Amsterdam to Bruge. Train Journal.

Hey friends.

I'm currently on a train from Holland to Bruges. The train is fast. Like me in my grade three running race the moment my legionnaires hat blew off my head.

On Sunday I played my first European Living Room Concert.

LRCs are so cool. The attendees are 100% there to share in a musical experience and this makes them the best audiences you can find.

Rudi, Marieke and their daughter Emma were our hosts, and their hospitality was superb. Picking us up from the station, making us lunch, and taking us out to a delicious tapas dinner which they paid for. Emma even drew me a picture. She knew I liked dogs because of the photos I post with George so the picture is of me and a dog on the grass with a few daisies and birds thrown in. It's very cute.

My thanks to Marieke, Rudi, Emma, and all the wonderful people who shared in the day.

It was crazy to find out that one of the girls attending, was playing my last single at her desk at work last week and one of her colleagues said 'is that Broni?' Crazy that someone else at her work knew me as well. The Internet is the best… This is why I find it strange my friends still waste cash on print media in Melbourne, with such small reach that never converts into ticket sales. But that's a discussion for another time.

Side note: you may or may not recall, but I had to move out of the house that I shared with my favourite little bulldog George Bruce, but I was making a point to visit him as often as I could, and taking him to work with me when I could etc, however yesterday I got the very very sad news that he is moving to a new home. He's going where there are 3 young boys who will pamper him and wrestle him like I used to be able to on a regular basis, so I'm very happy for him. But I'm also extremely sad that I won't get to spend any more time with him. I'll admit, I cried for a moment about it. He truly was a best friend, and the family he is going to are extremely lucky. Peace and carrots Georgie Porgie korgie lorgie dorgie.

If you haven't noticed yet, I have just started to check in a little more often on my youtube channel with a new weekly video called 'this is Broni' I swear i'ma try to keep up with is one.

My thanks to Pat McKenna for once again going above and beyond the call of friendship and making the cool animation for the series.

You the man Paddy.

In a few weeks I'll be releasing my new music video for 'I care more than you do' I'm excited, I think we did a good job on the clip. We basically recreated the situation in which I wrote the song, when I was in a cafe, and privy to a very awkward conversation in which I knew the girl was going to break up with the guy, way before he realised it was happening. The clip makes me well up about half way through, and that's due to the great performance by our leading Actors Carina Waye and Jonathan Christopher MacMillan so I can't wait for you to see it.

Whilst in the Netherlands we stopped off in Utrecht on the way to the house show. My mum was born in Utrecht, so we walked for half an hour to find my mums old street. It was a little surreal, she left there 56 years ago, I was just imagining my Nanna wandering those streets back in the day. It was awesome. And a great way to pass the time, as it was a Sunday and Utrecht was pretty closed. Starbucks was open though, so I got my crappy coffee on, and I paid to poop… That was fun…. Gotta get the most out of my 50 cents

Nearly in Belgium, friends, so time for me to sign off for now.

Hope you're smiling.

Broni.

 

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A song a week challenge continues.

Catching up on the challenge.

The holiday season always gets the best of me. I always start off thinking I’m going to get heaps done while the world is standing still. But then I end up standing still, too.

The gang took a couple weeks off from the challenge because without a little order it was hard to sit down and write the weeks song. And we all would have owed a lot of beer had we tried to continue. Props to Kenny and Isaac, they still managed to get one in.

Then we kicked back into gear a couple of weeks go, but i forgot to blog about them and today another one is due.
So here they are.

Last weeks topic: Wishing you were somewhere else
My song: Charlie and Simone (we would live in LA)
Charlie and Simone were best friends in high school. Both of them, big time musical theatre nerds.
Charlie was the competent musician, Simone the seemingly seasoned veteran of acting.
They would help each other with their weaknesses, and would encourage each other to use their strengths. Simone would sign Charlie up for acting auditions and force him to go. Charlie would write show tunes for Simone and gather audiences for her.
They both drove each other, and dreamed of a day after graduation they would move to LA and sink their teeth into acting and music. Classically waiting tables and just scraping by. This was their dream, and with the drive they instilled in each other, this would soon become their reality.
One night after a party Charlie suggested Simone come home with him, rather than one of her less responsible friends.
Sadly, that night, Simone passed away in a car accident.
Charlie was lost. His extraverted and ambitious nature had flipped.
Without the pushing from Simone, Charlie felt no urge to follow through with their plan.
A couple of years later Charlie wrote this song for Simone.

