Press Release - Patrick Lew Band Hiatus (as of October 2011)

The Patrick Lew Band formed whilst the musicians were still in high school as teenagers, and began posting their music on the Internet in May 2001. Regularly busking and freelancing individually and together in the San Francisco Bay Area via jam sessions and busking live performances. The following year, the band recorded their first album Psychotic Love on a 4-track Portastudio. While seriously dedicated to their music and remaining focused and persistent, the band gained some degree of notoriety revolving around Lew's personal problems at the time and Bandalism. It would be four full years before the Patrick Lew Band was able to record a follow-up to Psychotic Love, aptly titled Revenge (2006) with new members Dave Arceo (drums) and Zack Huang (keyboards). Patrick met his girl Faith by late 2006 on a free dating website, and began dating before she re-located back to Texas in the Bay. 

The band set out on a tour locally in 2007 (as Band of Asians) sponsored by KLC Productions as an opening act for Tinkture, Scarlett Bombs, and former lead guitarist Eddie Blackburn's other band Nocturnal Rock Turtles. After the tour concluded, the band underwent another difficult period of rehabiliation, losing Huang on keyboards. Blackburn re-signed from the Patrick Lew Band by the end of 2007, to focus on his own bands he was playing music in at the time. 

During this period, the band underwent a change in sound, discarding their post-hardcore style from their first two albums, and began experimenting more with new broader and eclectic sounds on record. By this time, the band became an inter-band freelance activity and presumably a solo project for Lew. Original Distorted Harmony guitarist Jeremy Alfonso joined the Patrick Lew Band by mid-2009, and Lew reconnected with his long-time girlfriend Faith Marie, who also became an auxiliary contributor and group member of the Patrick Lew Band. In the studio, they created two more albums, Let It Rise And Against (2009) and Murder Bay (2011), which expanded Lew's music and recognition through the indies locally and via Internet. Becoming the first major success for the Japanese & Taiwanese musician and guitar hero Patrick Lew. In addition, the last two Patrick Lew Band albums also developed and solidified Lew as a garage punk "fused" prototypical hard rock act. Combining grunge and various punk influences and creating their own distinct sound while playing and making rock & roll music. During the Murder Bay sessions, Alfonso mutually departed the Patrick Lew Band to focus on college mostly before re-locating to Toronto, Canada. 

In October 2011, Patrick Lew announced the Patrick Lew Band will be going through an "indefinite hibernation" to experiment more in the home recording studio as a solo musician under a "TBA" band name, alongside jamming freelance with other musicians in garage bands. For the time being, the TBA band was under the infamous name Chaos in Chinatown for a few months. The former name was given as a recommendation from an estranged former friend on Facebook named Candace. However after much deliberation, the name Chaos in Chinatown was quickly dropped due to rising concerns of raising the anger of the Asian American community. The then-TBA solo rock band was given the name Heavy Sigma, reportedly as a pun on another local band that Lew did not get along with, primarily their bassist by the name of Damien. During the last two months of 2011, Lew and Arceo rented a recording studio in Antioch, California, and began taking their unfinished musical ideas and rehearsed cover songs they were jamming to, and recorded a demo EP. Called Studio Demos 2012 (sometimes referred to as “Oddities”). It was self-released via Internet as a free download on the Heavy Sigma websites. 

While there is no word when the Patrick Lew Band will return to the Bay Area music scene, Lew insists when his musical ideas are not as creatively stagnant or “filler” even, he would return to recording another album with the PLB. It could be an instrumental punk record, or even more experimental leaps from Murder Bay. For the time being, Lew is investing his time and creative energy to Heavy Sigma and making music alone there. Lew also set up his own indie record label, Heavy Sigma Records, to handle the distribution of Patrick Lew Band and Heavy Sigma albums and related merchandise for America. Lew is busy making music, playing guitar, and rocking in the free world. And it’s a good time indeed to be content with it all.

