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Always love it when mom stops the stroller, and the kid in tow thinks it's cool to just come up and start strumming your guitar - while you're playing!

It's also great when passersby realize you're playing contemporary Christian music and they light up, give you a big thumbs up, and say they appreciate you.

What's so cool about live performance is it's true music; you can't hide behind someone else's doctrine, interpretations, and feelings. To me, it's the ultimate in making music. Busking is just throwing yourself out there, with no rules of engagement and no choice but to be authentic.

And, ya know, like make music.

Aaaahh This has stuck with me forever! I have to go all the way back to grade school. You might say that I become attached to my instruments...

I started out playing the tuba. In the 5th grade, sitting in the band and being bored stupid while the director worked with the flutes or something, I mindlessly was sticking my fingers into various nooks and crannies of my instrument (and there are a lot on a tuba). Somehow I managed to get my finger through and stuck in this ring where you'd attach a carrying strap. And it WOULD NOT COME OUT.

After embarrassing "rescue attempts" from the director, the school nurse, various kids and teachers - and yes, the fire department - the janitor lubed my finger up with some grease and yanked my finger from the brass ring.

From then on I was known as "the kid who got his finger stuck in the tuba"!

Thanks to many fine folks tipping here on StreetJelly, my new acoustic is a D'Angelico Excel Gramercy, a grand auditorium model. Totally blows me away with its sweet presence across all the strings.

My bass is a Warwick Corvette Std Fretless 4-String Bubinga in natural finish. Simply amazingly warm, deep, growly, and mmwhaah on the top end. Incredible.

My acoustic for busking especially when I travel is a Traveler Ultra-Light Maple, an absolutely indestructible piece of enabling technology.

I also have a 40+ year-old Martin D-28 Dreadnought. Thanks to TLC this sweet baby is in top shape, and would never, ever, dare to insult its pedigree and disappoint its owner - nothing but buttery mids, plenty of bottom and mellow highs.

Occasionally you'll find me with my wife's guitar, an authentic, hippy 1970-ish Gibson B-25. Love to play it and imagine sitting around a campfire in the mountains singing songs about love, nature, and freedom.