April 24th - Day 6

I was very clear.

"Will there be songs?" I asked my daughter, Daisy, who is three, on the way to her Friday morning toddler session.

"Yes," she said, "I need a wee."

We'd been there half an hour, but despite there still being a full ninety minutes to go, I was already getting itchy. The couple of times I'd been to these kind of events before, I'd rather dreaded the musical interlude, but today I was on the edge of my seat at any movement by Yvonne the helper towards any cupboards that may contain any tamberines, marraccas and triangles. About an hour in, I again asked Daisy if they sang songs.

"I want a chocolate biscuit," she said.

With half an hour remaining and hope fading fast I pumped Daisy for answers one last time.

"Do they have songs?"

"Yes."

"At the end?"

"Yes. I want to go home."

But we stayed to the bitter end. As the last of the mess was swept away I thanked Yvonne - although I wanted to say "Why didn't you sing any bloody songs?" She said goodbye to me and Daisy, then added, "It's nice that Daisy stayed to the end this week, because she doesn't usually".

So penance for Daisy for stringing me a web of lies was to get the train to London and scour the South Bank for a musician. I had to buy some cheese in Borough Market first and then, Daisy on my shoulders, we wandered along the hot, busy walkway alongside the river, past The Golden Hind, The Clink, The Anchor Pub...The Globe.

We were approaching The Tate Modern and The Millenium Bridge, and I was beginning to wonder whether Boris Johnson had banned buskers, when I heard a steel pan and saw this guy half way up the Millenium Bridge ramp. We watched him until Daisy asked to walk across the bridge. She put some money in his case and we left.

An original intention of mine was to interact in some way (talking I believe it is called) with the buskers I come across on my journey. I'm yet to be that courageous, though my cause isn't helped by the fact that these musicians tend to be occupied with playing music when I encounter them. I'd like to find out more about this guy. Maybe he'll be there another day.

(He was. Lots of other days. He's called Gavin and has been busking around here since 1985)

2011 update - I've seen Gavin in his usual spot over the past two years though haven't passed that way for a few months so not sure if he's definitely still there

April 29th - Day 11

Blasts of music and crowd-calling voices rolled around the pillars of Covent Garden Market like fog around trees - seemingly within ones grasp, but always a little further away from where one actually is.

After a short period of being enticed by the misleading sounds of acrobats with loud backing music, crowd-pulling magicians and diabolo-sellers, I found an enthusiastic string (and flute) quintet performing in the basin courtyard outside the Crusting Pipe wine bar. Above them people watched, leaning over the railings that lined the four sides of yard.

I went down the staircase, sat on a stone step and for half an hour was entertained by the familiar music of Mozart, Strauss, Bach, Offenbach and Europe. There was witty banter and some nifty dance moves that dangerously bordered on the gymnastic - the second violinist was nearly a faller at the Can-Can.

They were called Lotus (or was it Locus?). It was fortunate for them that they put on a good show, because, according to their flautist and spokeswoman, they were in fact playing for their supper - "we will wither away" - and would be doing so again at four o'clock.

2015 update. Lotus (it's not Locus) according to their website still seem to have a connection with The Crusting Pipe and are also available for weddings and corporate events!

http://www.lotusclassics.co.uk

May 1st - Day 13

It's a race against time this morning. I've got from ten till eleven thirty to find live music somewhere in the West End...can't be hard surely...

10.25 Hungerford footbridge (downstream)

May 2nd - Day 14

My girlfriend, Claire, and I saw this guy performing underneath the arches of Southwark Bridge. He was being watched by a young woman, maybe his girlfriend, sitting against the opposite wall and smoking a cigarette. He sang 4 Non Blondes' "What's Up" and a distinctive punk-yodel version of Eddie Cochran's "C'mon Everybody" that had more in common with the Sid Vicious version.

He was the first of four buskers that we saw along the South Bank that evening. Add to that the fleeting experience of singer Georgia Mancio when we wandered into the foyer of the wrong theatre, and live music accompanying the play "Dido, Queen of Carthage" (about which I should one day write a few words) when we were sitting in the seats of the right theatre, and, erm...well... a lot of music was had.

May 15th - Day 27

An out-of-focus photo of Adi (don't know if I've spelt that right) mellowing walkers with guitar and song as they pass under Blackfriars Bridge. And the first busker I've been brave enough to talk to - thank you Adi! I got so excited at this breakthru that, after chatting, I forgot to stay and listen. As I waited for a bus on the bridge overhead, I stretched out an ear to hear him and wonder how to describe his music. Bluesy feels like a rather lazy and overly broad term...bluesy with a dash of Africa perhaps. And a generous slug of drill provided by the adjacent building works, the competing presence of which, Adi told me, didn't help make for a great pitch. The name of a South African band called Juluka popped into my head. Then the bus came. And I forgot to ask Adi whether he was singing his own songs.

May 16th - Day 28

This guy was doing good business in the modern walkway outside the Cutty Sark tube entrance. I added a couple of quid and my mysterious calling card to his pot, and took his photo as he stormed passionately through "Say Hello, Wave Goodbye". He nodded goodbye to me when I turned to leave and I wondered guiltily that, not yet having had a chance to closely inspect my card, he may have been under the impression that I could have a positive influence on the progress of his musical career, so I ran away before he discovered the truth.

May 20th - Day 32

This blue man was playing Spanish guitar near The London Eye. I asked him why he was blue. He said, "I'm playing for you blue music". And the woman in the red coat - is she singing along or talking to a video camera?