Patrick Lew Band EPK (as of 2012)

1) band name: Patrick Lew Band 

2) hometown: Antioch, California, USA 

3) genres: Alternative Rock, Hard Rock, Garage Punk, Grunge, Punk Rock 

4) years active: 2001-present 

5) labels: Heavy Sigma Records (USA/Canada), Unsigned (worldwide) 

6) related bands: Band of Asians, The P & G, Distorted Harmony, Goldenweasel, Logic's Enemy, Retrograde Fire 

7) website: http://www.reverbnation.com/patricklewsband 

8) band members: 

Patrick Lew - lead vocals, rhythm guitar (2001-present) 

Faith Marie Lew - TBA role (2009-present) 

David Hunter - bass (2012-present) 

Greg Lynch - keyboards, guitar, backing vocals (2012-present) 

former members: 

Jeremy Alfonso - lead guitar, backing vocals (2009-2011) 

Zack Huang - keyboards (2005-2008) 

Eddie Blackburn - lead guitar, backing vocals (2001-2005, 2007) 

Tommy Loi - drums & percussion (2001-2005) 

David Arceo - drums & percussion (2006-2012, recurring onwards) 

HISTORY 

Starting out as a musician by aimlessly jamming in Lew's bedroom with then-limited experience and education in playing musical instruments, creating their own brand of Garage Punk. They recorded their first demo tape between 1999 and 2001, and in May 2001, Patrick Lew began promoting his music on the Internet as a solo rock musician or in his freelance garage bands. Unlike most of their contemporaries in San Francisco, the band was interracial and inter-gender. Alongside, displaying more 80's and early 90's hard rock and grunge inspirations fused with contemporary punk. Lew also adopted a part Mod, part Hippie, and trendy Asian pop culture image. But later replaced it with varying hairstyle lengths and casual men's attire. 

The Patrick Lew Band mainly created music, freelanced with other musicians in the Bay Area community in garage bands, and busked free low-key gigs locally in bars, churches, high schools, even outside of retailers in downtown San Francisco. 

One of the most notable moments during their brief time as a live performing Garage Punk band was opening up for the all-girl SF pop punk trio Tinkture, Scarlett Bombs, and former lead guitarist Eddie Blackburn's other band Nocturnal Rock Turtles during a 2007 local tour across recreational centers sponsored by KLC Productions. 

Some time in 2008, the Patrick Lew Band dwindled into being more of a Patrick Lew solo project with the occasional contributions of other musicians Lew was close to from City College SF and Cal State University, Hayward. By this time, Lew no longer performed live gigs and assembled a homegrown rock band recording studio in his own bedroom, to create his own music alone. Despite many turbulent times, Lew persisted and determined himself to improve as an artist, songwriter, guitar player, and musician after years of being deemed "amateurish" as a musician playing and making rock & roll music given the lack of experience at the time playing guitar and creating music. This led to three more albums, "Curb Your Wild Life" (2009), "Let It Rise And Against!" (2010), and "Murder Bay" (2011). The Patrick Lew Band took an indefinite hiatus in Fall of 2011 to devote more time to other extracurricular side projects, such as The P & G. And because of consistent expansion of the Patrick Lew Band, Lew finally receive slight recognition for his efforts and earned some online fame as a musician. Alongside, a creative lull for the Patrick Lew Band itself when making new music. 

Although the Patrick Lew Band never signed with a major or indie record label, and were also turned down by a lot of the Internet music critics and the rock music industry for its uniqueness or unconventional sound or alleged notoriety, and never appeared on mainstream multi-media publications, the Patrick Lew Band nearing the end of 2011 has become somewhat of a critical moderate success in the independent rock music scene across the universe, and attracts a cult-like following via Internet based on persistence and uniqueness. 

Why this name?

Because it's Patrick Lew's solo project. Pretty much! In the last 11 years since the Patrick Lew Band existed, there were: 3 drummers (Tommy, Dave, and Faith), 2 lead guitarists (Eddie and J), 1 keyboardist (Zack), no bass players. But there is only! One Patrick Lew. Fo reals.

Do you play live?

No, we jam and make music in the studio most of the time!! But you might see me busking down the street corners of downtown SF sporadically...

Would you sign a record contract with a major label?

It depends. I'm content with what I have now as far as my musical merit and accomplishments are concerned. But I'm open for the forthcoming "right" opportunity for my music if it ever comes my way! 

Most of the time, I rather be known and recognized as an artist or pure musician rather than just an entertainer.

Your influences?

The Beatles, Nirvana, Green Day, Pearl Jam, AFI, Steelheart, White Lion, Tesla, Metallica, The Rolling Stones, Oasis, Dead Kennedys, Silverchair, Mother Love Bone, Bad Religion. 

Being in a rock & roll band is like being in a marriage. It's not just about getting in a studio or club playing music together. It's also very similar to a romantic relationship with someone. I mean I been in bands where a guy gave me a hard time for reasons that seem irrelevant today. Basically...Either, you have to get along and resonate well with your band. Or else, sh*** man...You're unemployed musically for the time being. I do most of the music alone, given the skills I've gained over the years in the regional music field. And somehow...Persisted because of it.

