Biography
Things change, for good or ill, but patterns remain. The roads we travel take sudden
turns and direct us toward unforeseen places, but we’re always pointed forward. Nature is an
infinite grid upon which all life is in constant motion. What it this strange, preternatural quality
of patterns in the world?
One day in 2001, in Salem, Oregon, I broke a guitar string. The guitar upon which the
string was strung was a candy-apple red Fender Squire, a possession of someone I knew as Ricci,
whose wrath I had come to understand was as powerful and as broad as the Pacific Ocean. In
order to forgo any potential jeopardy I might have been in, I placed a dollar bill on the guitar and
left it to be found. A week later, a knock came rapping on my door. I recognized my guest im-
mediately; it was the candy-apple red Fender Squire, intact with all six strings. It was being held
at the neck by a dark, brooding figure, clad in polyester trousers and V-neck sweater. His face
was obscured by hair, his voice was hushed and low, and he spoke with a standard American ac-
cent - It was Ricci. “You play guitar?” He asked. “Yes,” I replied, “I do.” He then took my hand,
and, shaking it vigorously, suggested we immediately begin playing music together.
So we did, playing simple arrangements of Bela Bartok sonatas at first, then moving on
to Franz Liszt. Our few attempts at playing live were mediocre at best, until a young man and
fellow sensational relativist called Pat happened by one show and asked if we needed any man-
dolin players. “Yes,” I said, “we do.” So we became a three-piece.
Pat’s remarkable gift of quiet vetting lead to his suggestion that we start playing pop mu-
sic, “with the aesthetic charm of a broken window,” said Pat. It was clear that he was right, and
so shattered pop music we played, right on through 2008. But windows being broken by guitars
is only sometimes productive as percussion, so we saw it fit to seek a drummer. Luckily, our
window repairman’s cousin’s nephew, called Ryan from Idaho, was a drummer with a certain
flair for breaking sticks. We liked him almost instantaneously. We asked him to please play like
shattered glass, which he understood exceedingly well. We felt physical and spiritual alignment
as four, and so we’ve stayed - Ricci, Pat, Ryan, and myself, Shoki.
We are not rock-and-rollers. We are called Patterns, and we make music together.
Instrumentation
Ricci Swift - Guitar & Vocals
Shoki Tanabe - Bass, Organ, Vocals
Pat McBrien - Guitar, Bass, Organ
Ryan Northrop - Drums
Discography
Wading Through Grass (single) - Released May 2nd, 2008 on Anchor Chain Records