The Story So Far, Part 1 of 4 (towns 1-27)

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~Edinburgh ~Glasgow ~Brighton ~London ~Chichester ~Coimbra ~San Sebastian ~Sarlat-la-Canéda ~Portsmouth ~İstanbul ~Fethiye ~Marmaris ~Bodrum ~İzmir ~Aydın ~Chíos ~Athens ~Chalkída ~Vólos ~Lárissa ~Ioánnina ~Igoumenítsa ~Bari ~Potenza ~Foggia ~Termoli ~Pescara
(Scotland, England, Portugal, Spain, France, Turkey, Greece, Italy)

1. Edinburgh, Scotland, population: 493,000 – since 2011
I don’t remember exactly when my busking story begins. But I do know where. I’d been writing and playing songs for a few years before I gained the courage to brave the streets and the public to broadcast them to the leaves and walls of a town or city. It was while I was living in Edinburgh that I first ventured out, probably to Meadows Walk or Rose Street, places that anyone who has busked in Edinburgh has probably played at one time or another. I tend to avoid the Royal Mile, I’m not a tourist magnet or a piper, and un-amplified I can be lost in the fray.

Edinburgh is an ancient city with many parks, hills, students, over-petted dog statues, and hidden wild-west-themed streets. I don’t want to say too much about Edinburgh, as much as it is the place I’ve played most, ever. (I even once played in Poland and Edinburgh on the same day). But we want to get on to those adventures, don’t we?

2. Glasgow, Scotland, population:1,200,000 – 2011?
I’ve only played Glasgow once, on busy Argyll street. I was a bit drowned. One day I will return armed with a loop station, but that day may be far away.

It’s got a nice park. And a motorway. You know, it’s a city. Looks a bit like an american city, so they filmed an american film there. In the last couple of years, I’ve spent more time each in İstanbul, Montpellier or Clemont-Ferrand than i have in Glasgow…

3. Brighton, England, population: 281,000 – March 2012
The first time I decided that I would launch myself into the unknown world of busking/hitching, I set off in February, penniless. Others might have cautioned me against it. They would have been more or less right… I gave up on Europe, dawdled in England for a while and ended up in Brighton just on the cusp of spring. When I played I hadn’t eaten for 24 hours (this is NOT a trend, i rarely miss a meal on my travels, believe it or not!) and it was Sunday morning – thus, in response to a particularly loud, long note, i got advised to “chill out a bit, mate!” from a window above me. I had inadvertently forgotten that some people might have been nursing hangovers.

I made enough to buy something from Morrison’s salad bar. You can see why I never quite made it to France. Not that year. Hold on, I haven’t got going yet…

4. London, England, population: 8,539,00 – March 2012/July 2013
The first AHEM second capital city I’ve played in. I can’t remember if it was this time or that time or the other time, but I remember that I got given my first note ever (a fiver) by an enthusiastically dancing young American guy, who poked it through the hole of my guitar. I was told I couldn’t play on that street though, I had to move… just up the street. Half the street, it turned out, was in Westminster, where you can’t busk. Ten metres along, fine. Modern red tape baffles me.

London is the second largest city I’ve ever busked in. For now.

5. Chichester, England, population: 27,000 – April 2012
This is, for lack of any other interesting information about it at my fingertips, the town closest to where my Dad was born. That I have played. Or could play, probably. I was on my way from Brighton to Portsmouth, or something like that. From hereon in the entries get a bit more interesting. Trust me…

6. Coimbra, Portugal, population: 143,000 – 20-23 July 2013
Ah! I hear you say. Somewhere not on that island you appear to have been stuck on until now! Yes, Coimbra in Portugal was my first busk abroad. It’s an old university city, the oldest university in Portugal I believe, and there is a law which means that students are allowed to form community flats called “Republicas”, which more or less amount to legal squats in ethos and atmosphere. While playing on the street, I met some local inhabitants of one of these Republicas, dressed in resplendent colours and facepaints, along with plentiful instruments and juggling accoutrements. Three of us took it in turns to play songs in a little square, my first communal busking experience.

You can go and sit down by the river on stone steps and watch the sunset, and drink a beer (still cheap in Portugal). I did. And thought, “ah, this is like one of those romantic images people imagine when they think about travelling, isn’t it?” Oh hang on…! Muito bom!