Here it is – Charlie and Simone (we would live in LA)

___

This weeks topic: Rob Deez eloquently put it “not having enough time to do shit”
My song: Show someone some love

This is a bit of a re-work of a song I’ve had in the pipeline for about 18 months. I’ve just never really known where to take it. This weeks topic sort of allowed me to make an old half song new.
Life gets busy…

Here it is – Show someone some love

Hope you guys enjoy. Please feel free to leave feedback.
And enjoy the entries from the other guys

Kenny Eng on Soundcloud

Isaac Cheong on Soundcloud

Rob Deez on Soundcloud

 

Holidayte – A song a week challenge Week 4.

This song is part of the Song a Week Challenge i partake in with @robdeez and @kennyeng check out their entries.

The challenge is explained here - http://bit.ly/SongAWeek

This weeks topic was HOLIDAY

When I’m at work, I often catch myself daydreaming of what i could be doing instead of being there. I conjure up this fantastic day where i could fit in a million activities and have all the fun in the world. But you know how it goes, you actually get the day off and you don’t have nearly enough time for all that you were thinking about.
This song is about the idea that it would be possible to take the day off work, and have the best date ever.

Enjoy

 

http://soundcloud.com/bronimusic/holidayte 

 

 

Check out the other guys entries.
http://soundcloud.com/robdeez
http://soundcloud.com/kennyeng
http://soundcloud.com/sheblondeswede

A Song a Week Challenge with @robdeez and @kennyeng – Week 3 – Ambition/Wishing you were better at something

Whilst growing up, i was pretty decent at basketball, but pretty horrible at most other physical things.

Once, in grade 6, playing interschool football against St. Lukes, and wearing my long 90′s grunge locks (pretty cool for a 12 year old) tied back, I kicked the ball off the ground, which in this league, was against the rules.

As Glen Tucker from St. Lukes shouted and complained at the umpire/referee, i heard him say “calm down guys, let it go, it’s just a girl”

Yeah, that happened.

I’m still friends with a few ‘jocks’ – if you will. We often laugh and poke fun at our very obvious differences, i make fun of their bogan ‘change room’ blokey accents and they make fun of me for being just generally pretty weird. I like the juxtaposition in our friendship.
which is why, outside of the format of a 3 minute song, i could have written about 70 verses in this, because i observe sporty dudes every day.

However, i really got kick started on this song when i saw an instagram pic of 2 guys dressed exactly the same, tight shorts, way above the knee, tight singlets letting their pectorals pop, and shiny crucifixes around their neck. It made me laugh… that they seemed blistfully unaware of how exactly alike they look was amusing to me. But damn, they rocked those shorts pretty well.

So this song is a little tongue in cheek. It’s very silly, and it will probably never venture outside my soundcloud. But nevertheless, it’s my entry this week to the Song a Week Challenge.

Here it is:- http://soundcloud.com/bronimusic/i-wish-i-was-good-at-sports 

Check out the other guys entries.
RobDeez
kennyeng

A Song a Week challenge

I've been so content in one half of my music lately. I'm working with some amazing people on the current release and the next few releases. And my current single is racking up views on youtube faster than I expected – check it out

But underneath all that has been the knowledge that I hadn't taken a new song to completion in about 10 months. That song being 'I'm better than your boyfriend' and before that I can't even remember the last song.

I have many a voice memo of an idea I sung to my phone in the car, or a chord progression i was unmotivated to sing to.

And I started to wonder, have I recorded my last batch of songs?

Dramatic, I know. But I'm sure anyone who's gone through this knows what I'm talking about.

I know how to phone it in, and write a song on command, it's not the writing that's hard for me… It's liking what I write that I struggle with. So I've been reluctant to commit to anything and say, unequivocally 'I believe in this song and these lyrics' as I've been able to do with songs in the past.

