Blog Update - On the road to Crete

Since my last writing I was in Istanbul, staying at a friends house and busking in Shishane and Karakoy. I had planned to leave to go to Armutlu for a dervish event which was going to run for three days. I let the organisers know in an email that I would be there if I made the money on the streets to do so. Income has been severely unpredictable but having a bed to stay in for free I haven't needed much.

The day I went out to make the money for the ferry to Armutlu I met a young romanian man named Elvis who had left his home city in Romania as a student of theatre and film directing. This was a haphazard decision to go on a trip with little money and bring a suitcase full of art supplies and attempt to sell art on the street for a living while visiting Turkey and Greece.

Having a bed for him to stay in if I did a few messages to my good friend and his housemates, I decided not to go to Armutlu. I didn't make enough that day to leave anyway but had all my stuff with me, ready to go. This worked out great, we went out together daily, I sang and did my thing and he proceeded to paint things on cloth canvases he brought with him.

His suitcase with all his art supplies he carried with him looked a lot like this one I found on google images. I wondered for a while why he had to carry this thing around with him everywhere. Then I decided that he was carrying around the creative potential of humanity. Everytime he needed to get money out or something small out of his case (his only hand luggage) we'd stop for a good five minutes while he carefully unlocked the little locks on it and grabbed what he needed and closed it up again, locking it. This part I was a bit impatient about but I got to spend time with a very sensitive artist type that was searching for an authentic experience and I got to put him up for a few days in an apartment that wasn't mine. He gave me a sticker with the symbol of the wolf of old romania on it that now resides on my guitar and stares at me while I play music. I will stay with him when I visit Romania.

While playing on the street with my Ud playing friend we were approached by a macedonian musician who does consultation for people in Turkey wanting to study in Skopje. He took a few long videos of our performances and told me he has a studio in Skopje and would be willing to do recording. I saw him a second time when playing alone and another long video later I told him maybe I would come with my Ud playing friend in October, he said that was fine and just to give him a weeks notice.

My Ud playing friend went to greece and onto Crete in order to attend a special music school to fine tune his Ud skills. After a lot of umming and aahing I decided instead of going to Berlin I am going to Greece and I will meet up with him in Crete.

So after passing my new romanian artist adventurer named Elvis onto another host (thankfully he get's a Turkish host to show him Istanbul, a lovely girl named Anna) I made enough money with a powerful performance in Shishane to get my ferry ticket to Bursa and a bus to Izmir, aiming for Cheshme.

In Izmir, I was there to get enough money to get to Cheshme so I went straight to my favorite spot in Karshiyaka. I played and met a few people that wanted to talk a lot. I made double of what I needed. I met an older man named Morgen who spoke a little english and we communicated just enough. He wanted me to come back to his apartment to play with him because he plays the piano accordian. He has a son in Sydney and other family in Australia. Also he was born in China and didn't come over to Turkey until in his 30s. His son is about 34. I'm 32.

So I decided it would be ok, we wanted to get a video of me playing some basic chords to him playing some traditional music from some territory in the republic of Russia called Tatarstan? I hope I got that right. So a few meals and a meeting with his friend later, we got to playing some of his music on the streets which he really enjoyed. It was a pleasure to spend a day with him. I also helped him with some of his english class as he is learning english.

Here is one of the songs we recorded together. He's very modest, quite a good player but not so confident sometimes. However, when we went out on the street I could feel his energy was on fire. Kubelek means 'little bird'.

My first encounter with this type of music which I found interesting because a lot of it is in the pentatonic scale, which is basically the same as the blues scale.

I left after a day and a night with Morgen and enough money in my pocket for a new set of strings and bus ticket to Cheshme.

I decided I didn't want to stick around in Izmir and go straight to Cheshme to make money for my trip to Greece.

I did play in Konak on my way to the airport to catch the bus and was met with little interest in that spot for a Tuesday but one guy decided to get his semi-pro camera and just start filming full songs. Then he got my details and bought a can of coke.

One thing I may never get used to in popular areas like Istanbul is the amount of camera phones pointed at you at one time. It's almost like the people themselves are not there but through their phones they are living. With the phone constantly erect in record ready mode and looking down at the instrument and then up again and five or six phones can appear out of nowhere to stare at you.

I implore people everywhere, if you want to sit there for three minutes and take a video of a street performer, give him/her and lire. It's not much and it shows appreciation. Also, I implore you to live your lives directly and not through a phone. It disgusts me the way creeping normality has made it into our culture where no eye contact and no engagement with the actual person takes place, and only them staring at me through their phone for a few minutes then leaving with no acknowledgement. Not everyone is like this, but this behaviour is now considered normal.

Of course I'm not thinking about all this when I'm playing, because I'm playing music and putting my entire heart and soul into my craft.

So I get to Cheshme and I've got two lire in my pocket (less than half a euro) and I use it to buy a bottle of water.

I leave my back pack in the bushes somewhere and take a wander into the town to see what's up and how busy season is. It's 10.30pm.

I wander around to spy some spots and despite not having a single dime, I decide not to play. I did spot a couple of gypsy kids with melodicas getting their dutiful tourist money. There are a few places along the beach and up the main strip where playing is possible.

So I wander back to my back stash and sleep in a field outside of town near the bus station. I stash my bag again and wander in in the morning. It wasn't a great sleep. So many barking dogs, cats climbing up and down trees, street lights and insects. Yeah blah, I'll sleep later in the heat of the day near the beach under a pine tree on a hill.

I get a bit of rest on the beach and decided to make a cold coffee with turkish coffee with extra water I found and some liberated sugar sachets from a cafe somewhere.

I wander into the town to see if day busking is possible and after walking the entire stretch of everything up and back decide to ask a shop keeper where a good place to play is. He suggests near the church and I take his advice. To semi-busy street on a day that is heating up to be a scorcher I play 7 songs or so. I get a good reception from the shop keepers around, each putting something in my case and a couple of passerbyers put in a couple of notes. I have a small turkish chat (I don't speak much, but I try) with an older guy selling raffle tickets on the street and I get from what he said that I should come back in the evening.

I'm happy, I've made enough to keep going so I go to the local equivalent of a Lidl called Bim and get a few groceries.

It's not the first time I arrive into a town with nothing and I'm always fine. The world is an amazing place and people are very accomodating. For sure I still get random fears and worries that come up but all this amounts to wasted energy when in the end, all that matters is the action and what needs to be done.

So I got a few lire in my pocket, I've got a bag of groceries and I'll play tonight and every night until Monday when I have to leave for my visa. I will make the money for my ferry ticket until then.

On the road to Crete. "I went looking for the people from the sea." One of the lyrics in my automatic writing which is a song now called Lakes of Fire. The people from Crete were known as the people from the sea. "For the truth they could teach me."

Love,

Monty