Posted by  Patrick in on May 26, 2006 at 2:42 AM
|
|
![]()
Audio Rage is a musical project done by computer applications, various musical instruments and TWO musicians. It's what Patrick "Audio" Lew calls Audio Rage "band in the box." The music and band Audio Rage mostly does their music on a PC computer using computer applications purchased from Guitar Center or Best Buy. It also includes MIDI keyboards and electric guitars picked up from the shop. This is Audio's story!
When Patrick was desperate to form another group of musicians to do his love for playing music, he met 15-year old Eddie Blackburn at his drama class at Wallenberg School of Arts. An aspiring musician that also played electric guitar and shared Patrick Lew’s interest in Guitar Music Culture and its icons like Steve Vai, the two quickly agreed to form a band together. Patrick at some point, put a “band wanted” ad on the school newspaper, but to little results.
The two musicians had IDEAS for the group and the music…Audio Rage was intended to be a SOLO PROJECT of sorts for Patrick “Audio” Lew. Another but different musical project would be in the works later on. Eddie contributed to Audio Rage as a session/studio guitarist. He would however, play live with the band during their May-June 2004 “starving musician” gigs.
Patrick then called upon a friend, Mayumi, from the school’s Japanese culture club, to join Audio Rage on bass. Thus forming its most significant and famous version of the Rock Ensemble’s lineup.
Usually, the whole group would do a band practice in each other’s houses to play music as a hobby. One thing about the most FAMOUS lineup of Audio Rage was they had no drummer. So Eddie used his $$$ and bought a drum machine from a local music store as a substitute for the whole musical group and band. Throughout 2003 and early 2004, Audio Rage began a “sort of” Making the Band as the musicians planned their ideas out for long-term musical activities and their future as members of the Audio Rage band camp.
Around the “Making the Band” story of Samurai Sorcerers/Audio Rage during this time, controversy began to surround the musical group as the musicians outside the band began having their personal lives (Patrick mostly) exposed at school, the SF community and etc. This slowed down the process of getting the music and the whole musical group thing working, but they still fought hard.
In mid 2004, the ensemble of musicians known as “Audio Rage” decided to some of the more FUN musical activities for the band…They would do “starving artist” gigs and perform their musical work in a street corner in Downtown SF or for Patrick’s drama class back at school. At some gigs, Patrick brought along with him an OLD boombox to tape the performances the whole band did. The quality of these live bootleg recordings of the Audio Rage’ “starving artist” gigs were poor, but some managed to be showcased via internet.
Audio Rage planned a live EP/VCD for the famous “starving musicians” tour in May-June 2004, but plans were cancelled.
On May 31, 2004, two of the aspiring musicians/artists from the band Patrick and Mayumi went to the record shop at Haight-Ashbury called Amoeba Music to see J-Pop singer Nami Tamaki live for a free concert. After the musical performance from the great Japanese pop idol, an autograph session was held and both members of Audio Rage got Nami Tamaki’s CD “Greeting” which they bought at the store that day signed, and left home happy.
That diary and memorable event in Patrick Lew’s life and music led to the band to write the song “Tokyo Pop Princess” as an ode to that real-life “dear diary” moment on the band’s online journals. It eventually became Audio Rage's FIRST big and well-known song from their catalog of musical work.
The band took the whole summer of 2004 off as Patrick graduated from Wallenberg High School and went to community college at City College of San Francisco (Eddie would go there 2 years later). Mayumi went on a family trip to Japan and Eddie focused on other musical projects. Patrick was unaware at the time that his good musician friend and bandmate from Audio Rage, Eddie, was either uninterested in doing an ALTERNATIVE project to Audio Rage. So Patrick placed an ad on Craigslist.org to create that idea.
It didn’t work anyhow. Patrick’s plan for the alternate band and project to Audio Rage didn’t go as planned. But a change in the musical group’s roster would occur.
Mayumi left the band on August 22, 2004, focusing more on education and college. Her bass playing role was left vacant for a few months…But Eddie and Patrick decided to go back to the local music store and prepare themselves for a memorable band practice and “live-in-the-house” musical performance at Patrick’s house on September 12, 2004 which this famous jam session became broadcasted as an Internet-only Audio Rage live concert for the fans on their personal webpage. Shortly after this, Eddie’s good friend and talented artist Shanti Blacharski joined the Audio Rage band camp on bass as the NEW but talented musician in the band’s ever-changing lineup.
At the time...Patrick, Eddie and Shawn would try to CREATE a rock n’ roll supergroup of musician friends called "Lucifer's Sound" from the CITY through the band/music geeks club. Some time around October 2004, two session musicians recruited from the band’s MySpace social-networking music webpage Janet Wang (DJ) and Mony Ngin (Drums) joined Patrick's main band Audio Rage for an “online musical/band collaboration.”
