink any of it, so I ate his soup and drank his beer.  He seemed fascinated by me, was taking lots of pictures, even as I ate.  I bid farewell to him, and headed home with about 15 euroes and a full belly.

Busking is full of experiences like this, you never know what is gonna happen.  Sometimes you can head out expecting to make nothing, sometimes you can expect lots and make nothing.  Sometimes you meet people who become part of your life, and sometimes you just make people stop and listen for ages, sometimes noone gives a shit if your singing your heart out at all and just passes by.  I have never felt kicks from anything like I have from busking.  It is an exciting way to live your life.  It is hard, and when you make nothing, it makes it harder.  But the only certain thing about busking, is the uncertainty.

I used to get so much satisfaction from recording and producing music, locking myself in my home made studio, oblivious to the weather outside, or the the world.  I was addicted to it!  I became quite good at it to.  But you know what?   After I left England for the first time in 2011, and spent 4 months busking around France and then working the Magneet festival and falling in love with Amsterdam..  I came back a different person.  I HATED recording music once I returned.  It just didn't satisfy me at all in the same way, I found it a chore, that I kind of told myself I should be enjoying, but the sad fact was, I didn't anymore.

After that reggae album experience, it was the final nail in the coffin.  I had wasted my time to come and sit through all these great musicians, but all with very different egos and ideas.  I just thought fuck this.  Anyway, by the end of it.  I had this Mac Book air, which is the lightest and most powerful laptop ever.  It felt strange having this thing, as it was a very covetous item.  Some people were a bit jelous that I just got this computer.  I felt wow, I really have the most powerful tools on this earth to record music.  But the sad thing was, I didn't want to use them!  I hated it, I felt myself getting sucked in to being one of those people that just spend all their time sucked into their phone or laptop.  I felt it took me away from the world I set out to discover.  So, I gave it away.  To someone who really would use it good, and appreciate it.  It was the lightest laptop in the world, but the heaviest burden I have ever had to carry and deal with.  I just thought, would you have seen Woody Guthrie carrying a grands worth of computer as he set out on his travels.  Nah, it just didn't fit the life that I had chose.  And it boils down to which hat do I want to wear.  A humble street musician with just a guitar on his back, or one of these macbook casualtys whose eyes have melted cos it's the only world they see.

Once I got rid of it, I felt this massive burden lift from me!  I felt free and honest again.  Just after the reggae album shambles, I was busking at Waterlooplein, when I seen Dominik, He had just been given a busking permit, to play electric with his PA and Loop station.  I was so happy for him! All through that experience, I had felt Dominik was an ally, on my side.  And when the cancer man was poisoning everyone against me, he stood up for me.  I said I would join him for a set at Rembrandt in an hour or so.  After a Turkish Pizza I set out to meet him, and we played a set together in a light drizzle at Rembrandtplein.  He is a virtuoso trumpet player and even though it was the first time we had ever played together, we clicked great!  We played for 40 minutes and made 80 Euroes!  Some guy gace us 50 euroes, as he just loved it!  It was a good sign.  We were armed with a permit, a PA and the arriving Spring of Amsterdam.  What happned over the next few weeks, again gave me a valuable lesson and understanding about myself, and about how Amsterdam is even more alive than I first felt........

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