DJ Audio Rage! The "Virtual" Rock Band Experience! { Official Fan Club of Patrick Lew }

The Silent Minister Chronicles (Bio)
Home | Band in the Box - The Story of Audio Rage | Band in the Box - DJ Audio Rage's REVENGE on the World! | The Musical History of DJ Audio Rage { Patrick Lew }... | Who is Patrick Lew? | Patrick's Current Project - SME | The NEW Samurai Sorcerers | The Members of the Crew | Past / Current Live Shows | 2005 - The Year of the Silent Minister | Albums | FAN CLUB INFORMATION | The Patrick Lew Q & A Interview! | The Silent Minister Chronicles (Bio) | Samurai Sorcerers MP3 Page | Silent Minister's MP3 Page

cd.jpg

Samurai Sorcerers (Patrick Lew's band) originally formed right out of the hallways of Wallenberg High in the Richmond district of San Francisco with three high school friends - Patrick Lew (b. Nov 15, 1985), Eddie Blackburn (b. Jul 12, 1988) and Mayumi (b. May 20, 1987) which was pretty much an anime/J-Pop side project. The actual history of the Samurai band dates back to the summer of 2003 when Patrick met Eddie in his drama class. The two quickly became fast friends and shared common musical interests, and decided to form a band together. Patrick's friend and leader of the Japanese culture club Mayumi took over as the bass player. The band's main purpose as a musical group was strictly being a garage band and make demos, but they later would perform live. The band didn't start out its first band practice/rehearsals until November of 2003, when Patrick got out of a relationship with his ex-girlfriend at the time. At the time, Silent Minister was a locally anonymous Bay Area band so the band began promoting their music through the internet crowd but attracted little attention. Most of the winter of 2004, Silent Minister had on-and-off again jam sessions/band rehearsals and were less committed to the project as each member had personal and educational pursuits. Patrick's on-going problems were also holding up Samurai Sorcerers progress as an active and working garage band. Fortunately, the Samurai band planned a few suprise live performances as starving artists who performed in street corners and bars for no profit. In May 2004, the Samurai undertook a one-month unbooked tour across San Francisco's most unusual places to perform concerts at (which included house parties, Japantown and their very own high school). Although the band's main purpose was to be a home recording rock group, live performances put pressure on the band members to work together in the basement to make music. Patrick and Mayumi were also present at a Nami Tamaki concert at a Haight-Ashbury record store, which inspired Patrick to write a tender pop-metal song dedicated to her called "Tokyo Pop Princess."

The summer of that year saw the band in seclusion to work on a cohesive home record in their 8-track home studio. However, Mayumi left the band in August of that year to focus more on keeping up with her education. Patrick graduated from Wallenberg High in June, and began attending a community college near his house. Unfortunately, Patrick was suffering from Asian American identity crisis and was indicted to a near-by hospital for a nervous breakdown. The band began working on a demo together, but the band was now torn into different directions. The band recruited Patrick and Eddie's friend Shawn Blacharski on bass, but Patrick hired two additional musicians that were just gothic Asian girls he met from a J-Rock/anime club whom had no prior musical experience. On October 23, 2004, the Samurai Sorcerers done a recording session at Eddie's garage in which the band would release as an album. The group rushed an anime soundtrack "Psychotic Love" (2005) as their first demo. "Love" was a hybrid techno/rock album, based with a primarily huge Asian pop culture infuluence. It somehow became a classic, except Eddie played only on a few tracks on the album. A live tour followed to promote the album, but it was however an uneven affair as it lasted only three shows with Eddie and Shawn leaving the band after the second performance to focus on their main band Tripwire. Patrick Lew however, was the only remaining original member left in the Samurai Sorcerers. In February 2005, the band performed their last live show at Balboa High. The remaining two members who were hired by Patrick, Mony Ngin and Janet Wang left the group. And on March 7, 2005, the Samurai Sorcerers officially disbanded to join other projects. Patrick Lew later became the sole owner of the banner "Samurai Sorcerers" and the band ultimately became a Patrick Lew solo project.

