Most days are similar, but no two days are ever exactly the same. Today I was playing in that newly-formed duo I told you about. We were kicking up a storm outside of the Target department store. Halfway through our set we were interrupted by a 30-something male with a strange request. He wanted us to play She Loves You by The Beatles when he passes by with his girlfriend in five minutes time, but the words have to be changed to He Loves You.  He handed us both a crisp $20.00 note for this request. He had a broad Glasgow accent and  I assumed that he's on holiday. He walked off.  Steve and I looked at each other like Christmas has come early.

Fast forward 5 minutes and I can see him arm in arm with his girl. He stops opposite us now and drops down on one knee, which is our cue to launch into He Loves You, yeah yeah yeah. From out of his coat pocket he pulls out a small ring case and props the lid and ask his girl if she will marry him. We have changed, at his request, the last line of the chorus to ... and with a ring like that you know he can't be bad. There is a small round of applause from the passing shoppers and the happy couple walk off down Hay Street Mall. Poor Steve is a bundle of nerves and maybe a little overcome with emotion.

I wish them all the happiness. It's a nice story for their kids and grandkids I guess. But to any other would-be couple out there please give us 24 hours notice so we don't have to make up the chord progressions. Yeah yeah yeah, yeah yeah yeah.

I formed a busking duo a couple of months back. As yet we have no name but share a mutual love of old 60's and 70's songs and the music of the great Hank Williams Snr. We get together and belt out three and four chord classics when we get tired of solo. It's a blast and people can see we are enjoying ourselves even if we are not always on song. For any budding musos out there I recommend get out of your bedrooms and get jamming with others.

I managed to do a couple of sets this morning before hitching up with Steve for a couple more over the lunch hour. We decided to try out a few songs that we'd not played together (not always a good idea when you are busking) when out of Davis Jones Department Store steps TV weatherman Jeff Newman. I can't recall the song we were playing but I know that we weren't sounding too crash hot. The ever debonair Newman looks down into my guitar case and at the twenty plus dollars in gold and silver coins and carries on up Hay Street Mall.

So there you have it folks: if Jeff ever decides to give up weather predicting he may have seen, in our dynamic but not so harmonic duo, a future source of income. I mean, if we can make $20.00 sounding so poor there is hope for budding musicians everywhere.

Finally if seeing television's most sartorial weather forecaster wasn't enough I was also spotted playing by my niece Shauni and two of her friends shopping for boyfriends in the City. They were kind enough to throw in quite a few coins to lift my sagging spirits somewhat.

So you can see readers, in the busking game you can rub shoulders with all the top celebs of Perth and Jeff Newman too!

I was saddened to learn of the death of Frank Bropho. Frank was Perth's most prominent busker and one hell of a character. He liked to be known as the Black Elvis. We shared a similar taste in music and I spoke to him only a couple of months ago. I remember him taping a whole set of my music a couple of years back on his walkman and then he came up to me the next week and said that I was the City's best busker. He would regularly busk in my old stomping ground of Thornlie. A more likable fellow you will not meet. A meassage at his funeral was from none other than Rolf Harris!

It's been a glorious winter's day and I took the opportunity to play a couple of busking sets in Perth City.

On the bus home I noticed a girl in a pair of shorts and a bikini top with two friends frolicking about on the foreshore of the Swan River. It's mid July in the southern hemisphere and apparantly it's supposed to be the coldest time of year (I blame Al Gore and that film of his).

On top of the mild weather it is mid-term and all the school kids are off.  You don't have to have a PhD in busking to know that it is the perfect time for street performers. In the 10 days of mid-term, I've managed to busk 7 times. Make hay while the sun shines as that old saying goes.

The sun, of course, is not always shining and as someone who plays music on the streets throughout the year, I can attest to this fact. I've played in rain, hail, sleet, high winds (I once heard that Perth is the second windiest city in the world) and in 40°C+ during the summer. You may call me foolhardy if you wish, I probably won't disagree.

The one observation I've made is that no matter the weather, you still end up with roughly the same amount in your guitar case. Take a rainy day, for example. The first thing that happens is all pedestrians are forced onto the pavement. This creates a steady stream of people past your playing. It only takes one out of every 50 people walking past to think "Oh, that busker must be so brave/desperate/keen" or whatever and you have yourself a coin. The flip side of that coin is that no one is sitting around on the street furniture listening to you because it's to damn wet. So you miss out there. You tend to get more sympathy coins during extremes of weather. I'm not a big fan of this type of donation because for me it's always about the music. I would rather someone put a coin in my case because they like my voice or my choice in music, but am aware that I can never know the reason for every coin thrown my way.

