Yay! My new company (Jamie Bonk Music) is finally up and going. BC government registration, business bank account and SOCAN/ASCAP publisher agreement all in place!!
“Already Said Goodbye”
I’m a trusting person by nature, which means I occasionally get blindsided and I just can’t see that someone has “Already Said Goodbye”. This is another song I’m putting on my upcoming record and, as always, I hope you like it.
© 2016 Bonk Productions
“Time To Choose”
Sometimes things don’t go exactly as planned and you come to a “Time To Choose”. I’m putting this tune on my new album… Just have to figure out the arrangement/production. Hope you like the song!
© 2016 Bonk Productions
“The Blessings I Have Known”
Here’s a tune that’ll be on my new album. It’s called “The Blessings I Have Known” and I hope you like it!
© 2016 Bonk Productions
Practice Session
Great practice session today. Ran straight through my folk/singer-songwriter set from memory… 21 tunes (14 originals and 7 covers). About an hour and twenty-one minutes in length… Or roughly half the length of a single Rush tune : ). I may add in a few more songs, but I’m getting close to my goal of becoming a wandering troubadour.
Shelly and Kelly | Race Day
Just released the brand new Shelly and Kelly | “Race Day” video! I’ve had so much fun mixing and writing songs for the Shelly and Kelly cartoons. We have two of my friends singing on “Race Day”. It’s Wendy Irvine‘s stellar vocals on the theme song and Ron “Tommy The Tuna” Scott does the singing on “Awesome Day!”. Somehow I don’t think Ron would have guessed he’d end up as a singing tuna when we met 20 plus years ago : )
New Acoustic Pedalboard
Yesterday I put together a new acoustic pedalboard. I was hoping to keep my gear to an absolute minimum and just have a Radial PZ-Deluxe on the floor, but I found I needed a few extra pieces of the puzzle. The only real effect on the board is the TC Electronic Hall Of Fame Reverb and I’m going to use that mainly as a way to compensate for room acoustics. Right now, I’m into playing pretty much as effect free as I can be.
There were a few “challenges” putting together this board. The first one is size. It was tough getting everything to fit on the Pedaltrain Nano +, but I wanted the board to be as compact as possible. The second one was powering the PZ Deluxe. I’m a huge fan of Radial gear — it’s built like a tank and sounds absolutely first rate. But I’m not a fan of their 15v 400mA power requirements. Tough to find a power supply that can meet their needs. Thankfully, Radial came out with the StageBug, which is a signal buffer and 9v to 15 v converter. Basically, I’m taking one 9v 400mA and one 9v 100mA from the Pedal Power ISO 5 and feeding those into the StageBug. The StageBug then powers the PZ Deluxe. Works perfectly and keeps the board neat and clean.
The third challenge was learning about true bypass pedals. I was surprised to find that having a true bypass pedal first in the signal chain would cause a level increase when I engaged the pedal. When I use the StageBug to buffer the signal there is no level change. I’m also not really into the “pop” you get when you engage a true bypass pedal. This is not going to affect me as I’m going to either have the pedal on or off for entire gigs. The Hall Of Fame lets you switch the pedal from true bypass to buffered via a DIP switch inside the pedal. I think my board sounded and felt better with the Hall Of Fame left in true bypass, so that’s how I’m using it.
The TC Electronic PolyTune Mini 2 is great for my needs — small, bright and most importantly accurate. I’ve used the PolyTune app on my phone for years now and love it, so it made sense to get the pedal for this board.
This is best pedalboard I’ve ever had/made. Truly sounds incredible!
All We Can Be
Here’s another tune (“All We Can Be”) from my upcoming album. I’ve always loved writing tender, quiet ballads — songs that are fragile. This is one of those songs. I hope you like the music.
—–
“All We Can Be” — Words & Music by Jamie Bonk
Verse
Hold you close
Lightly with love
Whispers of hope
Fall from my breath
Nothing between us
I touch you softly
With dreams of a life
Always beside you
Chorus
I’ll give all to you
And you all to me
Together we will see
All we can be
Verse
Yours and mine
Words no more
Here as one
In love we are
Chorus
I’ll give all to you
And you all to me
Together we will see
All we can be
I’ll give all to you
And you all to me
Together we will see
All we can be
© 2015 Bonk Productions
Me and You
Here’s another tune (“Me And You”) that’s going to be on my upcoming album. I think most of us have had to deal with relationships that didn’t work out for one reason or another. “Me And You” is about that friction, but it’s also about loss. How someone is no longer in your life the way they used to be. I hope you like the song.
——-
“Me And You” – Words & Music by Jamie Bonk
Verse
The trouble with
What you say is
I know
It’s true
You can play this game
And I can too
I guess that’s the way it has to be
At least
At least for
Chorus
Me and you
For me and you
Verse
We can fight about this
Morning and night
In the end
Neither of us
Will be right
And all I really want to know is
What
What about
Chorus
Me and you
About
Me and you
Bridge
It’s the way we walk
The way we talk
The way we
Are
And who we are together
I see I still care for
Chorus
Me and you
For
Me and you
Verse
The easiest lie I can tell
Is the one to myself
It can feel good
But you’re fooling no one else
But the truth will always be that
I miss
Chorus
Me and you
Miss
Me and you
© 2015 Bonk Productions
Bob Dylan – “Chronicles (Volume One)”
Sometimes your expectations can play with you. That certainly was the case when I started reading Bob Dylan’s Chronicles (Volume One). I figured with the book titled Chronicles I would be reading a mostly point A to point B, story of my life biography. Well, I figured wrong.
Chronicles certainly has its fair share of “and then and then and then”. Most biographies have at least some degree of that sort of thing. But Dylan also leaves significant gaps in his story line. Gaps big and odd enough that I actually went back and looked to see if I had missed something. Or whether there were missing pages. The book also follows a circular structure – early life/career – middle life/career – early life/career. Couldn’t help but think of Pulp Fiction and how the film used a similar method to tell a story. Maybe Dylan was thinking about that too. Or maybe not.
It’s no secret that Dylan is a good songwriter and musician. Chronicles gives us a glimpse into just how well studied he was. He read, listened to and watched just about everything. He learned song after song after song. Played loads of gigs. He worked hard.
I learned a lot from reading Chronicles. Dylan has a brilliant way of looking at something and shifting perspective. Quite a few times I was left thinking, “Now that’s a unique way to think about that.”
Happy I read Chronicles (Volume One) and hoping for Chronicles (Volume Two).