Unfortunately I have no pictures of my time in Coimbra as I killed my camera by throwing it in a pool… Accidentally. Well. Sort of. (The same applies for the next 2 places)

7. San Sebastián/Donostia, Spain, population: 186,000 – 27 July 2013
If i said this was the first place in Spain that I’ve played, then I would be telling the truth but also lying. Of course, San Sebastian is in Spain, but Donostia is in Basque country: Euskal Herria. Franco made the speaking of Basque (along with other “minority” languages) illegal, not unlike what happened to Scottish Gaelic in the 1700s. So I will respect Euskal Herria by saying that this was the first place I busked in Euskal Herria. I only spent a saturday afternoon there. I hope to return.

See, it’s difficult to define places by lines on a map. You’ll end up offending someone. I don’t want to be the purveyor of factual inexactitudes. Maybe I should say this is the first place I played on the Atlantic Coast.

8. Sarlat-la-Canéda, France, population: 9,300 – 29th July 2013
My first real foray into French busking territory, in/on the Dordogne no less – that’s a region and a river, the French are prone to naming regions after rivers. I had been invited to stay in Sarlat the night before, by a couple who picked me up in Auch. It was very busy, despite its small size, what with it being the height of tourist season and all. First ever crowd while busking! You may be tired of me saying “first ever…” at this point. It doesn’t last too long. I get into diversity pretty quickly. Though I think I can pinpoint this town as the place where I realised “oh… I might actually be able to get by well doing this on the road!”

I left early afternoon and by the time I reached Aurillac in the evening, tourist-hitching speed, I’d had 10 lifts, which I think is the record in a day. And it was only half a day… I love hitching in France! Think I waited more than 10 minutes once…

9. Portsmouth, England, population: 209,000 – 5th August 2013
On the return from my first foreign busking adventure (well, busking on the return journey at least), I was en route to my parents’ “Arty Party” back in the Highlands of Scotland when I decided to drop in on my cousin Ben and “kidnap” him, to take him with me to the celebratory event. Hence busking in Portsmouth, where he was to be found. It’s a mixed bag, full of memories for me of visiting family, sunny walks in Southsea, model railways… But as anyone else who’s tried to hitch from there before, it’s bloody difficult to leave the Portsmouth Vortex. When they named the Taklamakan desert in central Asia (which means “You Go In But You Don’t Come Out”), they were inspired by Portsmouth.

10. İstanbul, Turkey, population: 14,026,00 – 26-27 February 2014
Here begins my 6-month voyage around Turkey and Europe. Take a deep breath and enter…

…İstanbul. The gateway to Asia, the largest city in Europe, and the most populous that I’ve ever busked. Once christened Constantinople, Roman Emperor Constantine’s new Roman capital. He was responsible for compiling the New Testament from a veritable sea of gospels, if the rumours are true. The Eastern Roman empire slipped smarmily into the Byzantine Empire, and so it became known as Byzantium. It was then summarily conquered by the Ottoman Empire in 15-oatcake, at which point the Sultan banished most of the former residents, declared it the new capital, and invited everyone from the empire to come and live there. Which they were reluctant to do, so he forcefully uprooted a large number of people from all the other areas of the Ottoman Empire to artificially populate his new playground.

Upon arrival, I caught a tram for the first time and moved into a hostel with a rooftop view of the Hagia Sophia, once church, then mosque, now museum. I didn’t go in, but I did wander the labyrinthine streets of Beyoğlu and Sultanahmet, count a profusion of wild seaside rock cats, follow a man into a carpet shop, refuse to sit down, feel trapped, and then unceremoniously leg it. What really struck me though was how different it did feel in some ways – hearing the ezan (call to prayer) from the mosques, and just the sheer number of people, and the size of the place, made me appreciate that an adventure unlike anything I’d ever experienced was truly beginning.