Favorite spot?

San Francisco! Other than that, Seattle. As far as overseas goes, I love Ireland and my homeland of Japan and Taiwan in the Far East.

Equipment used:

My musical gear consists of... 

Guitars: Gibson SG, Epiphone Les Paul custom Hot Rod, Excel Stratocaster 

Amps: Fender 25R Frontman Amp 

Pedals: Digitech RP50 Multi-Effects, Digitech Death Metal hi-gain distortion box, Boss DS-2 Turbo 

Other Guitar Accessories: Dunlop bottleneck slide (for my crappy slide guitar skills...), Monster 15 ft cables 

Recording: Acoustica Mixcraft 4, M-Audio Fast Track USB digital interface, Various guitar VST's (for Mixcraft), Countless #'s of drum loops via DVD, Beheringer USB guitar interface, Line6 TonePort GX (discontinued as of 2011), My Toshiba laptop 

The Gospel (promoting my band): Toshiba laptop (equipped w/ WiFi), critical thinking & writing skills for band bios and EPK's, countless #'s of my finished pieces of music via mp3 files, ANY indie music website with high traffic, big demographics, and registered artists & bands (ex. Reverbnation, Facebook, etc)

Heavy Sigma Band Bio (A Patrick Lew Offshoot Band...)

Heavy Sigma is an instrumental experimental rock band that formed in Antioch, California in 2011. It was founded as a solo project for guitarist and multi-instrumentalist Patrick Lew, whilst his band the Patrick Lew Band was becoming more of a construction of an actual band with other musicians involved sporadically. Heavy Sigma also features musical collaboration and performances by other Patrick Lew Band members including Faith Marie and Dave Arceo. Playing music under pseudonym 'guises' in an attempt to preserve their low-key ethnical and musical approach to musical enterpreneurship and to thwart mass media hype, Heavy Sigma mainly plays abrasive, loose, and raw non-conventional sounding rock & roll and garage punk. Following the same promotional tasks that Patrick Lew Band took to get their music heard, the Internet and local San Francisco Bay Area social-media were methods to getting themselves out there. 

Heavy Sigma 411

1) hometown: San Francisco East Bay, California, USA

2) genres: Experimental Rock, Post-Rock, Garage Punk, Grunge

3) years active: 2011-present

4) record label: Unsigned (fuck record labels...)

5) related bands: Patrick Lew Band, Band of Asians

6) band members:

TWRebel85 (AKA Patrick Lew): Guitar, Electronics, Lead Vocals

Angel Eyes (AKA Faith Marie Lew): Drums & Percussion

Stitch (AKA David Arceo): Electronics 

Patrick Lew and Faith Marie met on a free dating website and became a serious romantic couple despite long-distance separating one another, especially because of personal priorities in life. Lew and Dave Arceo met at Skyline College whilst Lew was taking a few music courses, and played together in the now-eponymous Band of Asians from the San Francisco post-hardcore scene. Prior to forming Heavy Sigma as a Patrick Lew solo project, with credited contributions with close ones musically, Lew was experiencing the sudden critical cult-like success and was playing music frequently in the Bay Area with the Grunge/Punk self-prolcaimed buzzworthy band the Patrick Lew Band. Brushing off the critical success and experiencing immense pressure from sudden cult-like fame for his music in the PLB Army, Lew decided to take a brief hibernation from the Patrick Lew Band to focus on other musical activity as an artist and rock guitar player. Aware of the overwhelming experience with how to follow-up the critically acclaimed "Murder Bay" recording with PLB while making music, Lew chose the other method of being a musician, by going more low-key in his approach to recording and marketing his music alone experimenting with more second-rate songwriting ideas and instrumentals. Which was the genesis of Heavy Sigma as a Patrick Lew solo project.

