From Ariana Grande to Marilyn Manson, New Found Glory to Black Violin, the vibrant local music scene has catapulted a mixed bag of pop acts onto the national stage. But it’s the local bands, hell-bent on living out their starry-eyed dreams, that are the backbone of South Florida’s sprawling, raggle-taggle sonic landscape.
On most any night, especially on the weekends and even in the off-season, dozens upon dozens of local acts, mainly cover bands, man the mics and crank the amps in countless lounges, restaurants, casinos, festivals and assorted other venues from Broward up into Palm Beach counties. Much of the dynamic naturally comes with the territory. This is a resort mecca, after all. But much of it too comes with something more innate: a home-base singularity, a locally sourced clientele — a here-is-where-the-heart-is fidelity.
And here. Right here. That’s where you’ll find Patrick Farinas.
For the versatile guitarist/vocalist and his band, the Flyers, their performances — at Tin Roof Fort Lauderdale on Friday, June 27 and July 25, a regular monthly appearance at Seminole Casino Coconut Creek (the next is Saturday, July 5 at the Sunset Grill), and at the Hollywood Art Walk on Saturday, Aug. 16 — are part of a two-decade-long continuum of playing classic songs area audiences can’t get enough of.
Granted, the qualifications are far from hard-and-fast, but if there’s anyone who fits the profile of local legend, it’s Farinas. Few can boast the bona fides of a musician who, at age 41, has 30-plus years performing on area stages, a home-grown virtuoso who remains as much a player on the local scene as an avatar of it.
“I started playing professionally on drums when I was only seven or eight,” says Farinas. “I started doing gigs with my dad, Tony Farinas, a Juilliard-trained musician. And then at 13, I picked up the guitar and that’s when I started my career for real.”
As a teenager, Farinas played with various indie rock groups in the area. He didn’t abandon the multi-instrumentalism, however. With the Flyers, the power trio he put together 20 years ago, the Delray Beach musician plays guitar, keyboards and sings lead — sometimes all at once — and also plays drums. Fort Lauderdale drummer Joe Beard, another multi-instrumentalist who’s been with Farinas for the past 15 years, will trade off with him on guitar and vocals. Boynton Beach bassist Austin Smilen has rounded out the trio for the past five years.
“Typically, over the course of the night at some point we do switch around,” says Beard. “It just comes from Patrick’s musical ADD. I mean, literally the first gig that I played with him, he goes, ‘Hey, don’t you play guitar?’ I was like, ‘Yeah.’ So he jumped on the drums and I jumped on the guitar. This guy’s a monster guitar player. But I just took a jump off the cliff anyway, because I figured as bad as I am on guitar, he’s probably that bad on drums. But he turned out to be pretty good on drums.”
Still, Farinas’s forte is the guitar. He’s a collector whose private studio holds over 40 of them, mostly vintage. Onstage, his 1957 Fender Stratocaster seems as much like an appendage as an instrument. His fingers, flitting up and down the fretboard with seemingly indiscriminate speed, practically defy the precision of music-making.
Combined with the soulful rasp of his voice, it’s the kind of shredding that invokes Stevie Ray Vaughan, Jimi Hendrix or various other gods from the blues and classic rock pantheons. He even channels the legendary psychedelic guitarist by playing Voodoo Child with his teeth and behind his back, and switching over mid-song to play left-handed like Jimi.
Connections To Bob Dylan
Speaking of legends, at the West Palm Beach Sunfest in 2003 Farinas opened for perhaps the most legendary of them all — Bob Dylan.
“We went on right before him,” he says. “He’s one of my idols. So I was lucky to get the gig at age 17 or 18 with my original band, the Trytones.”
Interestingly, the gig wasn’t his only connection to Dylan. Factoring in a few degrees of separation, Farinas’ family tree includes the Dylan-adjacent folk goddess Joan Baez, whose sister Mimi married fellow folk-singer Richard Fariña. The second cousin of Farinas’s father, Fariña was an early friend of Dylan’s and the author of the ’60s counterculture novel, “Been Down So Long It Looks Like Up to Me.”
“They took the “s” off to make it match the cereal so that people will remember it,” Farinas says, explaining the discrepancy in their last names.
Like Fariña, Farinas’s father was also part of the New York music scene.
“He was a go-to bass player,” says Farinas. “If you were going through New York and you needed a bass player, he was on the list of like five players. He played for the Butterfield Blues Band, Cyndi Lauper. He used to hang with those guys from the Band, Levon [Helm] and Rick [Danko]. His career was very extensive because it goes from jazz all the way to what we’re talking about.”