İstiklal Street is the bustling thoroughfare of the new town, full of the smell of roast chestnuts and mcdonalds (no, i’m not going to afford you capitals, ronald). It’s also THE place to busk in İstanbul, and I was pleasantly surprised to find myself sharing the street with a profusion of other musicians, local and otherwise. You can really feel the atmosphere change from the heavy police presence at the Taksim Square (since escalating demonstrations and police crackdown – if you ever wondered why Turkey isn’t in the EU yet, look into its human rights record…) to the much more relaxed Galata tower at the other end. No city of 14 million people is complete without its own small socio-eco-anarcho-alternative volunteer-run cafe, so i dutifully tracked down “26A” (both of them, one either side of the Bosphorus, and thus in 2 continents). This was my introduction to Turkey, and again on the return 3 months later, the first place I’ve ever been back to abroad, and thus perhaps the first place outside the UK to feel familiar to me. It normally only takes two visits for me, ever, for a place to feel like home.

11. Fethiye, Turkey, population: 84,000 – 15 March 2014
Fast forward from İstanbul, 2 weeks on a farm later, and here’s my first hitch-hiking experience in Turkey – with Rūta from Lithuania, we got picked up within about the first 5 cars (actually, we sat in the back of a little truck carrying courgettes and the like) – and you arrive with me in Fethiye, in gorgeous mountainous southwestern Anatolia, the land of the ancient Lyceans. Hands of Turkish land juggle Greek islands, and you can tap into a Greek phone network every now and again to get cheap texts…

Fethiye is a pretty place in March, and the prospective tourists are still sitting in offices in Romford, so it’s quite relaxed. The nearby mountains ringing the bay were still snow-capped. I played on the seafront – something that became a bit of a trend on that Turkish coast, in towns with few/no pedestrian streets. Really rather picturesque.

12. Marmaris, Turkey, population: 34,000 – 16 March 2014
I wasn’t even going to go to Marmaris! But I ended up there. Again, nice at that time of year, I wandered the windy seafront and stayed in a Pansiyon (that’s a borrowed French word spelled phonetically, Turkish-style). Don’t worry, I camped most of the time, I’m not going to go all luxurious on you! I remember eating bread and cheese and tomato on the edge of a fountain, something I would repeat many times…

13. Bodrum, Turkey, population: 36,000 – 17-22 March 2014
So Bodrum happened.

Another town I only planned to spend a day or two in. There was another nice, peaceful harbour to play on, full of local fishing ships selling balık ekmek (fried fish in half a loaf of crusty bread) for 5 lira. I found a spot to camp on a grassy peninsula, more or less out of sight of town, and returned the next day to busk. I had been playing for almost two hours when someone – the only time it has ever happened – snatched a couple of coins out of my box, laughing at me. I was about to take that as a sign to stop for the day, when a colourfully dressed man not much older than myself wearing a cap and a large beard lit a jostick for me and sat down nearby. Once I’d stopped playing, he introduced himself as Muhammet, poet, fisherman, now learning the harmonica, and took me for çay at the cafe on the harbour where his cousin worked. He suggested he could show me around a bit and accompany me on harmonica.

Thus an adventure began. What was my journey about if not impromptu adventures? We spent a week meandering around the coast of the Bodrum peninsula, back and forth, busking in Bodrum when we returned. I experienced real Turkish hospitality in the houses of numerous relatives; aunts (homemade baklava!), uncles, cousins, and friends. We chilled at his friend Ayşegül’s seaside bar, just opening and, like everywhere, tourist-free. (No! I’m a traveller not a tourist, I swear!). We discovered a man living in a hut by the side of the road crafting an incredible array of bizarre surreal sculptures from wood and metal, and spent the night there. Such a luxury for me, as well, to leave my big bag at his aunt’s and not have to carry it with me everywhere!

14. Izmir, Turkey, population: 2,848,00 – 25 March 2014
Izmir is the second biggest city in western Turkey, and a hive of euro-asian diversity, colour and nightlife. I didn’t get to see much of it – Muhammet and I arrived in the early evening, played on a busy pedestrian street in the dark, competing with perhaps too many other buskers, and, having failed to find anywhere to stay through friends of his, caught the very last bus to Aydin, further inland.

15. Aydın, Turkey, population: 196,000 26-31 March 2014
A city not so much visited by the tourists seeking sun and sea, Aydın was home to Muhammet’s parents and his university town. I really quite liked it. We also spent a week there, my last days in Turkey that time around, and made enough together to eat (and have a few beers) just by busking. I met his best friend Bilginer and a few others , including Onur, who owned a bookshop, where, to my amusement, i examined the Game of Thrones maps in Turkish.

