When I moved back home to Wichita Falls almost a year ago, the first item on my to do list was to seek out as many bands as I could find to see what the music scene was all about. In the process, I discovered a following that has recently seen a surge in public notoriety. The Punk scene.
There are only three or four local punk bands in town, including City Creeps, It Hurts To Be Dead, and I recently had the pleasure of sitting down with yet another one, The Immediate Amnesia.
The formation of this group is an interesting tale. Mikey Sound, a.k.a. Mikey Glashan, was a sound engineer for many years for local bands, festivals, and concerts for names like Brandon Jenkins, Max Stalling, Drowning Pool, and the like. He was sound tech for Roselawn at the time it disbanded because the guitarist moved off to Dallas.
The bassist for Roselawn at the time was Brady Patterson. Brady told me that when he was still in his mother’s womb, she would blast AC/DC through headphones on her tummy. The first time he saw Angus Young live he decided that that’s what he wanted to do. And to this day he is still the self-proclaimed biggest fan of AC/DC.
His mother was also very close friends with the sister of Bowling For Soup’s Jaret Reddick. So from an early age, Brady has grown up around a lot of great players. When he was about ten years old, BFS bassist Erik Chandler handed him a bass guitar and told him to learn how to play it. He said it is important for the young people to learn how to play so that the music community here will continue into the future.
Later in life, he attended college in Lubbock and was deep into the metal scene. There he got to meet and rub elbows with bands like System Of A Down, Puddle Of Mud, GWAR, and others.
He finally reached a point where he desired to do something different, do his own music, but could find little more than metal in Lubbock. He got a job working for Halliburton which landed him here in Wichita Falls. He saw a post from Mikey that Roselawn needed a metal bass player. It may not have been his first choice of styles, but it was one he was very familiar with.
Drummer Andy Klem grew up in Chicago and has been drumming for almost 20 years. He cut his teeth on rock and roll like 
Metallica. He says that Chicago may be famous for blues music, but it has a very thick underground punk scene. It flourishes in the DIY (Do It Yourself) circuit, having shows in garages and back yards.
He eventually started drifting out of the rock scene and into more funky groups and hip hop bands. After he moved here almost seven years ago, he hooked up with a band called Century Suite. The guitarist for that band was none other than Brady Patterson, who had previously played bass for Roselawn.
Roselawn lasted awhile, and when the guitarist moved away, Mikey decided that he needed to make some life changes, mainly because his profession as a sound tech was damaging his hearing, making it difficult for him to even sleep at night. He landed a job re-upholstering airplanes and worked his way up to mechanic.
About this time last year, Mikey and Brady decided to put to good use their rehearsal space to blow off some steam, drink some beer, and do some jamming. Only this time, Mikey threw a curve ball, asking how many beers can we drink and still play our instruments, but the guitar player will play drums, the bass player will play guitar and the sound guy will play bass? No one had had any experience on those instruments. The experiment achieved greater results than were expected. Wanting to take it a step further, Brady called up his old band mate and drummer, Andy. The Immediate Amnesia had been hatched.
They started recording those inebriated sessions which produced some pretty good jams. Max Chandler one day asked Brady if they should erase them, and Brady replied, “No! We may get immediate amnesia and they will be gone!”
The formula was easy: Keep it simple and throw it out there. Brady was baptized by fire, not only as a guitarist, but as a vocalist, too. But he found comfort when Mikey told him that it is punk music. You can say anything you want, even the most disgusting thing, for two and a half minutes and nobody will listen to you anyway. That little pep talk worked for a little while, until they started gigging more and doing more shows. Brady was surprised at a show recently when he saw some fans singing along with his song “It Tastes So Good It Must Be Death”.
These guys are inspired by, friends with, and huge fans of It Hurts To Be Dead. At every IHTBD show, Mikey says, you will find Brady and himself at the front of the stage singing every word of every song. In a town with barely a handful of punk bands these guys support each other above and beyond.
I caught this band a few times live, but only recently was fortunate enough to see their whole show at Stick’s Place. I must agree with Mikey when he states that Brady is probably underrated as a guitarist and a singer. He also humbly admits to keeping his bass lines as simple as possible to let Brady shine.
They boast more original material in their set than covers, and they are energetic and fun to watch. There is a punk scene in this town. You may have to dig a little, but it is definitely there. I have seen it.
Follow the band on FACEBOOK.
~Tim Maloney
