Music as Gift and Resistance 

The first time I played music on the street, it was winter. Christmas lights blinked overhead, and the city hummed with shoppers and carols. I’d spent years running an animal rights stall in town, often chatting with the buskers nearby — drawn to their freedom, their generosity, their sound.

Live music, I believed, should belong to everyone. Not just those who could afford tickets or venues. Busking offered something ancient and egalitarian: a gift freely given, sustained only by voluntary kindness.

That first time, a little girl who couldn't have been more than seven pulled free of her mother's hand as they passed and stopped to stare in wide-eyed wonder as I played. Her gaze went from me, down to the badge clutched tightly in her tiny hand, and back to me again. The badge read: "I saw Santa at Fenwicks."

She'd obviously just got it while visiting Father Christmas in the giant toy store nearby, and it meant a lot to her, but she placed it carefully in my tips basket, smiled, then hurried after her mother. That simple and pure gesture touched me deeply, and I still remember it almost three decades later.

My own journey into street music began with a tin whistle — the feadóg. I’d first heard its haunting tones around protest campfires in the 1990s, where musicians and activists gathered to resist the destruction of sacred land. That whistle became my companion, my voice, my offering.

Later came the djembe. Not the traditional animal-skin kind, but a vegan drum with a synthetic head — cruelty-free, weatherproof, and resonant with the rhythms of liberation. I played across the UK for years, living simply, travelling lightly, and sharing music that stirred memory and mood.

There were many moments that stayed with me. The child placing her treasured Santa badge in my tip basket. A stranger who later became a friend, who shared that he had been suicidal when he first met me drumming in town. He'd stopped to speak and told me years later that moment turned his life around.

The vegan drum head and ever-present chocolate soya milk or Huel sparked so many conversations about veganism.

Busking became more than music. It was a livelihood aligned with my ethics — low-impact, non-materialistic, and rooted in compassion. It opened space for dialogue, for joy, for resistance. And even now, though I no longer rely on it to survive, I still occasionally play. Sometimes for the rhythm. Sometimes for the cause.

If you’d like to read more about my journey — from protest camps to city streets — I’ve shared a deeper reflection here: 

🔗 The Noble Eightfold Path of Busking: A Vegan Drummer’s Story

I've also shared a couple of recordings of my playing in the video below...

If the music moves you, and you’d like to help me keep sharing it, your donation is deeply appreciated.