Although the musicians were not in the room inside the home studio at the same time, the five musicians as Audio Rage still played music together and recorded their musical instruments through the 4-track computer studio console separately for the “Psychotic Love” album. Also…Mayumi’s bass parts that were recorded also were kept in the band practice vaults as the band’s diaries and master tapes of their music were kept in there before release.
On October 23, 2004, minus Janet and Mony since they were ONLINE friends of the rock n’ roll band, the musical group project Lucifer's Sound went into Eddie’s house to record some songs for an ALTERNATE band project to Audio Rage which Eddie and Patrick planned to do. The friends made music at Eddie’s home in San Francisco and had dinner at a Taco Bell fast food outlet, but the album remained unfinished and kept in the library until May 2005.
For the rest of 2004 and early 2005, Patrick "Audio" Lew's one-man band Audio Rage played music for community colleges, Haight-Ashbury stores and Balboa High to a live tour in support the upcoming “Psychotic Love” album. “Psychotic Love” was finally ready and released for fans on the internet on DMD websites like SoundClick.com on December 6, 2004. This demo tape became the band’s 1ST official studio album, the music was a mix of all styles the band were influenced by from the music they got on iTunes or at a record store. The unique musical fusion of electronica, hard rock and teen pop became the centre of Audio Rage's sound.
On February 13, 2005, Audio Rage played music for their last stop on the “Psychotic Love” tour at Balboa High. The band Audio Rage will take a short break from their musical activities as Patrick and Eddie's musical project together Lucifer's Sound will soon head into Eddie's home studio to record a new album which musical equipment and instruments picked up from a Guitar Center store, which might be followed by a tour across SF Bay Area to play music for gigs. However, Lucifer's Sound, the FUN BAND that Patrick and Eddie plays music in, have yet to promote or publish the music for the album on a CD they recorded in Eddie's house through Apple GarageBand 2 and their rock instruments, "Blizzard of Sound," on the internet through the band's webpage.
The musical activities of Patrick Lew and Eddie Blackburn came back in schedule around May 2005 as the musicians for their NEW BAND & MUSIC "Lucifer's Sound" got together to play music again for band practices at Eddie’s house as the “reunited” group of the band came together to make music and songs for a new studio album. Now, the “art school” ensemble of best musician friends were using computers along with various musical instruments to make a new album.
Fans were excited about it. Unfortunately this would prove to be the end of the musical relationship between Patrick "Audio" Lew and Eddie Blackburn.
On popular social-networking website MySpace.com, Patrick Lew won runner-up prize for a “Sexy Asian musicians” contest to get their bands showcased on their website. The alternate band project Lucifer's Sound and the music they made back in October 2004 was finally released as “The Blizzard of Sound” as part of Patrick and Eddie's FUN BAND to play music in. It met with bad results as Eddie was not happy with the finished musical product, and when the DMD was being sold on the Samurai Sorcerers website…It immediately got taken down.
Some would say this caused a growing tension between Patrick and his friend Eddie. It actually did. On June 8, 2005, Patrick and Eddie's last musical performance playing music together occurred at Riordan High’s school gym. Audio Rage and their band Lucifer's Sound by now, had many and various personal webpages online to showcase their band and music.
Lucifer's Sound broke up on 10th August 2005. Eddie and Shawn went onto form the new band Logic’s Enemy. Patrick Lew however, purchased the exclusive copyrights to Audio Rage's music, product and project and continues music with Audio Rage when playing music. Most Lucifer's Sound personal webpages on the internet through musician/band showcase websites like MySpace, SoundClick or PureVolume had been revised into Audio Rage/Patrick Lew webpages and music profiles. Audio Rage has been DIY their music and personal webpages through flyers made at a Kinkos store by handing them out at record shops and through Patrick's community college. Their music can be heard on popular social-networking website MySpace.com @ www.myspace.com/bandofasians. Although Logic's Enemy does not have any music profiles on any personal webpage, but frequently performs music for gigs live.
All three of the musicians for Lucifer's Sound lineup embarked on solo projects in their musical activities. Patrick with Audio Rage, Eddie and Shawn with Logic's Enemy. As for the other bandmembers, Mayumi is focused on college and education. Zack maintains a close friendship with Patrick but is also focused on community college and education. Mony hasn't been heard from since the summer of 2006. Janet Wang has her own J-Rock band set up.
lucifer {band} - musical story & career
formed: 2004
musicians/bandmembers: audio (all instruments)
instruments: guitar, keyboards, drum machine...and no bass guitar, because it is for pussies!
influenced by: black sabbath, slayer, iron maiden, megadeth, steve vai, randy rhoads
NOTE: This biography is 50% FACT and 50% FICTION...It's a fantasy death metal music story on my one-man band.
