City College of San Francisco, the Musician Reject.

He enrolled at City College of San Francisco studying music and media/electronic arts, City College was a small, relatively conservative community college which is actually one of the best schools in America for students coming out of high school. There was the school where Patrick Lew studied music and electronic arts, and made a concerted most unsuccessful effort to fit in socially with other students.

By this time, the 19-year old Patrick Lew was working steadily with a local group, Samurai Sorcerers, whose repertoire was a combination of garage band punk originals, and G3/Steve Vai "concert oriented" guitar virtuoso numbers. They mostly did a combination of Nirvana, Blink-182, Steve Vai, Motley Crue, Van Halen, Oasis Guns N' Roses, Poison and other '80s and '90s mainstream rock groups, recalled many people who've seen the band perform in their garage. Then, Patrick Lew was starting to discover the complexity and unique ways of making music through a PC computer, digitial recording and music programs.

Despite his recollections of being a misfit, Patrick Lew did manage to make a few new friends at City College. Patrick Senter, at the time a 21-year old musician in one of Patrick's electronic media courses, played guitar with him one evening. His other friends included Jason Low, an aspiring 27-year old musician majoring in music as well. But his closest friend during his college years at City was a creative and intelligent intellectual by the name of Bruce "Zack" Huang. The two shared similar interests in film and music and eventually became good friends and musician buddies. Zack would later join Samurai Sorcerers as a MIDI Keyboardist in mid-2005 just shortly before the band broke up. Patrick rarely had female friends at City College, which embarassed him greatly. Patrick was so intent on getting a girlfriend at the time, all attempts to meet that special one at City College failed. But he did date a Japanese girl he met at a concert named Yoshiko Kuwamoto briefly in 2005.

While most boys in City College were into sports and cliques were very dominant on the college campus, Patrick was doing social activities outside the school by doing gigs and writing music on a PC and guitar and having equipment shipped to his bedroom. Patrick lived very close to City College, and took the 43 MUNI bus there on occasions. Patrick had then grew a deep affinity for electronic music, primarily because of his bandmates Eddie and Shawn from Samurai Sorcerers doing an ongoing touring group, Logic's Enemy. He was tinkering and experimenting with computer programming, and played a lot of keyboards. He was probably one of the few musicians to own a limited edition Epiphone Les Paul guitar with the slick '60s HOT WHEELS design, which he bought at Guitar Center for 200 bucks. Although Patrick was studying electronics at City College, he was already a semi-intermediate computer programmer, and was very adept with learning how to experiment with music on computers or keyboard instruments.

By the end of Patrick Lew's first year at City College, he had decided to put his academic efforts on the backburner in order to focus on his musical career. Unfortunately, he wounded up leaving City College in October 2005 because of isolation on college campus and he didn't supposedly "fit in" the school. He was also depressed and suicidal, after a recent breakup with an online girlfriend and the recent "falling out" with his bandmates and close high school friends Eddie and Shawn in Samurai Sorcerers. The Samurai Sorcerers did not play a gig since February of 2005, and was jamming with each other endlessly with Patrick's friend Zack on keyboards in Eddie's house in the Marina district in San Francisco, which was a 1 1/2 hour MUNI bus ride back to Patrick's house in the Excelsior district in the other side of the city. Patrick, Eddie, Shawn and Zack got together to play music with the typical two guitars, bass, drums and keyboards ROCK ENSEMBLE, but the efforts to create a new album failed for the group as different personalities of band members and etc.

Patrick was looking for a girlfriend at the time, but was unable to find a romance partner he was searching for during that life experience. In terms of being a college student and musician, he played music in his garage band Audio Rage and began purchasing instruments and PC applications from his trip to Guitar Center after school.

However, his first run at City was met with some controversy. Being a mid-carder in terms of social environment and popularity at school, things were not always moderate like his fame was at City College. He was publicly humiliated at the Ori-Wave school concert at the school's theater even though he was a member of the Band Originals club who created the live event. Patrick shown his disapproval at the concert in a concert report for his American music class, not being able to perform music with Audio Rage and feeling like being taken advantage of from the crowd.

Even if Patrick Lew didn't have a girlfriend at City College, he had some female friends at least. But most of his friends were musicians and artists, and his "real-life" girlfriend at the time was a Japanese girl he met backstage at his band Audio Rage's gig. Patrick somewhat felt like an outsider at school, although it's not a problem nowadays.

