Renegade Youth. Musicians. One Man Band. CCSF College. 22 Years Old. Taiwanese Pride. DJ. Songwriter. Rhythm Guitarist. Grunge. I formed this solo musician project in early 2006 when my former bandmates for this concept and music I had for a band left me to do their own thing, so I decided to take that idea to start the most Renegade rock band I had for the musicians/friends I was jamming with in the studio (which ended almost 1 1/2 year ago) to my home studio and computer, and thus Renegade Youth became a one-man techno/rock band.
Renegade Youth is my new music project. Well sort of. I originally formed Renegade in January 2006 at school. It's pretty much my follow-up musical project to my former garage band Samurai Sorcerers. But in reality, I was a solo musician after The Sorcerers finished our community college tour in the spring of 2005. Eddie, Shawn and I were playing music in May [2005] at the recording studio which eventuated into Renegade Youth's "Revenge" album, although Eddie and Shawn did not record their musical instruments onto the computer program in the studio because they were busy playing music when locally touring with Sapien. I hired college friend Zack to play keyboards with us, but like "Behind the Music" we didn't play music as a rock ensemble of music educated musicians. It was more like laziness.
Essentially, I play guitar when I'm making the music using two guitars. My most recent a beautiful Fender Stratocaster I got at Vibo Music Center (the school I got guitar lessons at) from my canceled Bank of America credit card. Since I'm still an amateur musician (I'll be taking a jazz-rock guitar improvisations at City College in September), I put on a very bare bones guitar part which are just basic chords and riffs and I mostly use my computer making music using virtual instruments. Which was why "Revenge" was made. I hate to say this but, I actually shoplifted a bunch of computer programs at a bookstore because I was so poor I couldn't afford one. I still use PC to make music. I tried getting other people to join Renegade Youth after Eddie and Shawn were gone from Samurai Sorcerers to be drafted to play music in Sapien around mid-2005, but then again...It was a scam or no dedication through my "band wanted" ads on MySpace.com.
So basically I wanted to experiment Band of Asians/Renegade Youth as a two-man project after Dave Arceo joined the group when I met him at Skyline College two months before Samurai Sorcerers split. Basically it was hard to put together a dedicated local band with friends or musicians you never met (through ads on the paper) to stay committed to making music together in your studio or something. Most of Renegade Youth's music will be experimental.
The codename "Renegade Youth" came from various ideas. Keith Romes of the local J-Rock band EDENCELL recommended it to me when I was about to become a solo musician and start a side project when I was talking to him on AIM. This was 2 years ago, and I was in college going through hard times with drug abuse and my former garage band doing music for gigs across the City without me. On other events leading up to the formation of Renegade Youth my solo project, I had other musicians in this band before. It's just they all left (with the exception of my best friend Dave Arceo) to do their own fucking thing with other musical projects and undertakings and I had to make studio recordings on my fucking own. Playing guitar. Making electronic instruments programmed on a PC. Playing bass guitar. Making drum loops. I'm thinking of adding touring musicians in the band so we can take it out on the road or go to my high school friend Alan Loux (he's a music producer) in the actual recording studio to make an album. But e-mail me at samurai_sorcerers@yahoo.com and see how we click first man. Also if you attend City College and will be taking a Music Fundamentals or Jazz-Rock guitar improvisation class in the Fall 2007 school semester...Make sure you e-mail me or IM me at Guns N Samurai on AIM if you're up for a jam or touring in my one-man band together.
Why am I using a computer and my instruments to make this music? It's because I'm still after 6 years of playing in bands, I'm an amateur. Do I play live? Only for open mic nights at City College and the Haight-Ashbury. I do make surprise musical performances for my friend Michelle's band ELL like I did on April 14, 2007 at the Glen Park Recreational Center for a 15 minute show. I did however, perform live shows in the Bay Area before at high school talent shows and other very small places in my old band The Sorcerers as an amateur. But other than that, it's very hard to do solo live and I'm only doing this project making music for the mass media. All I do for Renegade Youth (no longer known as Band of Asians) is made remixes of certain songs and bands I like using FL Studio 6 or a turntable or whatever, and program electronic instruments on the PC like I did for the "Revenge" album. Plus play some chord progressions and riffs on my junk shop guitar. Shit, you can be a novice and make electronic rock music without even sounding too sophisticated on Magix or Fruity Loops.
Ever since Samurai Sorcerers split up in March of 2006, it's been pretty hard to build a new band from scratch because all I did was I found some amateur musicians not interested in being committed to any musical project and make some music together and record some songs in my bedroom where the studio is. So I can't simply put an ad in the paper, so for "Revenge" all I did was play all the instruments on the former Band of Asians named Renegade Youth record.
But in a lighter note, I will play "Battle of the Bands" in Oakland on May 26th! The first time I ever played my music for a show in a big club with many people!
I joked about this a lot during my Samurai Sorcerers days, I would have wanted to sign with a major Japanese record company. Because prior to the "Revenge" and Renegade Youth music scene thing, I wanted to become Tokyo's new rock star. I said to people, "if you wanna sign Patrick Lew from Samurai Sorcerers make sure you're part of an Asian record company so I can be Asia's next Asian pop culture idol." *laughs* Just joking. This was like around February or March 2005, I was strung out and Samurai Sorcerers finished their college concert tour. I dated this Japanese girl named Yoshiko for awhile, but it never worked out. My main concern at the time was I was going through personal demons with my Asian culture. Drugs was one of them. I considered at the time, Internet dating websites to meet Asian chicks of my type. Unfortunately, that was sort of a demotion for me. "Blizzard of Sound" was released three months when me, Eddie and Shawn regrouped to jam on music for ideas which eventually became Renegade Youth's "Revenge" album. In the studio, we improvised music and the ideas didn't seem to be "rock ensemble" because of the tensions at the time. Zack joined on keyboards, but we decided on July of 2005 after recording "Battle Royale" in Eddie's home studio, it was going downhill.