lucifier {band} made their music on various musical instruments its one-man band patrick "audio" lew shoplifted from best buy and guitar center stores to create his one-man metal band lucifer in daly city. an outcast at city college of san francisco, where he studied music and computers...audio had lived a lifestyle that wasn't all about music and college, he lived the death metal music & culture through his musical, college and social activities.
the crappy musician in a one-man "band in the box" called lucifer, patrick "audio" lew was born on november 15, 1985 in the city of san francisco. coming from a broken home while school life was bad, audio began getting into music and video games at the age of 6. he went to a music school near his house to learn how to play piano, and then as a teenager...got an electric guitar from a music store for $150. he got some lessons to play guitar at his music school but mostly learned on his own through "how to" books. while lucifer didn't really start playing music in audio's resume until 2004, audio has been making music since he first got his electric guitar from haight-ashbury music shop. so technically speaking, lucifer began their musical career and activities through audio's death metal music resume since 1999 (or 2000). he made several demo tapes of lucifer through a 4-track portable tascam cassette device along with his keyboards (which he stole from costco) and electric guitar.
some of these early lucifer demos can be heard on a few personal webpages on the internet/computer somewhere, with the music dating as early as to 2001 when audio's computer expertise allowed him to set up a music profile on a webpage and put his songs there.
when patrick "audio" lew was 17, he formed a hard rock band called samurai sorcerers through an ad in the paper and with friends he knew from sf public high school. he met musicians in the band at school, and the other bandmembers he met off craigslist.org at band practice in audio's house. the samurai sorcerers was mostly a hard rock and grunge ensemble of talented (or not-so-talented) musicians that played the gigs at school or small-scale performances at other places. the samurai sorcerers consisted of audio (rhythm guitar, vocals), the wizard (guitar) and audio's ex-japanese girlfriend hiroko (bass). the other members, shadow lady (keyboards) and skunky (drums) were on-and-off again members of the samurai sorcerers band.
one evening after a gig, hiroko and audio began making a sex tape in the bedroom of audio's house...a hot steamy night of "love making" after playing music for a playground festival in their band. audio, by reference of hiroko's diary, had assualted hiroko and got her pregnant. this occurred sometime around august 22, 2004 when hiroko and audio were making music at mission recording studios and took the bart train and muni bus home back to audio's house. this incident led to hiroko quitting audio's band. when this event was published on hiroko's livejournal, it became headlines in the local newspapers and sf music scene.
audio was arrested, and spent nearly 6 months in prison for "beating" on hiroko. when he got out, he was a community college student at ccsf but was rejected by most students on campus. hiroko eventually got an abortion...and often criticizes her former asian boyfriend audio for various reasons on her livejournal webpage.
the samurai sorcerers tried to get it as a band by may 2005, they went into mission recording studios and had already released two albums ("psychotic love" and "blizzard of sound") as the music studio signed the band to a two-year recording contract. but tensions ran high with the wizard and audio. shadow lady quit the band after a dispute with audio, and when the wizard and audio began planning to make music for a new cd...they disputed where to go. audio wanted to bring computer software and electronics to the band, going for a more ambient/dark wave sound while the wizard wanted to stick with just guitar-based rock & roll.
a rift set the two best friends from high school apart for samurai sorcerers...the band fired patrick "audio" lew on september 21, 2005 as the wizard sent audio an e-mail at the school library saying "he's fired."
rather than go to community college, audio set up his own one-man band "lucifer" and stole a couple computer programs from a best buy store to set up his own recording studio and music workshop at home. as lucifer began playing/making music in audio's bedroom where his workshop is located, lucifer began revising many of the samurai sorcerers webpages into his own lucifer band. audio also set up his own record label exclusively to lucifer music and products called lucifer's rage music. he also made his own personal webpage dedicated to lucifer.
the lucifer band in audio's musical resume was officially launched by october 23, 2005. quitting college and doing music as his way of life.
lucifer didn't like touring as much. musical performances and gigs in front of an audience at clubs, playgrounds or etc wasn't on lucifer's activity handbook. instead, lucifer mostly focus on studio work to perfect (in a crappy way) their studio recordings inside audio's bedroom.
lucifer made music and put out an ep called "band of asians" which was recorded on digital music software and technology - mixing in loops, guitars and jamming with some metal musicians - on may 8, 2006. they also made some tv appearances on ccsf tv network to play gigs at the diego rivera theater. but audio soon got himself into more trouble...this time, he played evil.
a former friend of audio's named knuckles tried to steal the spotlight away from him when he joined lucifer as a dj when the two asian dudes met at city college. claiming knuckles was more "cooler" and can get more girls than audio can, not to mention knuckles' girlfriend kagome allegedly making audio look horrible...on june 10, 2006...after 1/2 year of musical activities (i.e. ccsf gigs, recording in the studio etc) audio murdered knuckles and kagome brutally inside their home in daly city with an ak-47 rifle, and decided to bury their bodies out in the backyard.