Heavy Sigma's material mainly consists of chaotically raw and unpolished produced music featuring unfinished musical ideas Lew experimented alone, feeling no need to record it with the Patrick Lew Band considering he felt it was not his best music as an artist and rock guitarist. A lot of Heavy Sigma's music is experimental post-rock, but dabbles with other styles closely associated with the Patrick Lew Band such as Grunge and Garage Punk. However, on the Heavy Sigma studio demo which was published and posted via Internet as of early 2012, many of the musical ideas wounded up becoming instrumental-only produced rock music. Lew's guitar playing skills were also at the time artistically challenging, as he felt his lead guitar playing sound was suffering on record given his experience and limitations as a musician. Many of the songwriting ideas that were rejected by the Patrick Lew Band in the music making process were given its presence in Heavy Sigma, which were still unfinished yet reasonably listenable post-rock/garage punk band recordings of Lew's music. Lew is pretty much, the only lone guitar player in Heavy Sigma, both in the studio and sporadically onstage for local gigs. With today's digital technology and computers with fast-speed Internet or WiFi, online collaboration between Lew alongside Faith Marie and Dave Arceo via webcam when making the music on Skype and social-media website juggernaut Facebook enabled some of Marie and Arceo's musical performances and contributions on record in the studio. Recording bits and pieces of the music in their own home studios and computers, emailing back the multitrack files via WAV to Lew so he could Frankenstein the music on record. 

Between October to December 2011, Heavy Sigma began making music in the studio. It resulted in their recorded EP, Studio Demos 2012 (also known as Oddities). Which later after they finished making the music, was posted on the Internet as a free download on PLB-related band websites. Usually, Lew hands out printed pamphlets of Heavy Sigma locally at gigs and elsewhere to get his new solo project out there. But most of it was musical entrepreneurship based methods on the Internet itself. Lew intends Heavy Sigma as more of a solo project hobby for his passion for playing rock & roll music, but doesn't discount any prospects of performing live shows under the 'guise' Heavy Sigma sporadically.

WATCH THIS GROW! ENJOY THE MUSIC AND PLAY IT PASSIONATELY.

The Patrick Lew Band - 10 Years of Rebelling, Chaos, and Taiwanese Man Blues!

Patrick Lew Band. The 100% Truth.

1) band name: Patrick Lew's Band


2) formation date: May 2001


3) years active: 2000s, 2010s


4) web address to use as a link that can be seen by all users:
http://www.myspace.com/patricklewsband
http://www.reverbnation.com/patricklewsband
http://www.facebook.com/patricklewband

5) preferred genre classification: Grunge, Garage Punk, Alternative Rock, Hard Rock

6) home state (or country if not U.S.): Antioch, California, USA

7) band members:
Patrick Lew - Guitar, Bass, Electronics, Lead Vocals
Faith Marie - Drums, Percussion

8) Discography:
1st album: Psychotic Love (2002) --!!! OUT OF PRINT !!!--
2nd album: Revenge (2006) --!!! OUT OF PRINT !!!--
3rd album: Curb Your Wild Life (2009)
4th album: Let It Rise And Against (2009)
5th album: Murder Bay (2011)

FOREWORDI am just an Asian guy who loves and is passionate about music and was lucky enough to survive many struggles in life and enjoy what I love doing and making, regardless of what other people thought. My relationship with the music and through the Internet is to maintain a friendship with listeners & fans of PLB and encourage constructively with other bands to share the music we make to everybody where ever we're at around the world, whether I'm in San Francisco or you're somewhere in Liverpool or Tokyo. The Internet should be used as a musical weapon to get ourselves out there, heard, exposed, and maybe even some prospects along the way! While I don't play gigs very often, based on many different factors such as a lack of a band to play guitar and sing in as one of the major pitfalls along with other limitations. I take pleasure in jamming with friends in the Bay Area in garage bands. That's what I been doing since I was 13 during the end of the 90's! While I am often at home, I mainly play my guitar figuring out how to write new music and record them on my laptop. One of my intentions as an artist is to write good songs, and improve myself not only as a musician but also a human being!

Band History:

Patrick Lew (guitar, vocals) met Faith Marie (born Faith Lambright) (drums) in 2006 on a free dating website online. While Marie came from a subtle yet relatively turbulent and dysfunctional personal and family background, Lew's childhood was thrown into turmoil when his beloved grandfather passed away when he was four, and his family endured many moments of being financially and socially challenged as an Asian American family. In his youth, Lew was a "somewhat" outsider in school and experienced countless struggles and conflict within the social-network online and in real-life. Lew was also highly creatively inclined and artistic as a child, drawing comic books and developing a love for 60's British rock such as The Beatles and late 80's/early 90's hard rock in the process. Eventually, Seattle grunge (Nirvana and Pearl Jam) and contemporary punk rock worked his way into his interest in music and whilst attending Rooftop Middle School, he began playing guitar at the age of thirteen and met his childhood friend and schoolmate Tommy Loi at his summer recreational day camp at Cumberland Church in San Francisco.

