The Samurai Sorcerers
Year Formed 2003
Hometown Daly City, CA
Genre(s) Hard Rock, Instrumental, Metal, Rock
Style(s) Japanese Pop, 80's Hair band Hard Rock (skid row), Basement ROCK!!!, 80's video games, All Computer
Biography
The Sorcerers were formed in 2002 by high school mates Patrick Lew (guitar / vocals / keyboards), Eddie Blackburn (guitar) and Patrick’s ex-girlfriend Asuka "Mayumi" Nagase (bass). By most accounts, the musicians were born in the Bay Area, and Patrick and Mayumi were of Asian descent while Eddie was Caucasian. The band was founded and began playing weekend garage band gigs in the studio. When recording their music in the studio as a garage band, they’d later publish the music through the internet websites such as MySpace and Purevolume. Garnering mass success on the internet with the publishing of their garage band demos from the studio, the Sorcerers began warming up their anime clan and swords. Contrary to beliefs, the band got their name from a Japanese anime film. The Sorcerers begun playing small sacred concerts in the Bay Area which were so private, no one exactly knows what kind of shows the Sorcerers played at. Sooner than later an inspiration caused Patrick Lew in the band to produce and create the Sorcerers biggest hit, as Mayumi and Patrick went to Amoeba Records to see J-Pop singer Nami Tamaki live and getting her autograph. This led to the Sorcerers’ most requested online hit in their career, “Tokyo Pop Princess.” This classic piece of music written by the Sorcerers originally was called “Japanese Woman Blues” before changing the song title to “Tokyo Pop Princess” because of Mayumi and Patrick seeing Nami Tamaki live. The song became a success on various websites and the band regularly played in the studio as a garage band. And those studio sessions resulted in “Psychotic Love.” But Eddie Blackburn didn’t play much on the music, so Patrick hired two gothic Asian girls Janet Wang and Mony Ngin from their fanbase on their MySpace webpage. Janet was the DJ who supplied electronica beats and Mony programmed the drums.
Now blessed with a demo, “Tokyo Pop Princess” raced up the online charts as did other songs in the fall of 2004, becoming a foundation for American J-Rock along with other bands such as EDENCELL. But the Sorcerers lineup dispersed as Mayumi who had little musical experience, left the Sorcerers to MA major in Japanese language at UC Davis. Also, Mayumi didn’t play bass well enough due to lack of musical experience, and Eddie Blackburn left the Sorcerers in January 2005. Mony, Janet and Patrick held the Sorcerers bandname, but Patrick was the one who did all the touring and distributing. The Sorcerers’ second album “The Blizzard of Sound” was greeted with good reviews, primarily because it based more guitar-based music than “Psychotic Love’s” anime sound. By then, the Sorcerers departed, with still a great deal of success on PureVolume and Soundclick, as the Sorcerers band broke up in October 2005. Eddie Blackburn whom was a serious pro musician thought the Sorcerers were too amateur and eccentric to be a real band, would seek greater success by playing in the touring band Logic’s Enemy.
During the breakup of the Sorcerers, they achieved mass success as a band but their story has been revised and told in different sides from the band members constantly since the Sorcerers long stopped playing together. The Sorcerers’ two main guitarists Patrick Lew and Eddie Blackburn briefly reunited in mid-2005 to start a band called “Silent Minister’s Experience” and regrouped to do a jam session in the studio, but the band that Eddie and Patrick regrouped briefly to start flopped. Because the Sorcerers have since moved on, that didn’t meant the band never reunited for occasions. Patrick, Eddie and Mayumi all attended Mayumi’s high school graduation on June 8, 2005 but didn’t play any music together. But sadly, this was the same day Patrick’s grandmother passed away. The Sorcerers success was mainly consigned to the internet as wild headlines and stories circulate on the band rather than its music, but although now the Sorcerers hoopla has since dwindled, some see the band as a sort of rock novelty band. Which is not exactly true, the Sorcerers themselves achieved quite a bit with big online hits on internet radio and with their unique and eccentric personalities, image and music based upon culture and race, the Sorcerers catapulted themselves as one of Asian America’s cult favorites in music and best-loved bands with their music and image despite its internet-only distributing and private concerts.
Despite the eccentric, unique and murky musical roots of the Samurai Sorcerers, the Sorcerers’ sound helped lay an important blueprint for American J-Rock (American bands copying Japanese V-Kei rock), namely the low-budget anime feel of the Casio keyboards and use of electronic instruments over guitars (when Eddie wasn’t around for the Sorcerers) in their album “Psychotic Love.” What was more, they were one of the first Asian and multi-racial rock bands to have a major impact in local SF music and indie scene, and Patrick Lew and his Sorcerer rejects in high school made him and them the prime suspects into the evolution of Asian Americans in garage band music which promises a bright future for Asian rock musicians alike.
Career Highlights/Vital Stats
Voted "Band of the Month" on the Unofficial Poison fan website (December, 2005). Won #4 for "Sexy Asian guitarists" on Laren's MySpace.com contest.
AND IN THE END...THE LOVE YOU TAKE IS EQUAL TO THE LOVE YOU MAKE...(JOHN LENNON & PAUL MCCARTNEY, 1969) |
