Leo Dickinson

Seagulls cry outside my flat as dawn paints the damp roofs of Stokes Croft. I switch off the loop pedal blinking on my desk—last night’s bass riff still echoes in the headphones—and step onto Gloucester Road to fetch coffee before the city fills with buses. Bristol, England feels like a giant backstage: stickers on lampposts, venue doors scarred by years of load-ins. I’m thirty now, old enough to remember when open mics were cash only and no one livestreamed their heartbreak.

At the café the barista recognises my guitar case but asks why I haven’t played the Thursday slot lately. I mumble about studio time, though we both know I can’t afford the session. My streaming numbers hover below rent level, yet every morning I hit refresh like a gambler.

Back in my room the walls vibrate with traffic from the M32. I lay down a fragile vocal take, delete it, try again. The landlord knocks to remind me the boiler repair is still unpaid. I promise next week, fingers crossed behind my back. The growl in his throat matches the low E of my Strat.

After lunch I bike to the harbour to busk. The water smells of diesel and salt; tourists linger near the SS Great Britain, phones raised. I loop a beat with an empty beer can and a borrowed cajón. Coins clink; a child dances; a man in a suit drops five pounds and whispers he once played drums but quit for accounting. His confession feels heavier than the money.

As clouds roll in I count the takings—fifteen pounds, forty-two pence—enough for strings and maybe part of the boiler bill. I ride home through drizzle, tyres hissing, thinking of my dad who drove cabs in Bedminster his whole life and called music “a beautiful debt.” I finally understand: the songs pay in moments, not in pounds.

Night folds over the Clifton Downs. I click record again, voice raw from the cold, and find a melody hiding under the day’s noise. It isn’t perfect, but it’s honest; that will have to be my currency for now. Tomorrow I'll carry it to the street again.