Patrick Brealey

Check out this lit­tle ditty I wrote for Leon Knight & the Neon Lights. Who is Leon Knight, you ask? Just the biggest, bad­dest, grouch­i­est, sloven­li­est coun­try star that ever didn’t exist! Check the Shows link for the next performance.

Leon Knight & The Neon Lights — Teach Me How To Rock n’ Roll by nichol­robert­son

And so here we are: a new year. 2012. The Chi­nese cal­en­dar declares it to be the Year of the Dragon — an ani­mal that is strong, proud and noble but is also known to be impetu­ous and, at times, tyran­ni­cal. Sounds like a bold year to me. When it comes to other cal­en­dars, I’m sure your neigh­bourly con­spir­acy the­o­rist has told you that 2012 is obvi­ously the year of the apoc­a­lypse since the Mayan cal­en­dar appears to end on Decem­ber 21, 2012. Of course, nobody really lis­tens to the Mayan his­tory schol­ars (with all of their “edu­ca­tion”) who state that the Mayan cal­en­dar­mak­ers weren’t proph­esy­ing about the end of the world, but rather the 20 katuns of the 13^th b’ak’tun will have sim­ply run their course as per the Maya Long Count Cal­en­dar and Decem­ber 22, 2012 will mark the begin­ning of the 14^th b’ak’tun. You got it — party time. So it is with the bold­ness of the Dragon and the ris­ing cel­e­bra­tory light of the shift­ing Mayan cal­en­dar that I take the first steps into 2012.

I aim to make 2012 a Year of Focus. Don’t fold into dis­trac­tion. Be bold. Be right­eous. Be…impetuous. I hope that you have imag­ined what your year might look like. Feel free to tell me. Com­ment if you like! Let’s talk!

That being said, I don’t want you to think that 2011 was all wax and beans. It was good too. I learned and grew in ways I didn’t expect. For instance, I became a bet­ter swim­mer. I learned how to breathe prop­erly while doing the front crawl. Sure, some of you may think that’s an easy task but I know there are those of you out there who know what I’m talk­ing about — per­haps you cringe and are slightly embar­rassed that you got through child­hood swim­ming lessons with panic and adren­a­lin, but mas­ter­ing the rela­tion­ship between breath­ing and swim­ming eas­ier than it seems. The key is to relax. Focus. Be calm. When you put you head under­wa­ter remem­ber you will be bring­ing it back out to get more air. No need to panic. Slow down. One breath. Stroke, stroke. One breath. Stroke, stroke. Even­tu­ally, you stop think­ing about what you are doing and it feels as though you are breath­ing under­wa­ter. It begins to feel nat­ural. What I’ve learned is that by focussing on being relaxed I’ve been able to let go of the things that tripped me up pre­vi­ously, which in this case was some­thing as sim­ple as breath­ing. And so I take the bold­ness of the Dragon, the cel­e­bra­tion of the Maya and the relaxed focus of the swim­ming pool and I say, “Come with me, 2012. Let’s dance.”

Be good to your­selves,
Patrick

Thanks to Tom Power, host of CBC Radio 2 Morn­ing for choos­ing “I Don’t Want to Hear Another Love Song” as the Tune of the Day!

Liked it on the radio? Try watch­ing the video!

Do your­self a favour and visit Toronto Island, a mere 10 minute ferry trip from down­town. Then have a pic­nic as though you are in an F. Scott Fitzger­ald novel. How civil!

Just a quick note to let those in Van­cou­ver area know that I will be play­ing a solo show on Fri­day, March 18^th at The Main (4210 Main St. @ E. 26^th Ave.) I will be play­ing a few new songs for you all! Look­ing for­ward to see­ing famil­iar faces!

You know some­body loves you when they design a cookie to look like you. Thank you, Heather!

Take a look at the new video for “I Don’t Want to Hear Another Love Song”! EXCITING! Pro­duced by Vul­ture Cul­ture films. Or Watch it Here.

I’m pleased to announce I am part of a new project in Toronto, namely a new group called Leon Knight and the Neon Lights. We are play­ing all of your coun­try favourites along with a few orig­i­nals in var­i­ous loca­tions in Toronto. Unfor­tu­nately, our fear­less band­leader Leon has yet to actu­ally make an appear­ance at the shows but we are con­fi­dent he will show up one of these days. After all, he is on the poster. We like to think we can hold our own quite well though, thank you very much. Stop by if you’re in the area!

Well, here it is. The all-​​new Patrick​Brealey​.com. Take a look around. Report back and let me know what you think. Do you like the colours? Do you like the way things are laid out? Do you like the fact you can lis­ten to music? Look at pic­tures? Make your own com­ments? How exciting!

I went on a cou­ple of tours in 2009. Here’s a wee col­lage to enjoy:

Seems as though the Toronto-​​based blog­sters at Snob’s Music thought my album Mer­cury in Song­birds deserved to be on their list of favourite albums of 2009. Very nice.

Best Cana­dian Albums of 2009.