If my reason for busking was solely for the money, then there are any number of tricks I've seen other buskers use to get rich quick. It's very obvious when this type of busker sings: there's no joy in their performance. It's a money-making exercise. No more, no less. If singing doesn't work to make them money, then it's time to resort to lies, begging and tears by the bucket load.

But enough of that kind of talk because the sun is still shining and I need to dig that old bikini top of mine out of moth balls.

I should start this blog with a word of advice: busking in affluent areas is not always a good idea. People in well-to-do places are wealthy because they don't fritter their money away lightly.

That said, I set out for a pleasant days busking in the Desperate Housewive's capital of the West Midlands. This is a place where botox is added to the water. I may be a little low-brow for this crowd.

I find a spot under an archway just off the main shopping mall. I remember a busker playing this spot ten years ago when I was resident here. That was long before I picked up a guitar, I should add. The acoustics are real nice so my hopes are quite high.

As I start playing  I notice the shoppers are reluctant to make eye contact with me. I am after their money and I think that they know that I know that I'm wanting it. Coins are very slow in coming but when they do come they tend to be the higher denomination ones. Some people on the benches mall are listening to my music. It is a dry, mild summers day and a nice day for a bit of street entertainment, but unfortunately there are not many shoppers about. I was here the previous weekend to check whether it was a good place to busk but there were many more people about that day so maybe a Tuesday is not a good choice. The people on the benches get up leave - some walk over and throw some money in my case but most don't.

I play on regardless, mixing my repetoire up as I near the end of my first 45 minutes. The slow songs seem to go down better in Solihull. I'm sure if I knew some Celine Dion I would be a hit here. Some local lads keep walking by and one of them does a mad little jig to any uptempo tune I'm playing. He's not on drugs but acts as though he is. Crack Hos are in short supply here let me tell you.

At the end of my first set there are not many coins in my case but I do spot at least 5 gold coins so all is not lost. I move to my next spot for another go.

My next pitch I choose is beween a Boots Chemist and a WH Smith. There are a number of seats from a coffee house nearby so hopefully I should do okay here.

Six songs into my set and my hopes are scattering into the wind like badly applied foundation makeup in a north sea storm. One person from the seats outside the coffee house walks over and thows in a two pound coin. He comments that I should have an applifier so I can be heard better. I explain that I'm only on holiday and that I do normally use one, and he walks back to his seat.

Three kids keep walking by and I attempt to make them laugh with the song that I'm playing. As a busker it is very easy, once you've been at it for a while, to make people laugh. There is a line in old old Fleetwood Mac song about making you smile and whenever I play this song I always try to make eye contact with someone walking by. Ninety nine times out of a hundred you can get a smile with that one line.

Smiles today however are in short supply. The three kids come back for the third time and take my picture with their moble phone and kindly give me some money. This perks me up a bit and I head into my next number. As they shoot off I wonder how many mobile phones, holiday snaps or videos that I must appear in around the world. It's got to be in the thousands.

The rest of my two hours busking passes without incident. If there were any funny or unusual happenings I'm afraid they didn't leave much of an impression on me. Much like the impression my day of busking had on the gentry of Solihull, West Midlands. Too-rah my good man.

I play the guitar and sing for a living. It beats breaking chickens' necks for a wage (which I did for a very short time) but it is a job like any other and as such has it stresses and requires a degree of professionalism to succeed.

I set myself certain rules which I will outline for you now:

Rule One: Stand up when you are singing or supply a chair to sit on. In my opinion sitting down on the sidewalk or slumped in a doorway looks bad and is to be avoided.

Rule Two: Look tidy or have an image to separate yourself from the person on the street. If you look on YouTube you will see many buskers and the ones that catch my eye are the ones with a distinctive image. You're there to be noticed and use any trick in the book to be noticed.

Rule Three: Never look like you are begging because busking and begging are not the same. I went through a stressful month when I first gave up my part-time job to become a busker. I needed to make a certain amount of money each set and have a daily total if I was to pay my household bills. If I didn't make that amount then I put pressure on myself to make it up the next day. Very much like a gambler chasing his debt the expectations I put on busking were unreasonable. If I had a couple of bad sets I could feel the blood rise to my face and my  performance was forced.