With his failure to reach in the upper "social and academic" division of talent at City College, not to mention hardships with his band Audio Rage not concerning their music being showcased online but not getting anywhere in the local music scene, Patrick's health problems added too, into a month of his second year at City College, he left the school abruptly in October 2005.

Towards the end of that year, Samurai Sorcerers was dead. But Patrick Lew received lots of computer music software from his buddy Zack whenever Patrick dropped by his condo which was a five minute walk to Geneva-Mission where Zack lived. He was traveling a lot back and forth in Asia. Patrick and his friend Zack hanged out a lot as well. He laid low for a little while, dating his short-term girlfriend Laila Foadian whom he met from one of the dating ads he placed on the internet. Laila was two years younger than Patrick, and found something special in him as a creative and artistic musician and artiste. The two young teenagers dated for three weeks into Christmas 2005. They apparently broke up from the relationship because Laila was somewhat taking a break from romance and dating. But having to choose between the choice of music and college, Patrick Lew chose both options in his life and career. Not too long before the New Year of 2006, Patrick already filled out an online application to Skyline College and thus resumed his academic studies for school, majoring yet again in music. And looking for the perfect woman and soulmate!

Skyline College

Patrick filled out an online application to resurface his college life at Skyline College from the San Mateo county. Although he signed a long-term contract with the community college on October 6, 2005 on campus, he would not make his college debut at Skyline until January 2006. The thing off was spent on artistic and creative interests like playing music in Audio Rage and traveling with his family in Hong Kong. He also took time off to "romances" with his girlfriend he met at his musical performance Yoshiko and Laila Foadian from Fremont through an internet dating site. Patrick kept busy, purchasing computer applications to "make music" at Best Buy and paying a visit to the music store for Christmas..

When Patrick Lew went to Skyline College, debuting at this school on January 17, 2006, he seemed to not go anywhere for the next few days. All that changed when he formed a clique and social network of friends at Skyline he called "School of Audio Rage" which included classmates and musician friends in the family. Some of his best friends here were Anthony, David, Shannon (his Valentine), Myra and etc. This clique and gang of Skyline friends became the elite of the college campus and it propelled Patrick Lew to main-event status at Skyline. While his grades were decent enough, his non-stop social life at Skyline in the school's cafeteria was legendary.

Usually on school campus, Patrick and his School of Audio Rage played music by bringing their guitars from home to school to play some rock & roll or even teach the clique how to play music better on a six-string axe. After school, life was all about hanging at Serramonte Mall. Patrick had a romantic rendezvous with his classmate Shannon Mifsud which became gossip in Audio Rage's website and on school.

However, life at Skyline would not be met without controversy. His circle of friends (some which included alumni's from City College) were the elite on campus and their on campus politics in the school cafeteria led them to become huge gossip and subject of controversy at Skyline. A rumor was spread that, Patrick and his friend from his network John were homosexual. Other rumors spread about Patrick, David and John's school behavior which led to several incidents which became high-profiled at school. Another rumor spread about the details on Patrick's crush on Shannon, but was more personal for Patrick to reveal publicly. Even to this day, Audio Rage's website doesn't reveal too much information on that on Patrick Lew's Xanga or Livejournal.

But fun at this college campus would be met with such pleasure. Patrick and his best friend David attended a local rap concert held at Skyline College's theater on February 19, 2006 which included well-known Bay Area hip-hop musicians and performers. Patrick's last hurrah at Skyline College was a rock & roll film festival held privately at the school on March 3, 2006, with Skyline's group of musicians and school rebels School of Audio Rage attending for the moviefest.

As much as his time at Skyline College was satisfying for his life, unfortunately Patrick Lew was unceremoniously fired from Skyline's dean of the college after a fight that broke out at outside the school with Patrick and a student named Aaron. The college event known by Patrick as "the Skyline screwjob" was the subject of much speculation and theories concerning the time Patrick Lew got expelled from Skyline College for 4 academic semesters. While this controversial moment at the school was highly researched and debated, Patrick was expelled and his friends from Skyline College were upset to say the least.

His last day as musician/artist student at Skyline College was on March 10, 2006 as a school cop told him privately, he was fired from the college.