At one point, quite early on, we were approached by police and told that we weren’t allowed to busk in Aydın. Cue the disappearance of Muhammet for about 2 hours with no explanation, while I waited in the bookshop. On his return he told me “we can play now”. Come again? He’d gone and spoken directly to the local government and persuaded them that it was good for the culture of the city – along the lines of “my friend has come all the way from Scotland to play…!” and – tada – now you can busk in Aydın officially! At least, we could. And we saw someone else busking before we left. I hope it’s true, I’ll have to go back and check… Not only that but the local government officials invited us to a theartre, so that I could see a play making fun of TV shows that I hadn’t heard of in a language I could understand very little of. One of the men who invited us proposed to his girlfriend at the end. She said yes. So I understand, at least!

While I was in Aydın, election fever was at, well, fever pitch. On the night of the election it’s illegal to drink in Turkey, but nonetheless Muhammet and Bilginer managed to procure some beers from a small shop and Bilginer and I sat on stone steps on the hill above the city, surrounded by rocks and trees, discussing life choices and synchronicity while Muhammet visited a friend. The conservative, islamicist AK Parti won, again. Sometimes I still get their campaign tune stuck in my head. Reminds me of a certain Tim Burton film. “We come in peace. AK AK AK AK AK!” …

On my last night the three of us drove up a hill in the dark and listened to a CD that Rūta had given me of her friends from Lithuania, Dominyka ir Rokas. Mellow guitar and beautiful harmonies in the Turkish dusk is probably one of the most evocative memories for me from that part of the trip.

16. Chíos, Greece, population: 32,000 – 2-3 April 2014
So my plan was to catch the early-evening boat to the island of Chios from Çeşme in Turkey, and then later the very same evening hop straight onto the overnight ferry to Athens. I went to buy my ticket. “Um, well, the ferries are on strike.” “Oh. Will they be running again tomorrow?” “…We don’t know”. So it was that I spent two unexpected days on Chios, in the town of the same name, and did far better busking than I would then do in Athens! On the second night, thanks to some local advice, I tracked down the ruined village of Anávatos, and camped upon its rooves. It was quite an incredible sunset over the Aegean sea, well worth the 3-mile treck and uphill slog with huge rucksack and guitar. One of my best unforeseen delays.

17. Athens/Athína, Greece, population: 3,091,00 – 4-5 April 2014
I arrived in the Greek capital not long after dawn, having spent an overnight ferry trip chatting to 6 syrian refugees who invited me to join them. After taking in the city, walking round the back of the Acropolis and climbing another hill, I tried busking, but, like in many big cities, I found I just became part of the background static. So I ended up in a punk gig in a place/ square/triangle in Exarchia and soaked up the Athenian vibes as best as I could in 2 days.
That’s not much to say about such a famous ancient city, is it now? But you can find the history out from anywhere, I would rather talk about the less beaten track…

18. Chalkída (Halkis/Chalcis), Greece, population: 59,000 – 7-8 April 2014
This was a reminder that busking in towns of about this size in Europe was really good, and would set the standard for a lot to come, a bit like Sarlat-la-Caneda in France had the previous year. Chalkída straddles the mainland and the island of Euboea, separated by a narrow channel of water. I camped on a hill overlooking the city, somehow squeezed between a rock and another rock and another couple of rocks. I only saw one other busker, a saxophonist who appeared for half an hour at lunchtime, and I did rather well.

19. Vólos, Greece, population: 119,000 – 10 April 2014
Vólos appeared to offer everything that Chalkida had, but unfortunately failed to be anywhere near as enjoyable or lucrative to play in, and it was the first time anyone in a shop got annoyed at me for standing nearby. I did meet a guy from Crete, who sat and listed for a while. But i soon got on the road and spent the night camping within sight of Mount Olympus, resplendently crested in snow.

20. Lárissa, Greece, population: 147,000 – 11 April 2014
I’d already passed through Larissa, and started the morning trying to head north. But when i’d been standing there for over an hour being barked at by dogs, I decided it was a sign to turn south and immediately picked up a lift back to Lárissa. Like many Greek cities, the centre is dotted with old ruins, and i found myself playing facing an amphitheatre, imagining it was filled with a crowd and I was playing a gig in ancient Greece…

My road that evening took me to the famous rocks of Meteora. I keep ending up in famous places I haven’t heard of until I get there, by seeming accident. My school didn’t offer Classics as a subject.