So I've been searching for something to get me out of this rut. One of my best friends has really serious cancer, its an emotional goldmine of a muse. But I can't go there, it's too close to me right now, I can't step back and really express what it all means to me. Instead I find myself just singing things like “you have cancer, and that fuckin sucks” which we both know, from me, would be a weird song.

Alas, I've continued to struggle finding inspiration to write.

Then my dear friends Rob Deez and Kenny Eng were discussing a weekly songwriting challenge, and it piqued my interest immediately. Every Tuesday night a topic is chosen, by the next Wednesday it has to be completed and uploaded to soundcloud or you owe the other two a 6 pack of beer (stakes are even higher because they live in the US so I'd have to deliver the beer online)

This to me was a perfect way to get writing, and be held accountable for seeing even the crappiest ideas through to the end. The worst that will happen is ill get better at writing or ill owe them lots of beer. So I jumped on in. And the 3 of us are in week 2

The topid of week one was – Elevator/Crush on a Co-worker

Here are our entries

Me: Fries are Cooking

Rob: LF8R Music

Kenny: link coming soon

This weeks topic was – Soul/Giving up

Me: What you said made me sad

Kenny: link coming soon

Rob: Just Keep Swimming

So, now I'm even accountable to you, the audience, who will be aware each week of my failures or successes in the art of songwriting.

Wish me luck, and I hope you like at least 33 percent of the songs. Hot tip – I hate fries are cooking but I've gotta let you hear it, thems the rules.

Hope you're all smiling.

See you with next weeks song.

Love Broni

 

 

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A Song a Week challenge.

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Lots of song ideas. Zero songs.

I’m at ‘small bar’ in San Diego… I’ve blogged from here before. The girl who gives me free drinks seems to have quit. So i paid for this beer.

I’ve been stuck in this cycle of having great melodies it with no words to put to them… or having lyrics i like with no melodies to suit the mood.
It’s very frustrating.
I’ve said it before, I hate the idea of someone stumbling across my voice memos or notes on my phone if I die unexpectedly, it won’t be quite the gold mine that Jeff Buckleys studio tapes were.
So since I’m also lacking a new blog, here’s a Song idea I had…. In text form.

Enjoy.

Grand Junction Colorado.

I was in grand junction colorado.
and Cruisers was apparently the place to go.
a red faced man was next to me, his name was Carl.
i know this Because he was flirting with sarah the bargirl.

When I have rings on my finger
I just wanna hit people.
Don’t you just wanna hit people?

I haven’t hit people since I got out. Replied his friend. I’d elbow this guy right here.

…. What else is there to do in grand junction? I extend. Trying to deflect my fear.

Are you hearing this fuckin guy.
Fuckin teen wolf over here.

…… Oh dear.

This reminds me of being hit by Mr. Prouse, only now I’m more aware.
He hit me out the back of Hayden’s house. – I used to care.
He said I boo’d him at graduation, and that it upset him because his grandma was there.

… It’s unfair,

because I didn’t. But it wasn’t about that. He just didn’t like me, I’m sure now he’d admit it.

I could laugh about little things and embrace the quirks of the world.
He would search for reasons to hit people because he couldn’t talk to girls.

The cops called me after my broken nose had healed. But I told them, to drop the case.
He’s not worth the effort. Despite my new crooked face.

He came into my work one day, and he called me a pussy for not looking in his direction.
It would have been wise after that for him to do a burger inspection.

How about Mr. Munchow? He used to taunt me at parties. Tell me to take it outside
But he’s not worth writing about.. Coz i imagine he’d grin with pride.

So you see, Mum. No need to be concerned about grand junction Colorado.
There’s jerks all over the world, just gotta know when to go.

And hey, if these boys are still to young to take this with a grain of salt.
I guess I’ll spend more years humorously avoiding assault.

Fin (ished)

In unrelated news, here’s a new episode of Songs I Wish I Wrote.
This is ‘Lead Balloon’ by Sarah Humphreys. I’m delighted to call her a friend.

Sarah and I are Launching our respective new releases on October the 26th at The Wesley Anne. (250 high st, Northcote) make sure you’re free.