I recall a young girl walking past me at the beginning of my set some months ago. She looked down and there was on only a couple of small  coins in my case. About fifteen minutes later she walked passed again and there was the same number of coins. It was late in the day and I was doing one final set to make up for the bad day I had. As she walked walked pass she placed a twenty dollar note into my case. This turned a below average day into quite a good day. The money was appreciated and I kept playing for another fifteen minutes but the money didn't exactly keep flooding into my case. At the end of the day I was exhausted but not physically exhausted but the emotionally drained beacuse of the pressure I put on myself. If you make optaining money as the focus of day then your performance will suffer because of it. The public may not be able to see fear but they can sure sense it.

Rule Four: If you wish to entertain others you must first look like you are enjoying youself. You become more aproachable if are doing more than just singing. Don't be too concerned with the money in your case. It's sometimes better to have your guitar case in front of you and concentrate on your performance and hopefully everything else will take care of itself.

Rule Five: Don't think that anyone owes you a thing when you are busking. I know many buskers and I'm amazed when they tell me they sometimes confront people who sit and listen to their busking and walk away without dropping any money into their case. I have played for an hour some days without making enough for a cup of coffee and other days I've made my target amount in an hour set and then gone home.

Busking is a lottery; you can play poorly for an hour and get a constant flow of coins or another day be at the top of your game and be ignored. If you happen to be playing the right song at the right time when someone is passing you may be in luck. However, to confront someone for not giving is out of order in my opinion.

Six months ago a middle aged women would spend half an hour a couple of days a week listening to my music in her lunch break. This went on for a two months and not once did she put a coin in my case. I would get irritated anytime I would look up see her eating her lunch and enjoying my music. Sometimes I would end a set early just so she wouldn't get another 'free show'. Other times I was aware that she must have heard my set so many times that I would add an extra song or two into my repertoire just so she wouldn't get bored. But mostly her presence annoyed me. One day at the end of a not too successful set she walked over and placed $5.00 into my case, smiled and walked away. So just remember this story next time you think of abusing someone who walks without paying

More random notes to be added when I feel inspired enough to blog.

I'm over in the UK right now on a family and friends holiday. I've brought my guitar with me with a view to doing a little busking.

I had an audition last Tuesday for a licence to perform in Birmingham. My spot was at the bottom of the ramp leading to New Street Station. Unlike many cities, Birmingham has a series of "Busk Stops" and you are alocated a spot for the day. I would not have chosen this spot for two reasons: no seating nearby and people moving too quickly on their way to the railway station. My time to play was 1:45.  I don't normally like playing after 2pm but as I was only going to play for 40 or so minutes, I'd have been happy if I made enough for lunch.

As an avid Birmingham City supporter I thought I would likely get a bit of money if I wore my BCFC cap. You see, they might not like the music but would like the fact I was a Blue nose. I was correct; within a couple of songs I got the thumbs up for the cap and a coin in the case.

It was hard work playing to a constant stream of people. I got the odd person listening to a song or two, but with nowhere to sit and listen, they soon moved on. A grandmother and young grandson stopped for a couple of tunes, so I gave them my famous Modern Lovers classic "I'm A Little Aeroplane". Along with "I'm A little Dinosaur", these kids' songs go down a treat and a coin is almost always guaranteed.

The coin drops are slow and I seem to be forcing my singing in order to be noticed over the noise. Compared to Perth, Birmingham is a much faster-paced city.

Nearing the end of my set I spot a young girl bending down to place a coin in my case. People generally throw the coin or coins into your case, so when someone is reaching into your case you tend to notice it. I look down and it appears she is taking money out of the case. I can't be 100% sure but I think she has just stolen from me. In two and a half years busking no-one has ever taken a coin out of my case, but when you play in any big city you have to accept that this could happen. Speaking to friends a couple of days later, her description fitted a well known beggar who hangs around at the bottom of New Street ramp.

I finish my set and tally up my coins: a below-average total of £5.00 plus some coppers. This is about $AUD10.00 which is not my worst set ever but is down on what I would normally get.

I hope to play Birmingham once more before I fly back home but before that I will give Solihull and West Bromich a try. It will be interesting to see how they compare.

I wonder if brain surgeons or molecular biologists also have these sorts of problems.

Like all good supporting cast members you need a villain for your story to be complete. My arch nemesis is The Grunter. How can I describe The Grunter for you? Well, he is a semi-permanent fixture in the Malls of Perth and he rides a clapped out bicycle. Because it is required by law in Perth to wear protective headwear while riding your bike, the grunter makes use of an old horse riding helmet cover in tin foil. Not your average space cadet this boy.