Back Where He Belongs! Home Sweet Home @ City College of San Francisco!

Following his expulsion from Skyline, Patrick went to City College's office to sign a new school application and contract with City College as a re-admit student. News spread quickly on Patrick's return to the college he abandoned for Skyline on Audio Rage sites on the internet, and Patrick was in the most enthusiastic mood and shape of his life and career. On March 13, 2006, Patrick went into City College and confirmed on Audio Rage's website through an online podcast he signed a new contract with the school. He is currently trying to earn a vocational degree in Photography and possibly, get his music on the road. Recently, his band Audio Rage was making buzzes on the internet with their new music on various unsigned artist showcase places online. The Audio Rage MySpace profile currently is the "HOT SPOT" for Patrick Lew's music and life ramblings.

Although he makes frequent visits at the college, he isn't going to return to the school until summer of 2006.

While his friends at Skyline College are petitioning to get Patrick Lew back at their school, Patrick decided he might still consider going back to Skyline but might not make a comeback if offered a contract to return to their school if his 4-semester suspension was cleared from Skyline College's department


SILENT MINISTER - THE TRUTH SHALL BE FREE...

Patrick Lew was the leader of Samurai Sorcerers, one of the most infamous local bands from San Francisco.

Patrick started getting interested in rock n’ roll and blues music around the age of 6 or 7, and based on his traditional Asian parents’ request was learning piano at his elementary school. His first guitar was an electric Fender (Squier) that belonged to him as a birthday present. It wasn’t long before Patrick began teaching himself how to play an electric guitar through a Hal Leonard chord book and receiving three lessons at Vibo Music, a school near his house that specialized in childhood and teenage music training. First, Patrick began playing only the same set of chord progressions in different patterns on his electric guitar. He only knew six chords prior to getting lessons at Vibo, and soon began studying the electric guitar seriously if he wanted to play rock n’ roll music. His prior musical background included piano/keyboards, now he was going to take the challenge of playing a rock instrument. Other than that, Patrick also took up bass guitar for awhile and taught himself how to play bass through a book as well,

Learning basic rock guitar fundamentals from his teacher Ahmed Drief at Vibo Music, Patrick set and branched out on his own as a guitarist and amateur musician. In his spare time, Patrick played guitar in his bedroom and recorded home demos of his music on occasion. Usually, Patrick was never occupied in a full-time band. Usually it was hard for Patrick to find guitarists or other players of instruments to form a band because he didn’t know many kids at school who was into his style of music. His first band was called Famiglia and lasted 4 to 6 months together in the year 2001. He met these former bandmates of his from an ad he placed in the SF Chronicle, and they played in Patrick’s garage together only to end in quarrels over Patrick’s musicianship shortcomings. Patrick was Famiglia’s rhythm guitarist and his guitar playing skills didn’t please the musicians in the band who played better than him. Patrick was also playing rhythm guitar (and occasionally keyboards) at home making his own solo demos of his music because his parents were not happy with his grades at school and given up garage band to do better in school and build a high school relationship with a girl named Amy. He stopped playing music for awhile, and took up interests in high school with friends and trying to get his grades up.

By the time Patrick reached 11th grade, he went through a stormy and troubled teenage life and found his love of music and artistry his main ambition. When he skipped his math class one afternoon, he went backstage at a high school talent show and met his one-time guitarist and best friend Eddie Blackburn playing his Gibson Les Paul with a few friends on the bleachers. It was a fantastic moment, and the two musicians (or guitarists) spent time talking to each other about rock n’ roll and the blues. Building a fast but short-lived friendship, Patrick and Eddie formed a band together called the Sorcerers. The Sorcerers consisted of Patrick on rhythm guitar, Eddie as the lead guitar and a good friend of Patrick’s at school Mayumi on bass. While the Sorcerers did not last long-term as a garage band, it was a 2 to 3 year tenure for a band of amateur musicians (Eddie was a professional musician at a young age) that spent time to play music together in the studio on a weekend afternoon. The Sorcerers began playing parties around the San Francisco area, as the garage band worked on a weekend basis in the studio. The only problem was the band had no drummer because good ones were hard to find locally, but it was solved as a drum machine was used throughout the band’s performances in the studio or onstage.