21. Ioannina, Greece, population: 80,000 – 12-13 April 2014
This was a great discovery. Nestled in the mountains of northwest Greece, this city stretches along the shores of a gorgeous lake, and at its heart is an old Ottoman walled city, (or maybe even older, but there’s a ruined mosque in it), and a promenade along the lakefront which was my favourite place to play, if quiet. I had a feeling to walk down one particular street as I left the lake in the evening, and I ended up happening upon an outside gig opposite a small cafe where I was invited to sit with some people, and then all of a sudden offered to play a few songs, amped up, to open for the band! Then “oh there’s a party, I’m sure you could crash there… It’s cold to camp!” So I did. Though the second night I did camp, on the island in the middle of the lake, where there was a village and a woodland, and everything was still fresh spring green, apart from the icy mountain peaks.

22. Igoumenítsa, Greece, population: 18,000 – 14 April 2014
My first ever long lift from a (very cheery) taxi driver took me to the port from which I planned to sail to Italy. I was still a little short for the ferry, so I hit the street for an hour or so, as local kids alternated between watching me in a huddle and kicking a football around. When I went to buy my ferry ticket to Bari, I counted out the fare in coins on the desk. I asked if they’d seen anyone else buy a ticket with busking change before. They didn’t think so.

23. Bari, Italy, population: 320,000 – 15-16 April 2014
Welcome to Italy! Land of good coffee and, in the south, almost no one who speaks any English, so I had to learn quickly with my dictionary and phrasebook with the help of already knowing some French and Spanish. It was, however, where I first came across someone Scottish on my trip, and thus the first time I had to explain, “I’ve lived in Scotland since I was 4, i just still have an English accent!” rather than just saying “I’m from Scotland.” A thunderstorm broke out while I was there and torrential rain forced me inside for a while. I actually returned the following day after finding it hard to hitch north, and caught a train west instead, into the middle of nowhere, to start hitching to Potenza.

24. Potenza, Italy, population: 69,000 – 17 April 2014
The torrential rain and thunderstorm that hit in Bari brought about an unseasonably cold spell. Potenza is several hundred metres up in the mountains, but I gather it is unusual for there to be snow only a couple of hundred metres higher this far south in Italy in the second half of April. In fact, it sleeted on me as I played! Maybe that’s why I did so well – people thought I must be mad.

Potenza is perched on the top of a small hill itself. One thing that made this easier was the free escalators you could use to reach the centre of town at the highest point! Very grateful for that with all my stuff…

25. Foggia, Italy, population: 153,000 – 17-18 April 2014
So I went to the train station in Potenza with the intention of catching a train to Salerno, and the west coast, to travel north via Naples. I caught quite a few trains in Italy, as it turned out to be quite cheap and quite difficult to hitch for the most part. It said “Platform 1, Salerno, 14:45” (i made the time up), So I caught the train at platform 1 at 14:45 and ended up in Foggia. Which is north, not west. And where I’d originally been trying to hitch from Bari! Huh! But there you go. It was a nice enough place to play, even if the most memorable street was one that I walked down looking for socks, which was completely lined with fashion clothes shops that almost certainly sold no socks.

26. Termoli, Italy, population: 33,000 – 18-19 April 2014
On Easter Friday there were people streaming up the street in Easter mood, as they are wont to do. Quite a nice evening to arrive. I camped on the beach as far as i could walk before someone had inconsiderately built a fence. The following morning i was serenaded/interrupted by Tony (fucking Tony), one of the first people I spoke English to in Italy, a drunk cap-sporting man with long hair who proceeded to yell “Led Zeppelin! Waaaoooaaahhh!” and accost passers by insisting they paid me attention.

27. Pescara, Italy, population: 123,000 – 19 April 2014
Saturday was market day. I Busked opposite a stall selling English ales, including a chocolate beer. I had one. Who should show up, stumbling, munching a string of sausages, but fucking Tooonnnny! “Eh… You remember me… I play guitar too… mumblemumblemumble” (stumbles away distracted by the paving stones). But… i caught a train 20 miles to get here! Is this guy my first groupie? I am, as Bill Bailey so eloquently termed it, a bit of a nutter-magnet…

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