Patrick earned exclusive rights to the band Samurai Sorcerers, and began trying to reassemble the band.

After the "Psychotic Love" tour ended abruptly and was cancelled after three dismal live performances and dwindling cast of musicians in the ill-fated J-Rock/grunge project, Patrick then bought the rights to the band's banner "Samurai Sorcerers" and his published musical work after the band disbanded in February 2005. Patrick after the band's disbandingPatrick Lew was the last Samurai standing in his own rock & roll band, and decided to make Samurai Sorcerers a one-man band (along with a few session musicians to contribute). Patrick remained out of the local music scene limelight, doing nothing but downloading computer music software off the internet on his PC and tinkering in his digital home studio in his bedroom. Fans were awaiting new music from Patrick, but they weren't just awaiting new music from the Silent Minister. They wanted another "Silent Minister experience." He decided to work on a scaled-down version of the "Psychotic Love" album, and maybe put out a new album of avant-garde electronic music. He finally broke his silence by issuing the first of NEW Samurai Sorcerers original recordings, the shambolic loops and beats sample called "Battle Royale" in March on his official website. It wasn't well-received by critics, and was panned by the press. Although he was the only full-fledged member left in the Samurai, he was given creative and personal control over the music and direction

On March 7, 2005, the original Samurai Sorcerers website was re-modeled into a Patrick Lew solo project shrine dedicated to only his musical work in his old band and anything related to the SIlent Minister: music, photos, Q & A interviews, etc. Patrick took an extended break from the local music scene to pursue personal and spiritual upbringing. He would do so by hanging out in San Francisco's fanciest places. Finally, a compromise would be made regarding future New Samurai Sorcerers releases. Patrick decided that he will put out a new Samurai album, with just the music he created with just him using virtual instruments on a PC under a more electronic/avant-garde based direction. In the second week of April, New Samurai is officially a two-man band. Patrick Lew was confirmed as the rhythm guitarist and vocalist. His best friend Bruce was now the MIDI keyboardist. The main intention of the project was to do music for fun (as a hobby) and because both friends are amateur musicians, they did planned a few open mic nights on campus at CCSF or small clubs in the Bay Area. But now their main intention is to do music under a home studio setting using low budget to make future Samurai albums together. Patrick and Bruce hides away in his Crocker-Amazon flat working on new music for the album by recording fragments of song ideas but most of which, were scrapped. It was reported that Patrick Lew re-recorded a few of his former Samurai tracks in his home studio using the PC program Guitar Pro 4.0, such as “Tokyo Pop Princess” and “Little Miss Saigon.” Patrick then moved from his home studio to the place he got guitar lessons, Vibo Music to get reservations for the New Samurai to practice and use it as a workshop to work on music and write songs. Patrick and Bruce are planning to do more home studio work for future albums by the end of May.

New Samurai's only official recording to this date is, “Battle Royale.” It’s highest charting was on independent music website Soundclick.com and its techno charts at #138. It was eventually panned by critics as a mess. Patrick and Bruce are currently working on music in separate home studios by writing and recording musical contributions for the project. Patrick is at this point shopping for independent record labels to publish his musical works, Samurai Sorcerers’ back catalog and future works. That didn’t work out. Patrick’s plan at this point is to refrain from live performing and focus on perfecting studio recordings. Patrick and his ex-Samurai bandmate/friend Janet discuss about making/collaborating on music for New Samurai possibly in the near future, but the prospects at this time don’t seem very likely. Patrick was thinking of hiring Janet to sing in Japanese for some songs on New Samurai’s musical works in the home studio and make her a temporary member for the band’s line-up. Currently, Patrick is working with former Samurai band members Eddie and Shawn on a new rock & roll band/project together as of May 11, 2005 called Silent Minister which is currently in the works at this point.

 

Enter content here

Copyright 2005 Silent Minister / Patrick Lew