Brandon Patton
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
| Brandon Patton | ||
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| Background information | ||
| Also known as | Blak Lotus | |
| Origin | USA | |
| Genre(s) | Pop, Rock | |
| Years active | 1996 – present | |
| Label(s) | Independent record label | |
| Website | www.brandonpatton.com | |
Brandon Patton is a songwriter from the United States of America. He has recorded two solo albums, Nocturnal (1997) and Should Confusion (2004). A new album is set for release in the summer of 2007. Patton also recorded a song for the tsunami-relief fundraiser CD Indie Pop Cares a Lot.[1]
Patton also performs with Prince Gomolvilas as part of a two-person show called Jukebox Stories and plays bass for MC Frontalot under the name Blak Lotus. From 1997–2000 he played in the band three against four.
Patton self-released the album Should Confusion in 2004. The album was a finalist for "Album of the Year" in the 2004 Independent Music Awards. Patton won "Top Music Artist" at the 2005 Temecula Film and Music Festival and was a finalist in the 2004 Newport Folk Festival New Talent Showcase. He currently lives in Brooklyn, New York.
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[edit] History
[edit] Nocturnal
Patton wrote his first album while living in western Massachusetts and running a recording studio in an office building. Since the studio lacked any soundproofing, recording was only possible after everyone else had left the building, thus the album title.
[edit] three against four: Some of Us Are Here
A year later, he formed the hard rock trio three against four (intentionally uncapitalized) with guitarist Anand Nayak (currently of Rani Arbo and Daisy Mayhem). They befriended a mixing engineer one day after wandering down a dirt road and stumbling upon Mark Alan Miller (of Out Out), who had worked with nearly every rock group in western Massachusetts, including area royalty J. Mascis. Patton and Nayak developed a collaborative routine with Miller, recording their songs at their home studio and then bringing in the tracks for mixing at Miller's now legendary Slaughterhouse Recording Studio, housed in an actual slaughterhouse. Their first album was titled Some of Us Are Here (1998), a reference to their continuing search for a permanent drummer (and also a skit from Sesame Street). Don MacAulay (Ware River Music Club) and Ben Stanton played drums on the album. It was, like all of Patton’s projects, a wildly eclectic album, veering from oversexed blues-rock to literate acoustic balladry to spastic manifestos to spooky funk to polyrhythmic, mournful indie rock.
[edit] three against four: Hey Sparkle Eyes
three against four eventually found their drummer, the hard-hitting Jay Skowronek (currently of Maxeen) and started to go on self-booked tours. Their year as underpaid road warriors doing the unglamorous grind of self-booked shows had a musical impact. They started to write edgier, angrier music. But it also started to wear away at the band's morale. They returned to the studio and started recording a harder, louder rock record. But the band eventually split up in the midst of recording. When Dan Cantor, a producer from Boston (Hummer and Jim's Big Ego) heard the tracks they had abandoned, he jumped in and helped catalyze the band to soldier through and finish the record. The album became their swan song and they became more creative with the studio, spending almost a year recording and re-recording an album they all knew they would never tour behind to support. Hey Sparkle Eyes (2000) was the result. A record of extremes, the sounds vary from heavy distortion to sparkling clean electric tones, the mixes from dense to spacious, and the emotions span from bitter disappointment to frivolous mania.
ACM Records offered the band a publishing deal once the album was finished, and although the band never reunited, songs from Hey Sparkle Eyes found their way into the soundtracks of several shows, including Monster Garage (Discovery Channel) and RealWorld (MTV).
[edit] Solo once more; Should Confusion
With three against four a thing of the past, Patton again focused on his solo career. Over the next three years, Patton shuttled between Boston and Northern California writing and recording his songs. At the same time, he worked as a sideman for Universal Records artist Matt Nathanson and toured with Solea (featuring ex-members of Samiam) who had a spot opening up for Rival Schools.
Should Confusion, completed in the fall of 2003 but released in 2004, is a chronicle of the journeys Patton has undertaken since striking out on his own. The difficulty of long distance relationships ("3100 Miles") stark self-appraisal ("Counting the Paces") and memories of an abused friend ("What's the Worst That Could Happen?") mingle with lighter notes on classroom fantasies ("Auspicious Moment") and the unreliable nature of infatuation ("Did That All Before"). The album's music is equally diverse: "3100 Miles" mixes world and electronic elements with a New-Orleans-style horn section, "What's the Worst That Could Happen?" breaks into a galloping rock-chorus, and "Did That All Before" has a twenties-jazz arrangement complete with stride piano, superimposed over an alternative-country sound. The threads that run throughout are Patton's thoughtful, honest lyrics and his acoustic guitar playing, which varies from expressively simple to fiercely rhythmic.
[edit] MC Frontalot
Patton collaborated with the nerdcore hip hop artist MC Frontalot in 2005, playing bass under the pseudonym Blak Lotus for the MC's debut album Nerdcore Rising. A movie about nerdcore, featuring MC Frontalot, is in production and expected to be released in the fall of 2007 under the name Nerdcore Rising: The Movie.
[edit] Jukebox Stories
In 2006, Patton teamed up with Prince Gomolvilas, a writer from Los Angeles, to create a two man show based on the stories of Gomolvilas and the songs of Patton. The premiere ran for six weeks at the Impact Theatre in Berkeley, California in the fall of 2006. On the closing night of the show, the two performers asked present Maybeck High School students to edit their respective wikipedia articles.
[edit] Discography
[edit] Solo albums
- Nocturnal (1997)
- Should Confusion (2004)
[edit] Group albums
- Some of Us Are Here (1998)
- Hey Sparkle Eyes (2002)