Together, Lew and Loi began jamming aimlessly on their own brand of garage punk music in Lew's house near the tail end of the 1990s called Goldenweasel, and Lew enrolled in a few music courses at a local guitar store. Lew also met a couple of popular punk bands and musicians such as Mark Hoppus of Blink-182 and the band AFI while furthering his interest in punk rock and seeing live music locally. Lew attended Raoul Wallenberg High School, and began playing guitar and jamming freelance with several garage bands like Samurai Sorcerers, often including Nocturnal Rock Turtles lead guitarist George "Eddie" Blackburn.

Although most of Lew's high school band pursuits as a musician, guitar player, and artist were mainly a freelance hobby, Lew intended to take his music very seriously as an independent artist. During his times jamming aimlessly freelance with friends in garage bands miming the post-hardcore and punk rock they grew up witnessing on MTV and the mass media, Lew also created a one-man band called the Patrick Lew Band which was his musical outlet for his own songwriting ideas on record when not playing in other bands
locally for whatever purpose.

Through keyboardist and friend Zack Huang while attending a community college, Lew met close friend and drummer Dave Arceo, who had an intense passion for music and art, which meant that he, like Lew, felt alienated from the atypical superficial, bland, and not-so-interesting types of people from the masses and the Bay Area. Arceo, like Lew, also were considered outsiders within the community and social-network and felt "left out" of the status quo. Lew, Arceo, and Huang decided to form a post-hardcore band called the Band of Asians, with Arceo on drums, Huang on keyboards, and Lew on rhythm guitar. Lead guitar duties were handled by Eddie Blackburn temporarily, and subsequently by their schoolmate Cory Gaitan. The Band of Asians landed a few gigs locally and recorded a small output of musical ideas and instrumentals in a local recording studio (which caused Lew a credit card debt). Alongside a rotating cast of freelance garage bands in which Lew jammed and played his guitar in, and a rotating cast of Bandalism and band members, the bands Lew played in went through many band name changes as it did with whom he was playing guitar with or the ideas he had musically on record as a musician. As Band of Asians didn't put enough effort to further their music and pursuits as a local Bay Area band, mainly because of personal and creative differences, the Band of Asians decided to part ways and embark on solo careers.

Deeply devastated by the outcome of the events and years of adolescent turmoil, Lew pondered his musical future as an artist. Relocating his family to Antioch, California, a suburban Bay Area town about 45 miles Northeast of San Francisco in the Contra Costa County, and took his college education more seriously. Transferring into the California State University, East Bay, and spent most of 2008 in seclusion tinkering in his newly assembled home recording studio digitally creating new rock & roll music alone and posting his demo recordings of song ideas online. Two years earlier, Lew met his close friend and future spouse Faith Marie on a free dating website online and went on a couple of blind dates in the Bay Area. Only to be separated once again, because of Lew's personal crisis with music critics, transitory moments in life, alongside Marie's dysfunctional relationships with former boyfriends when she re-located back to Texas.

Lew began taking his music alone more seriously by 2008, his solo project the Patrick Lew Band and some other freelance jam sessions with friends. With the help of musical entrepreneurship Lew self-taught himself how to do, Lew began posting his music online alone as the Patrick Lew Band and seeing where the prospects take him. And suddenly, Lew's close friend Faith Marie came back into the picture and Lew and Marie solidified their friendship through social-network website Facebook and as a couple long-distance. Lew recorded 20 or 30 tracks or song ideas in his home recording studio. That became, "Let It Rise And Against" the demo album in its original form. Published on Valentines Day 2010 digitally online via iTunes and other mp3 stores.

In 2010, Lew and Marie began living together in Lubbock, Texas, as Lew sacrificed his college education and local friends and family to be with her respectively. However, the interracial and happy couple were oppressed by much of Lew's social-network online and in real-life and the social-media imposed claims and gossip about Marie which were fallaciously damaging and atrocious. Much of 2010, Lew and Marie's relationship were on the rocks partly because of the social-network that resented, judged, or oppressed them via Facebook and in real-life. However, the couple has since reconciled and took steps to filter out these unfortunate people in their social-network and keep their relationship strong and healthy. Also, Lew spent sporadic moments making new punk rock music in the studio.

Currently, the band Shanghai Kiss is working sporadically on new music as an Internet collaboration punk rock project between Lew and Marie at this very moment. Lew is also working on his music solo, and freelance jamming with others in the Bay Area in garage bands. Lew just recently published his album "Murder Bay" on his Partrick Lew Band website. Stay tuned for more music, more "dear diary" moments on Facebook, and more extreme and ultimate rock & roll from the rebellious Asian punk rocker named Patrick Lew!