He has become my nemesis over the past few months because of his penchant for grunting along to my songs. Sometimes he does this from a distance: a cafe or street bench. But worse is when he grunts along a couple of feet away. It is not a quite grunt and I suppose he looks at it as singing. To the bemused shoppers of Perth though he no doubt looks like he should be institutionalized.

It may look very funny to see a busker trying his best to entertain, with some space travelling freak making monkey noises in an effort to harmonize but I have to resist the temptation to crash my guitar over his head I swear.

The problem with uninvited guests is that the novelty wears of pretty quick and all you are left with after half an hour is a handful of silver coins and a raging temper. You see, anyone who is a distraction to your act is also bad for your act. The best you can do is try to get some humour out of the situation at their expense, obviously.

This leads me nicely to my next cast member: Peter.

One of my biggest fans is Babs, an aboriginal woman who just loves my music. She also loves an occasional drink and the two combined can be a dangerous combination. You see, more than once she has been moved on by the police for sitting in the mall with a discreet can or bottle while listening to my music.

Babs like to sit three feet in front of me and listen while I play some good old country and rock'nroll music for ten to fifteen minutes. Sometimes she will bring along some lunch and stretch it to twenty minutes.

Although I don't consider myself a comedy act sometimes I do play up to her a little and boy does she laugh. She comes close to falling over sometimes, she's laughing so much. You see, when playing country music the lyric takes on a comical turn when sung a certain way. Take for instance "Hey Good Lookin'". Sing this song with a bit of a wink at the end of each verse and you have yourself a comedy classic. That is, to a half cut woman sitting three feet away with part of a ham sandwich hanging out her mouth. This will then cause me to crack up as I watch her fall about, trying in vain to keep her melonious (is there such a word?) boobs in check.

This is no ordinary day at the office as I'm sure you have probably worked out by now. So number two in the my cast of supporting characters is Babs.

"Hi."

"You play guitar now?"

"I need to set up first Peter"

"You play Beatles?"

" Yes, in a bit."

"Money!"

"Yes, I put it in the case myself. I haven't started yet."

"Money."

" Do remember what I told you last week?"

"Stand to the side."

"That's right, and don't touch the guitar while I'm playing."

"Catch train in?"

"No, the bus today."

"Bus."

Sometime later after setting up my pitch I start to play my first number and Peter wanders from the sidelines and stands directly in front of me. I motion with my guitar for him to move but it is in vain. Fortunately it has been a few weeks since he last took off his cap and placed it in front of him while a dancing a little jig.

I have long sinced trying to control Peter and now do a little naughty school boy routine with him. " Get back in the corner Peter!" "What have I told you?" etc etc. Occasionally you have to tell him to wipe his mouth because his breakfast is still partially there.

After about ten minutes Peter gets bored or maybe just a bit restless.

"See ya."

Now there are people you can work with, turning it to your advantage and others you want to just murder. That's the way it is.

I should briefly introduce you to the cast of supporting characters who populate my world.

The number one supporting person is Cowboy. Now Cowboy, like most of the supporting people I will introduce you to, spends more time in the city centre than is possibly healthy. He is in his early seventies (at a guess) and gets the name Cowboy from a selection of cowboy hats, boots and belt buckles he likes to wear. Inner city cowboys are a rare thing in Perth so it should come as no surprise that Cowboy is well known among people who also spend too much time in the City.

 In summary, Cowboy likes old time rock and roll, country & western music ( Johnny Cash being his number 1) and playing air guitar along side Perth's number one rock n roll and country busker: Yours truly.

I don't need to tell you that busking is a two way deal. The busker entertains and the passing punter gives them money, a cold drink, food, encouragement or occasionally abuse. Except for abuse all are gratefully accepted.

Every now again though something happens which turns this deal on its head. During a mid morning set I am approached by a middle aged woman with a request for some Elvis Presley. I give her a choice and she picks All Shook Up and places a coin in my case. It is clear that this woman has had a couple of early morning tipples.

 I kick into All Shook Up and the song awakens the secret lap dancer within her. At first it's a bit of gyrating but moves quickly to a bit raunchier. She moves over to the pylons slightly behind me and is starting to attract a bit of a crowd. I sneak a peek behind me and, like a cat in heat, she is giving the pylon a good workout. She is not a small lady and the pole dancer within her is now fully awakened.

