AUDIO RAGE [Band]

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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!

The musical group Audio Rage was founded in Daly City around 2001 through an ad on the Recycler and Music Connection by then-inexperienced musician Patrick Lew. At first, the band practices with the Audio Rage band did not last very long at Patrick “Audio” Lew’s house. The band was formed by keyboardist/guitarist Patrick Lew, drummer Jesse Bodas and other guitarist Graham Palmer. The band underwent several bandname changes: rotating ideas for the group’s name. Their style of music was a mix of folk-rock, punk and grunge.

Audio Rage (or Samurai Sorcerers)...The musical group is the project of Patrick Lew mainly...He learned how to play various musical instruments at a music school near his house called Vibo Music Center. He got his first electric guitar and other instruments at Guitar Center or Costco.

Some early RARE cassette tape demos of these early Audio Rage sessions were recently found in Patrick’s bedroom at home. However, due to the terrible quality of the music and sound recording that came from these early band practices, they were never published anywhere. Patrick however, did put some of the songs from this boombox tape online around 2001 or 2002.

Jesse Bodas left the band by early 2002 for art school and to move back to Modesto. Graham however, had a HUGE dispute with Patrick over the group and music and quit around Patrick’s 16th birthday.

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, the Samurai Sorcerers 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 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 the Samurai Sorcerers 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. This day also marked a beginning of an on-and-off again love & romance relationship Patrick Lew had with a Japanese woman named Yoshiko Kuwamoto. After this tour ended, the band laid low. Hinting rumors of a possible breakup.

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.

MacIDOL Mac Music Community

Saturday 07th 2009f November 2009Updated: 10 Sep 2009 10:37 PM
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