But nowadays, I am fine with the past. Old wounds somewhat healed, but I made some setbacks once I recruited Mark Hawkins from my ad in the paper to begin the recording sessions in the studio for "Revenge." But lately, I would send demos and flyers to A&R to see if I can get signed to a smaller record company. Hey man! Hard work must pay off, right? Recently, my website for my one-man band has been reissuing my musical catalog for free MP3 downloads. Not too shabby to let the music scene know to see what they've missed out before. If I do get signed, hopefully it be the right way with the music industry.
In the mean time, the Renegade Youth website is still up and loaded. My albums are being distributed by CDBaby.com but if anyone reads my recent diary of music and art, GOOGLE in "Patrick Lew" or "Band of Asians" to find various websites dedicated to my one-man band and music. *pauses* Now you're going to read about what equipment I use to make my music before I end this blog.
EQUIPMENT:
- Epiphone Les Paul (the limited edition 1962 HotWheels model which Patrick got as a 19th birthday gift at the local Guitar Center)
- Marshall 15-watt Amp Heads
- Digitech FX69 Grunge (original issue)
- Digitech RP50 Guitar Multi-Effects with Drum Machine (includes various guitar tones found in Patrick Lew's guitar playing) (purchased at the store prior to Patrick's 21st birthday).
- Crate 20-watt Amp Heads (belongs to a friend but occasionally used to record with)
- Magix Music Maker 2006 Deluxe Edition (sometimes used to make electronic music but mostly used to make demos and was used to record "Revenge").
- Casio CTK-551 MIDI Keyboards
- Fender Silver Bullet Light-Guage Strings
- Fender Stratocaster (he owned two but donated his very first electric guitar to the Vibo Music Center for musical charity reasons).
Band of Asians is the solo musician project led by me, Patrick Lew. I earned my musical education through books and I learned electric guitar for 1 month at the Vibo Music Center near my house in Outer Excelsior neighborhood in San Francisco. I graduated from Wallenberg High School in 2004 and has since pursued a career in the local music scene at age 19 while attending college at the same time. I would say musically in my opinion, Band of Asians is where I want to be in music. It's the garage band music any Grunge musician like myself would love to do.
Q: Where did you grow up? A: I grew up in between Daly City and San Francisco. I am Taiwanese American with a bit of Asian American culture. I was born in 1985 and I lived my favorite decade in my lifetime, the early 1990s.
Q: What made you realize that music was your path? A: As a solo musician in my solo project and me being the leading musician in Band of Asians, I get to make eccentric and unique works of art by playing most of the instruments and singing the Asian woman blues. It also means I have 100% control over what to play in my one-man band and rock & roll musical show, and that I don't have to bow down to any other more talented musicians in bands by being told what I go to do and this and that. But BAND OF ASIANS is mainly a solo project and a music studio thing. But I occasionally talk to Eddie and Shawn on the cell phone and I sometimes go to Eddie's house to jam on music with our musical instruments like we did 2 months ago. But even though me and Eddie are on good terms, we might try to schedule a music studio recording session at my home music studio soon to record some songs and make a demo tape with me and Eddie as Samurai Sorcerers Revised, the reunion/revised version of the garage band.
Q: How would you describe the music that you typically create? A: Mixed Media. I play all kinds of music usually. I love music and I make all kinds of musi using a computer application and musical instruments. I would say my more newer music is Punk with an amateur local garage band sound.
Q: Who are your biggest musical influences? A: Since my MOM bought me a 2GB iPod Nano at Best Buy for my birthday, I've been mostly listening to all 3 White Lion albums, "Pride" and "Big Game" mostly. I put the CDs in my huge record collection I listen to all the time on my iPod to hear music I always like through iTunes program on my computer. Sadly, I lost my iPod at my friend's house when doing band practice playing guitar. I listen to lots of Grunge (Pearl Jam, Soundgarden and Alice In Chains), Nu Punk (Sum 41, Green Day, Dead Kennedys, Blink 182), Hair Metal (Motley Crue, Tesla, Slaughter) and all kinds of music such as Video Game Music, Electronica and the Local/Indpendent Music Scene. I just recently purchased an Audio Solutions 512MB portable MP3 player from Walgreens near the video game store.
Q: What makes your music unique? A: It's amateur and unconventional. It's what you get when you play music in your home recording studio and workshop as amateur local musicians in an amateur LOCAL garage band and we use musical instruments and computer applications we picked up at Guitar Center and Best Buy to make this music come alive on a computer or 4-track Fostex studio.
Q: Has there been one particular moment in your musical career that you're most proud of? A: About to play my FIRST "Battle of the Bands" show at a big Oakland music club on May 26th.
Back in the day, Band of Asians did street corner gigs like in downtown SF at the school cafeteria every now and then with me and my buddies from City College of San Francisco. But since then, I try to hire musicians from online newspaper ads like Craigslist.org to get people to play with me, but I mostly do computer programs for studio work. Most of the stuff me and my computer does comes from the fans who like my music and the showcases we do online. I've done a few performances at my high school's talent shows and events with my old high school garage band Samurai Sorcerers that no longer exists.
So basically Band of Asians is what I do now, it's a solo project of mines (Patrick Lew) where I get to branch out on my own and have 100% freedom to play any kind of music I want and have the right to record it in my bedroom using Recording Magazine and musical instruments I got at the guitar store..
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silentminister66
(http://www.xanga.com/i_am_the_minister)
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