It was that jazz affiliation of his father’s that gave Farinas his first real taste of professional musicianship as an electric guitarist — a far cry from his first gigs playing acoustic at age 10. “I’d go to coffee houses and they’d let me play,” he says. “I would always just do whatever they let me get away with.”
But only a few years later, he was playing electric alongside his father on bass in a big jazz band with remaining members of the Count Basie and the Glenn Miller orchestras at PG Doogie’s, a former Deerfield Beach supper club.
“I was at that club playing every Thursday, Friday, Saturday, Sunday for about three years of my life,” says Farinas. “I started when I was about 13. They would let me do a lot of the blues numbers on guitar. That was a huge learning experience for me. And that was where I met my mentor, Jimmy Cavallo.”
Cavallo was the bandleader, a one-time rock ’n’ roll pioneer who performed in the 1956 Alan Freed movie “Rock Rock Rock” with his band, the Houserockers, the first white band to play at Harlem’s Apollo Theater.
“He played sax for Chuck Berry,” says Farinas. “And I came up under him and got to learn all the old-school ways of reading the crowd and respecting the stage and doing it as a living.”
“Doing it as a living” — for Farinas and the Flyers, that translates to playing five to six nights a week.
“I could be playing three gigs a day almost if I want — a happy hour, a regular gig and then a late-night — but I can’t handle that physically.”
Losing HIs Voice
It was only three years ago that Farinas was forced to undergo surgery on his vocal cords, thinking he might never be able to sing again.
“It took a while to heal it. I had to take a half a year off of even being in public because I couldn’t talk. But it was the best thing I ever did because it cleaned up everything that was in there, like taking the barnacles off of a boat. I’d say my voice is stronger than ever. I don’t know if it’s better, but it’s stronger.”
Before the surgery — just in case — Farinas recorded an album.
“It was self-titled, an EP. I was losing my voice. And I said, I just want to get a couple songs down. Luckily I came out on the other side.”
The album was one of a couple Farinas has made with the Flyers. They’ve also toured a couple of times — but the lessons he’s learned from the experience have helped turn him into the off-the-road-warrior that he is now.
“I always say if the right opportunity arose … but I’m not going to chase a pipe dream and make some company a bunch of money while I work my ass off. I have a 5-year-old, so I’m not going to go on tour unless it’s for the benefit of my family financially. Truth is, most contracts you see are rubbish. My wife, Lauren, is a lawyer. She graduated contract law at UM. So every time we see a contract, we laugh it off. I pretty much turn down things because there’s a lot of work in South Florida.”
The musician is quick to talk up the fringe benefits of that work, too.
“My favorite aspect of it is I get to play songs for people that they already know and love. And I get to put my own spin on it where it’s a little different every night but still has the same continuity. So it’s really a copacetic thing between the audience and me. And you get a lot of more retirement-age people down here. We’re playing music from the ’60s and ’70s, so everyone is at the age of the music that we focus on. It’s like, you don’t leave fish to find fish in my scenario.”
Farinas’s decades-long dedication to the local scene has naturally built the band a following.
“I can’t believe all my fans keep still showing up night after night — sometimes three, four nights in a row, people who fly in from all around the country. It’s pretty humbling, but it’s amazing. And for all the compliments I get, I’d say the best is when a little old lady will come up to me and say, ‘You know, my husband was a big fan of yours. I haven’t been out in a year since he passed. And you made me feel so good.’
“Oh, man. I know that sounds cheesy, but I’m getting a chill right now. Wow. I mean, you can tell me how much you love my guitar playing — it ain’t going to affect me like that.”
IF YOU GO
WHAT: The Flyers
WHEN and WHERE: Friday, June 27 and July 25, Tin Roof Fort Lauderdale, 219 S. Andrews Ave. Also, Saturday, July 5, Sunset Grill, Seminole Casino Coconut Creek, 5550 NW 40th St., Coconut Creek; Friday, July 11, Packy’s Sports Pub and Grill, 4480 N. Federal Highway, Lighthouse Point; Sunday, Aug. 3, Sharkey’s Bar & Grill, 10365 Royal Palm Blvd., Coral Springs, and Saturday, Aug. 16, Hollywood Art Walk, Harrison Street, Hollywood.
COST: Free
INFORMATION: theflyersmusic.com