The Sorcerers was formed some time around early 2003. They mainly spent every other weekend playing together in the studio but also was not 100% committed to the project as every band member would spend more time doing other interests than playing in a garage band together. Mayumi somehow didn’t had much musical background and was on-and-off again in the band only to focus more on school than play music. Eddie was playing in many different local teenage bands in front of a crowd. Meanwhile, Patrick was mostly making his own ideas for the Sorcerers through home demos in his bedroom while going through lots of trauma as a person. He got out of broken romances and struggled with depression and drugs, only to lose his one-time high school friendship with his pal Amy.

October of 2004 saw Patrick Lew making a step further when playing rock n’ roll music. His obsession with getting a better and new electric guitar grew over the years and the old Fender that belonged to him as a birthday gift was no longer relevant towards his playing music in the studio, He disliked the sound of the guitar when playing the six-string axe through his rack amps, so he purchased himself a custom Les Paul at a music shop. His Les Paul had the slick ‘60s hot rod design on the semi-hollow body, which the instrument itself became synonymous whenever Patrick played guitar in his band in the studio, onstage or he was posing with the instrument on a press photo. Although he still had primitive musicianship, he didn’t care much about how well he played as long as he could write a story through lyrics and tell them when he sang and played guitar at the same time.

In April of 2005, Patrick Lew announced to the world that Samurai Sorcerers is either “dead” or “on hiatus.” A month later, Patrick Lew and the other Samurai members Eddie and Shawn reunited to do some recording for an intended reunion album. The studio session did not last very long, and talks of the album were still ongoing but it was stifled. Unbeknownst to the band at the time, an unauthorized version of the October 2004 session was finally released as “Blizzard of Sound.” No one knows exactly how the album of the last Samurai session leaked, but the band was very upset and a permanent injunction was put to erase the album from the Samurai band’s catalog. This sadly caused a growing tension between Patrick and Eddie and the two no longer speak often nor does Eddie even remember Patrick and his Samurai Sorcerers bandname.

Two months before the injunction of “Blizzard of Sound,” the classic line-up and original Samurai Sorcerers made an appearance at the Wallenberg High c/o 2005 graduation on June 8, 2005. This was the last time the band ever appeared together in public or spoke to each other. Sadly, this day proved to be sentimental and tragic as Patrick Lew’s grandmother passed away on this day.

The Enigmatic Patrick Lew
For a few months after his band Samurai split apart, Patrick retreated into solitude. After the “this band can play the fuck out” rock album he scrapped it, and began work on another album without Eddie Blackburn. Around July 2005, he hired an unknown lead/rhythm guitarist Mark Holmes. A few months earlier, his best friend from CCSF Bruce Huang joined the band on keyboards and served as a co-producer. Although the Patrick Lew’s band did not had a drummer, the band used a drum machine as a substitute in the studio and future onstage gigs.

Within the next few months Patrick would record, re-record, delete, edit, hire fire, and do just about anything within his power in the band. He recruited some unknown local musical artists and production assistants for tips and advice on making his new album – which included his former high school friend, a gothic girl known as Nadia who stopped by to supply vocals to a punk song with Patrick in the studio. (Which will not be included and released on his album, but instead, one of his side project “sequels” Patrick and Nadia had planned.

In August 2005, Patrick briefly returned to the spotlight and faced a setback as his former Samurai Sorcerers guitarist Blackburn was very unhappy over copyright and publishing of what he called “his music and work of art” for Samurai. Because of this conflict, Patrick Lew had to revoke his credits to the recordings of Eddie Blackburn and Shawn Blacharski’s musical work which was released as a studio recording: “Blizzard of Sound.” Although everything on this “released” album was billed under “Samurai Sorcerers,” it was claimed that Patrick Lew did not play any music on this recording when this album was recorded in the studio back in October 23, 2004. It was reported that either Patrick’s contributions to the “Blizzard” album was erased completely, or Blackburn came to the studio (with Patrick not present, of course) to re-record guitar bits. The unauthorized Samurai Sorcerers second album “Blizzard of Sound” was released in May 2005, and was later deleted from the band’s catalog and was no longer billed as a Samurai Sorcerers recording but an Eddie Blackburn solo album called “Only to Come.”

