Oh, that Patrick
Los Angeles, California, United States | SELF
Music
Press
===note: this is fake, but I figured fake press is more entertaining than no press at all ===
PBQ: I'm sitting here with locally renown songwriter Patrick Tyrrell, better known to his fans as Oh, that Patrick.
OH, THAT PATRICK: It's a privilege to be featured in such an august periodical as the Phony Baloney.
PBQ: Let's cut straight to the brass tax, Patrick. By what devil's alchemy do you concoct such a wide variety of music? It makes women coo, men roar, and babies 20% smarter.
OH, THAT PATRICK: I'm very worldly, I guess. I've spent years scouring the globe, absorbing different cultures, adopting various young musical prodigies who now work for me in my music studio. Some people would call it a sweat shop, but I actually expressly forbade perspiration last year in a company memo.
PBQ: Hmmm, shockingly clever, Patrick. How then, with such a disparate cabal of minions doing your songwriting do your songs emerge with such a signature persona?
OH, THAT PATRICK: Ahhh, that truly is the work of genius. I downloaded this awesome piece of shareware that takes an ordinary .wav file and imparts any variety of preset worldviews onto it. I've been rendering all the tracks on my recent album with the "Optimistic Minimalist" preset. It's a bit tinny, but I like its brightness overall.
PBQ: Last question, since I'm sure you need to go oil your slaves ... why don't you have any REAL press to feature on this website?
OH, THAT PATRICK: Well, this project is just getting off the ground. Plus, I have many hideous skeletons in my closet which would surely be exhumed were I to garnish national attention.
PBQ: I see. These skeletons are remnants of your sordid past, no doubt?
OH, THAT PATRICK: No .... they're quite literally hideous human skeletons. I forgot to feed my orphans initially. Some things you gotta learn the hard way, I suppose.
PBQ: Thanks again for your time. We look forward to many new surprises in the coming months.
OH, THAT PATRICK: You do? Crikey. I guess that means ol' Whippy is going to be crackin' overtime. Hyah!!!! - The Phony Baloney Quarterly
Discography
Jan 2009 - "Never Gonna Have a Real Career" (10 track debut album)
feat. 'Dog After Tail', licensed to an indie movie, a website, and retail store airplay in Europe.
Oct 2010 - "Best Black History Month ... Ever!" (14 track album)
http://www.thatpatrick.com/musiccatalog.htm (assorted singles and demos)
Photos
Bio
Oh, that Patrick is as fun to say as he is to hear. But what does he sound like?
Picture early Weezer, in which the music seems smart yet simple.
Picture Jason Mraz, but without any cool hats and with less of a penchant for mile-a-minute lyrics.
Picture Jellyfish, but without as much Queen-sounding overproduction.
Picture Ben Folds. Yeah, no caveats there. People compare me to him more than to anyone else.
Oh, that Patrick is the performing moniker of Patrick Tyrrell, a songwriter from the MD/DC area who made the unthinkable, unprecedented decision to move to Los Angeles to pursue his dream. (what's that? 6 million other cliches live here? oh, well)
His dream got watered down along the way - although worldwide fame would still be a loathsome curiosity worth experiencing, Patrick's principal objective is just to support his addiction to songwriting. He would love to supply film, tv, video games, other artists, etc. with songs, hoping that they would provide him with enough income to write and record more songs.
For the past five years in LA, he's been writing and recording as a one man band. Patrick plays guitar and piano really well, bass and drums pretty well, and sings considerably well within his rather unimpressive vocal range.
Patrick's music is similar to that of late-Beatles - songs tend to be either guitar driven (with a mix of clean and distortion) or piano driven (often with plunking eighth note chords and/or descending progressions). Layered into that are harmonies with the lead vocal as well as backing oohs/aahs and countermelodies. Finally, a few times per album or show, Patrick gets to show his love of jam bands by ripping a guitar solo similar to Carlos Santana or Phish's Tre Anastasio.
In less musical and more psychological terms, Oh, that Patrick sounds like well-adjusted optimism, philosophical rumination, and trenchant sarcasm.
A firm believer of "The Middle Way", (not that he's Buddhist ... just very even-tempered) Patrick finds sorrowful situations to be opportunities for growth and redemption and euphoric situations to be bittersweet reminders of the impermanence of life and permanence of death. So his mood and his tempo swing, but they normally come back to center.
Hopefully, his music exerts that sort of effect on the listener, pleasantly stretching them in different directions but leaving them feeling well-grounded and wise.
There is definitely little to no pretentiousness in Patrick's music. He does employ a lot of big words in his lyrics, but that's just the way he talks, unfortunately. Otherwise, he is not trying to be cool or aloof - just fun and sincere.
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