 I am playing now with the sounds of laughter from the gathered crowd. I don't often attract large crowds to see me play but you can be sure if I do then there's a good chance it involves me playing second fiddle to a drunk playing air guitar or a three year old dancing to The Aeroplane Song.

I have learnt to accept my short comings with good grace. As I near the end of All Shook Up the pole dancing has descended into a slow but not all that erotic grind. The crowd disperses as I crash the final chords to the song and the pole dancer walks over to my guitar case and removes a gold coin and says "That's for the dancing."

So you may think you are a solo act but be warned you can become a duo or trio when you least expect it.

I have not managed to play a note when a young lad comes up and asks if I play requests.  I tell him that it's my first time busking and I dont know many tunes yet.

"Can ya play Khe Sahn by Cold Chisel?" Now, Khe Sahn is one of those songs that has murdered by hundreds of thousands of druken Aussie males and females and best avoided unless you have a voice like you probably gargle turpentine for breakfast.  I pass on his request but promise to learn it for him next time Im busking.

I offer up my list of Rock and Rolls usual suspects for him to choose from.  He picks an old Buddy Holly number and gives me the thumbs up as I start to knock out a very nervous version of Thatll Be The Day.  He returns to the Café and I can see him and his mate laughing.  I have since learnt that when people are laughing they are not always laughing at you or if they are it is not necessarily because you are terrible.  Sometimes they are laughing because you have cheered them up or its some song they havent heard since they were nine.  But as I struggle on with Thatll Be The Day and the old bum chord this sort of zenist type of thinking is far from my mind.

I should say at this point that I first picked up a guitar not long before my 38^th birthday and have been strumming away for the past four years.  In this time I have only managed to remember half a dozen songs without the aid of lyric or chord sheets.  

Either I have to move along every 20 minutes and play the same six songs over and over or cheat.

I opt for cheating and have made up an A4 folder with twenty other songs which I place onto the top of my buskers amp.  In this way I can play away and if a lyric escapes me I can look down and right and there she is. Look, if its good enough Michael Stipe then a first time busker should also have the same privilege.

I finish the Buddy Holly song and go straight into Ring of Fire.  The previous week I had spent the best part of a day getting that famous dum de dum de dum dum dum dum lick down, in the hope that for every eight people that would rather rub Jalapeño  peppers on their privates than listen to Country music I would be impressing, hopefully, the next two.

My assumption proved right. Ping!  20 cents in the case thank you kindly. Should you be wondering how the first 20c piece makes a ping into an empty guitar case I should pass on my first valuable tip: Always place a scattering of coins into your case before you start.  It was my father who gave me this advice when I mentioned that I was going to busk. He being a person with precisely zero hours of busking experience or knowledge.  Anyway it sounded like sound advice to me. The tip above also contains in it another:  Always use a case or a largish type vestibule.  You see bowls, caps or cups just dont cut it.  The impulse coin thrower likes to toss the coin in real Marlborough Man cool like. He doesnt want to bend down and place a coin into an area no bigger than his Monaros ashtray.  People will throw coins off bridges or overpasses if they think you sound good. but not if they have to be Tiger Woods or Big John Daley to get it there.  But Im getting ahead of myself, I have just made my first 20c.

So you want to become a busker? I asked myself the same question 18 months ago and replied, yeah why not. I had not played before a proper live audience before. I had sung before friends and family and knew a few songs off the top of my head.

I wasn't sure whether to go out acoustically, be ignored for three hours and put busking down as a bad idea. So I make the slightly risky decision of buying a small battery powered amplifier and a headset microphone. This investment may have be a tad risky if I went out and make no money on my new venture. That's always been my style I guess.

The next thing I need to do is obtain a busker's licence from Perth City Council and pass an audition in a week's time. Pheww! No pressure then? $66 for three months paid and off I go.

So all I have to do now is I take my new equipment and temporary buskers licence into Murray Street Mall and play away.  By now my hands are shaking and the butterflies are mosh pitting round my stomach as I ride the local bus into the City.

I walk up and down the mall looking for a spot to play. I see a couple of potential places but walk on by. I am too nervous to set up just yet. I have decided to get in early just in case things go pear shaped. If I am going to embarrass myself best not to do it in front of too many people.

It is a cold morning so there arent too many shoppers about just yet. After a couple of lengths of the mall I return to the place I spotted half an hour earlier. The butterflies are now looking for a way out of my stomach and clear right out.

I set my amplifier up, plug my guitar in and place my head set mike on and get ready to play. Wembley Arena here I come!