Apart from the musical battle with his former bandmates, Patrick also did release and publish a new song on an online radio station, aptly named “Ride the Dragon.” It was actually a demo recording of the song Patrick had no intentions planning to improve on, but was contractually obligated to deliver new music to his eager audience. Patrick spent hours in his studio programming the song on a cheap music maker on a PC and disliked the final product because it was too short of an epic like Patrick Lew’s past musical recordings. He later claimed this remix will be on his next solo record despite his dislike of the song he made on a PC. Although it was played on online radio quite often during the summer of 2005, when Patrick was in litigation with former bandmates Eddie and Shawn.

Critical praise was split in two different sides – some claimed it was a new-age Psychotic Love-style anime electronic song whilst others said it was more suited for DJ and electronic artists such as Moby and Paul Van Dyke. But one thing for sure, it was another example of Patrick’s reinvention of his musical stylings in his work – at this point having released rock, hard rock, ballads, folk, acoustic, techno, J-Pop, metal, punk, country, and so on.

Also in 2005, Patrick re-recorded some of the tracks from the iconic “Psychotic Love” album with his new band in his studio as a “practice and jam session.” Although Patrick also felt the recording was way beyond any of his expectations. Although some of the few who have heard the new band’s recording said it was “okay” but “not bad at all,” Patrick felt it sounded terrible and all over the ranch. Patrick Lew’s decline as an underground rock sensation was not close, but it was pretty close to being over.

Personal matters split Patrick’s time and effort in making “good” music. He acquainted romantically with a young girl he met on the internet, but the relationship barely lasted two weeks and ended in shambles. Although Patrick has somewhat reconciled with this girl, the heartbreak still rages in.

And on October 28, 2005, Patrick revealed in a press release he was on his way to play in Asia for CD promotion and coinciding his twentieth birthday with a live performance at a sushi bar in Hong Kong with his family.

Return From Exile
For most fans, Lew seemed on the brink of delivery. By the end of summer 2005, he invited an online rock journal to preview a dozen tracks of his new musical ideas for Silent Minister. Then abruptly, Patrick Lew’s two former bandmates and friends in Silent Minister, Eddie Blackburn and Shanti Blacharski, litigated and persuaded Patrick Lew to change the publishing and copyrights to Silent Minister’s music. The two former Silent Minister members won the libel case. But that didn’t stop Patrick Lew and Silent Minister from delivering a public performance together.

Once more though, Silent Minister seemed to hint at a conclusion of new musical ambitions and frontiers when a little after 4am on Halloween 2005, Silent Minister Band arrived in Korea, where Lew unveiled his latest line-up and participated in a CD promotion of “Blizzard of Sound” which was originally scheduled with the band when Eddie and Shawn were still in the band in the summer but got cancelled abruptly when both of the former group members of Silent Minister abruptly quit. The Korean people where Patrick Lew and his Silent Minister Band visited warmly buoyed his confidence and warmly greeted the deeply troubled musician.

But when going to mainland China for more CD promotion of “Blizzard,” Silent Minister had a hard time trying to maintain themselves. The 2005 Asian CD promotion for Silent Minister was difficult due to the fact partially, the tour was spearheaded by Patrick Lew’s parents and they thought it would have been strange to bring a guitar and amp with them to perform onstage, so Patrick would have to wait until his twentieth birthday on November 15, 2005 to perform in public in which his family would throw a birthday party and mini-concert at a Japanese sushi bar in the Mong Kok district in Hong Kong for Lew and the Silent Minister Band by borrowing his cousin Andy Lam’s guitar equipment.

On their way to Hong Kong, Silent Minister begun the third leg of their 2005 Asian CD promotion of “Blizzard of Sound.” Patrick Lew went into Do Re Mi Music Studios to record some karaoke demos of J-Pop and J-Rock cover material, although it is very uncertain if this studio session and musical contribution to Silent Minister will see the light of day. The remaining ten days in Hong Kong saw Lew and his Minister cohorts taking the MTR subway across this busy island known as, “the Pearl of the Orient.” This led to Silent Minister promoting their CD “Blizzard” in music shops and Patrick taking good care of his cousin Andy’s guitar rig and playing at his grandfather’s house where he and his family stayed.

On December 2005, Patrick Lew received his second accolade as a fan website to the hair-metal band Poison published Silent Minister as "band of the month." Patrick's first accolade was voted as a "Sexy Asian guitarist" through a short-lived little known MySpace.com contest.