audio was arrested and is awaiting trial for the murders of knuckles and kagome. but audio claimed it was self-defense during that disgusting june 10th 2006 evening at knuckles' house where his life was endangered.
however, audio married a mexican woman he met through a dating ad on craigslist.org...maria mendez. his sensual appetite for women always led him to find ways to meet his "future wife" on dating websites like craigslist or myspace on the internet. maria mendez would join lucifer on turntables, eventually replacing dead musician knuckles.
band in the box? your local music/guitar store proudly brings to you...a METAL band called LUCIFER that makes their music on various computer applications we got from a BEST BUY store and GOODWILL thrift store guitars and musical instruments! LUCIFER is supposed to be a musical group/project that makes DEATH METAL MUSIC on computers and musical instruments, a simple "back to basics" on my musical career and musician's lifestyle without making ART on computers and various musical instruments with Samurai Sorcerers. JUST PURE METAL MUSIC!!! that is of course, made on my Magix Music Maker computer program and my [bleep]ty guitar.
Why this name?
at various bookstores and at the Miyako Music Center in Japantown, i always loved to read mangas (i.e. japanese comic books) with good STORIES and ART in those books. one anime in particular, Kaikan Phrase...which was a storybook about a J-Rock band trying to make it as musicians playing music had a band called /\ucifer, which spells out Lucifer. the reason this comic book i bought at the record store that sells expensive (and i mean $$$) japanese music, movies and books...was the anime had all the elements of a typical ROCK & ROLL story of any musicians playing music in a famous rock ensemble. not to mention the SEX, DRUGS along with the MUSIC. i also got another manga (except it's in Japanese) called Beck, it's also one of those animes that dealt with musicians in any band living life the way they want it. community college, playing music in band and etc. the main dude in the manga Beck was a musician and rhythm guitarist in his J-Rock band also called BECK and always ended up never getting the girl of his dreams from community college. one of the reasons why i take the FUN and ANGST by putting this musical project together called Lucifer, the San Francisco version of a musical group with this bandname.
Do you play live?
well, i try to play music for gigs live. so far...NO LUCK. i do however, go to the local Guitar Center in the city to play various musical instruments and do my music shopping for [bleep]ing guitars and keyboards which i might need in long-term musical activies, such as my [bleep]ing inactive musical project/group...Samurai Sorcerers. since that band doesn't have any musicians in it and i don't wanna put a "band wanted" ad in the local newspaper. so i am just gonna do Lucifer and have fun going back to my METAL ROOTS doing this kind of music in my resume and band where i would make all this music on a computer program along with my cheap ol' guitar and portable Marshall guitar/bass amp i could probably donate for $$$ and charity at a Goodwill thrift store...something like that in shops since i got lots of CDs and good stuff at a Goodwill thrift store near Daly City right by the Walgreens.
How, do you think, does the internet (or mp3) change the music industry?
It's worth a shot. Bands and musicians can host themselves on their own websites since the 21st century and Y2K scare, and because MP3s are valuable to promoting your music online....It's gonna build you a following. Many people around the globe use the internet and computers and stuff. So that's why it changed the way music can be presented. Now A & R dudes are looking for talent on websites now to showcase....Thank god for new technology and the 21st century! But GOOGLE in "Samurai Sorcerers" or
"Patrick Lew" for more personal fan webpages for me and my music.
Would you sign a record contract with a major label?
Of course. Why not? I've been promoting my music via internet through my PureVolume and MySpace personal webpages for years...I've got tons of online newspaper articles published on Lucifer (SF Band) and my inactive band Samurai Sorcerers...I want to play music for gigs and musical festivals. I also want to go to {when it's opened} City College of San Francisco's music studio to focus on studio recordings and other places to make music. Wow! What a dream.
Your influences?
Every now and then, I would go outside for a walk and put my favorite bands and their songs on my CD player which I got at a Walgreens store for $20.00 during a trip to Civic Center/Japantown SF as I go for a long walk to reminisce or relax in the bright California sunlight and skies. It's a pleasant feeling as I put these headphones in my ears as I hear a beautiful voice sing those words to me and the sound of the calm, gentle and soothing acoustic guitar as I am currently listening to my favorite White Lion album "Big Game" with the songs I put on my computer into this portable audio devive that plays compact discs. Everytime I hear something inspirational, it makes me look back or simply...Feeling inspired through this hobby and dream of mines.
Equipment used:
just your typical musical instruments like guitars and a computer program i got at Best Buy called "Magix Music Maker" to record all of my music!
|
|
User Comments
You must be logged in to post replies to news articles.
Log in or register with the form at the top of the page.
|
|
|
|
