Patrick Brealey

I am pleased to let you know that I will be play­ing a reg­u­lar gig at Toronto’s ven­er­a­ble Cameron House dur­ing the month of March. I will be there on Fri­days start­ing around 8:30pm — what a rea­son­able hour! — with a vari­ety of peo­ple on stage with me includ­ing Rob Fen­ton (dobro) amd Michael Her­ring (upright bass). So mark your cal­en­dars and I hope to see you at 408 Queen St. W. (one block west of Spad­ina) some­time in the near future!

Well now isn’t that nice? Word on the street is that my songs “Some­thing to Do with You” and “I Don’t Want to Hear Another Love Song” were played on CBC Radio Two this past week. I’m as happy as a plum!

Check out the audi­ence par­tic­i­pa­tion in Peter­bor­ough, Ontario. Them peo­ples love to whistle!!

Not only a great name for an album, but a beau­ti­ful flow­er­ing plant as well. Behold, the Ama­ran­thus Cau­da­tus, also know as Love Lies Bleed­ing. Dig it, Romeo.

Now that Sep­tem­ber has us in its warm (yet cool­ing) embrace, we accept once again that our planet pro­vides us with sea­sons that make us appre­ci­ate change, through vibrant colour shifts and howl­ing winds. In other words, sum­mer is gone, get over it.

I had a fab­u­lous sum­mer. Got to play the Eagle­wood Folk Fes­ti­val, sev­eral dates in Ontario as well as play­ing on a con­sis­tent basis with the blue­grass sen­sa­tions known as the Sud­den Val­ley Boys and had tons of fun goof­ing around with Leon Knight & the Neon Lights, a screw­ball coun­try band in which our fear­less leader Leon has yet to show up to a gig for. One of these days.…

I also got to see a few parts of Ontario I had never been to and I’d like to pro­claim some­thing Ontar­i­ans have known for a long time but the rest of the coun­try may not know: Ontario is beau­ti­ful. Sure it doesn’t have the ooh-​​aah inspir­ing rugged peaks of the Rocky Moun­tains. And maybe it doesn’t get as wind-​​whipped and won­der­fully ocean swept as the Mar­itimes. Granted, the sheer expanse of the Prairies as they roll to the hori­zon as cer­tainly taken more than a few breaths away. But Ontario is dif­fer­ent. It’s quiet. It’s sub­tle. It’s rocks and trees and lakes and blue­ber­ries and rivers and charm­ing towns and won­der­ful peo­ple and chip trucks and storms and apples and cot­tages and canoes and birds and swim­ming and so much more. It’s the Cana­dian Shield. You really have to expe­ri­ence it.

Hey there! Just a few upcom­ing live shows to tell you about. Here goes!

Sun. Aug 21 — Dakota Tav­ern (Blue­grass Brunch 11am-​​3pm) — Toronto, ON
Sun. Aug 21 — Not My Dog (w/​ Kyp Har­ness) — Toronto, ON
Mon. Aug 22 — Moon­shine Café (w/​ Sarah Mac­Dougall) — Oakville, ON
Tue. Aug 23 — The Spill (w/​ Sarah Mac­Dougall) — Peter­bor­ough, ON
Wed. Aug 24 — The Liv­ing Room (w/​ Sarah Mac­Dougall) — Kingston, ON
Thu. Aug 25 — Branch Restau­rant (w/​ Sarah Mac­Dougall) — Kemptville, ON
Fri. Aug 26 — Eagle­wood Folk Fes­ti­val — Pef­fer­law, ON
Sat. Aug 27 — Eagle­wood Folk Fes­ti­val — Pef­fer­law, ON
Sun. Aug 28 — Eagle­wood Folk Fes­ti­val — Pef­fer­law, ON
Sun. Sept 4 — Toronto Island Marina (Leon Knight & the Neon Lights) — Toronto, ON

I pleased to announce that I will be per­form­ing at the Eagle­wood Folk Fes­ti­val in Pef­fer­law, ON from August 26–28. Visit http://​www​.eagle​wood​folk​.com/ for more infor­ma­tion and how to get (very inex­pen­sive!) tick­ets. Please visit the SHOWS page for when and where I will be play­ing over the next few months. Thanks!

Wait. It’s not my cam­era, it’s my phone!

I cer­tainly could take a les­son in keep­ing this site up-​​to-​​date. But here I am.

As 2010 begins its end, I look back and see a great year of fun and new adven­tures. Work­ing back­wards, I just fin­ished a few shows in a hired gun role play­ing key­boards and gui­tar with The Grapes of Wrath, who recently reunited after an 18 year hia­tus. Their songs are great and remind me of high school par­ties in the basement.

I moved to my own place in Toronto where I finally can stretch out and call some­thing “my home”. All I need now is a couch.

Octo­ber saw me land in Ottawa for the annual Ontario Coun­cil of Folk Fes­ti­vals Con­fer­ence (OCFF) which amounts to one of the best times of the year. Recon­nect­ing with hun­dreds of musi­cians, indus­try peo­ple, house con­cert hosts, radio per­son­al­i­ties — you name it in the world of Cana­dian folk music and it’s there. The sun­rise jam ses­sions are quite the hoot too.

In Sep­tem­ber I had the oppor­tu­nity to travel to the Mar­itimes and New­found­land, par­tially due to the energy and music of Christina Mar­tin, who invited me to play her CD release party in Hal­i­fax as well as other shows in Nova Sco­tia and New Brunswick. I’d wanted to hit the East Coast for a long time and it was worth the wait. Beau­ti­ful land, beau­ti­ful peo­ple, beau­ti­ful fish ‘n’ chips. Plus I met Anne Mur­ray!!!

The sum­mer saw a trip to the West Coast to play Vancouver’s SHOREfest where we played in front of thou­sands of semi-​​attentive beach­go­ers on Eng­lish Bay before the evening sky lit up with fire­works. It was a plea­sure to play just before Blue Rodeo’s Jim Cuddy. You can watch a video of it here.

A tour of west­ern Canada was a high­light of the spring with sev­eral house con­certs mak­ing me real­ize that there is a way to make it pos­si­ble to be a Cana­dian musi­cian in Canada these days. Thank you to every­one who sup­ported us!

We made a good ol’ music video for the tune “I Don’t Want to Hear Another Love Song” in Feb­ru­ary. Watch it here. I’ve been for­tu­nate to have had radio play with this song on sev­eral sta­tions includ­ing national broad­cast on CBC. Thank you, radioland!

There were many more high­lights to speak of but I will save those for another time. Be good to yourself.

Patrick

Patrick Brealey Live “I Don’t Want to Hear Another Love Song”.

Here’s a live video of “I Don’t Want to Hear Another Love Song” filmed on July 31, 2010 in Van­cou­ver. Thanks to Shore 104.3FM for host­ing SHOREfest at Eng­lish Bay.

You can also watch it here.