Serene accordian from Italia under Westminster Bridge

May 28th - Day 40

Two drummers, accordianist and trumpeteer busking under Hungerford Bridge. (I'm moving house at the moment and throughout next week, so blogs may be quite brief during this time - though they, and other unfinished ones, will be updated eventually. Frankly, if I successfully make it through to Day 50 on June 7th, the next 315 days will be a breeze).

June 5th - Day 48

I found a string duet under Southwark Bridge. They were playing Bach (I know this because there was a Bach music sheet on their music stand). They told me that the damp weather was effecting the strings and making it quite hard to play.

June 13th - Day 56

A quartet of ragtime-gypsy swing jazzmen (and fans) near the foot of Hungerford Bridge

June 16th - Day 59

Santana-esque guitarist in front of The Thames and St Paul's Cathedral...and another quartet of gypsy swing jazzmen...or is it the same quartet, but with different faces on their heads...?

July 10th - Day 83

My original intention was to catch the street piano at The Tate Modern, only there isn't a street piano at The Tate Modern - it's at The Tate Britain. So it was back through the walkways under the South Bank bridges for me. I found accordian and drum under Blackfriars Bridge. I haven't seen these two as accordian and drummer before, but I have the feeling that I may have seen them in another guise, perhaps playing something else with a couple of others. There seem to be a posse of these ragtime gypsy-swing jazzmen playing in some form or other under at least one bridge at any given time. And they're all bloody good. I must get to the bottom of this. The photo shows today's duo being cheered and "arriba-ed!" by schoolchildren. Well, the children cheered - their teacher led the "arribas!"

July 14th - Day 87

I was on my way to a Blues Jam night at The Spice of Life in Soho when, crossing Charing Cross Road, I heard this singer-guitarist performing gentle reggae outside The National Gallery in Trafalgar Square. Think more UB40 than Bob Marley. I decided to save the Blues Jam for another Tuesday.

The busker is called Derrick Charles - thank you very much Clare for your comment...

July 17th - Day 90

Gio - my first underground busker - who was great, and who gave me the honour of helping him with his sound check. More to come

August 10th - Day 114

I'm not sure what this guy made of Daisy and me. Due to circumstances beyond our control I had a fifteen minute round-trip window to find music along a half mile stretch of the South Bank. I tore along the path with Daisy in my arms as if we'd just escaped from somewhere. The merry-go-rounds on the other side of Hungerford Bridge were in my sight, but not yet in Daisy's, as we came to the point where I was going to have to turn around very soon. Then I spotted this accordian player at the top of the stairs that turn right onto the footbridge over the river. "Look! An accordian player!" I said to Daisy as twenty colourful wooden horses whirled and bobbed fifty yards further on. "Oh yeah," she said. And we strode to the top of the steps, gave the man some money, took a photo and stood next to him for three minutes. Then we went back the way we had come with as much urgency as with which we had arrived.

August 12th - Day 116

Another day in the school holidays and another dash along the South Bank, although this time on my own. And another encounter with Djangology. What is it about 1930's Paris and live music in London at the moment?
This early evening the rain detered buskers and the only one I found on the stretch between The Royal Festival Hall and the London Eye was "reggae busker" Derrick from Day 87. The music in The National Theatre Foyer Bar (the Djanogly Concert Pitch - do they mean Djangology?) was finished and with twenty minutes to go before I had to get a train I was torn between going back and beyond the Eye, or continuing towards London Bridge and taking the chance that I would find someone who was not a member of the Gypsy-Ragtime-Jazz posse under Blackfriars Bridge. I decided to head the latter way and I am so glad I did. I'd barely gone a hundred yards when I came across these musicians just before Gabriels Wharf. More Hot Jazz, but not from the posse. They are Cyclown Circus (it's great that buskers have cards and flyers to hand out, but it does strengthen a feeling that I should find out more about the ones who don't). But they're not Cyclown Circus. They are three members of Cyclown Circus, three of 150 that have travelled with them (as them?) on oversized bicycles over the past seven years, blowing hot jazz through 43 countries thus far. Judging from the photos on their great myspace site the three I saw today appear to be core members. I'd never heard of Cyclown Circus, but I feel privileged and strangely excited to have come across them.

myspace.com/cyclowns

August 13th - Day 117

This shockingly blurry photo is of Chris the Bagpiper, piping the evening rush hour many metres underneath Victoria Station. I was on my way to see "funk-influenced blues band" Bluesmix at The Ain't Nothin But Blues Bar, due on at six according to The Guide, but due on at 9.45 according to the man behind the bar and I guess he knew best. So I'm glad I stopped to listen to Chris.

August 17th - Day 121

This man was playing "Yesterday" on a mouth organ and gliding through the West End crowd like a ghost. I slowed down and walked alongside him. I accompanied his slow-waltz towards Leicester Square and became vaguely oblivious of the fast-moving swell around us. And I thought I was oblivious to him, although at one point I sensed him wheel slightly away from me when I got too close. He finished his piece with a deliberate flourish and I spoke to him about the song. He smiled and said, "She's gone again. She's gone again". He sounded American. "See you later, right", he said and floated back the way he'd come. I should have stayed to see if he did the same again.

August 18th - Day 122

                                                                                                         Seven o'clock in the evening. Here's Courtney jamming with his sax on Hungerford footbridge, earning the fourteen pounds he needed to attend a rehearsal/audition in Camden. He'd had a look at some pdfs of music he'd been sent, but didn't know much about it apart from that.                  

August 26th - Day 130

Another trip along the South Bank shoe-horned into the school holiday day. I've allowed myself until the end of the school holidays to continue snatching buskers along this well trodden path when necessary, but thereafter I intend to be more pro-active in encountering less accessible and less obvious live music - to be bold and step out of me comfort zone a bit.