Patrick Brealey

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!

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

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!

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.

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.