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Once upon a time, when professors still threw wild parties, and people still thought smoking was mandatory, there was born a boy named Patrick to a professor of philosophy and a nurse. Like his brothers before and after him, this boy was raised on good LPs, good children's literature, and amazing cooking.

As the years passed, each of the three brothers specialized and honed their skills in different ways. Patrick sought refuge from the confusing existential questions every boy of six or seven must have ("what's the point of saving this week's allowance if I'm only going to spend it on twice as much candy next week?") by running to the piano and making things up.

This might have begun as an aimless pastime, but when one day he saw an obscure vampire movie on TV, Patrick ran upstairs, not out of fear, but out of a need to recreate the film's opening theme. He may not have got it right, but he wrote his first piece of music that day. He can play it for you still, but it's not very good, as it was written by an eight year-old.

A little while later, when his parents were throwing one of those legendary Keenan parties, Patrick was exposed to Aretha Franklin Gold, an LP that one party-goer saw fit to play over and over and over again the morning after. Patrick "taught himself how to play the blues" (yeah, like it's that simple!) at the straggler's behest.

When he was in high school, writing the kind of poetry you only forgive a high school student for, he began writing songs and jamming with people. By university, he was already fronting his first band, Jubal, with his brother Tom, his school chum Ryan Krowetz, and a new acquaintence, the amazing drummer Jeff Konwalchuk.

Since that time, Patrick has been performing and composing, writing songs that weave through light and dark times, trying to get at the literary heart of what it is to be alive in the prairies in the 21st century. He has composed for film, has recorded, mixed and produced music for others, and has written over six hundred songs, several of which are even listenable! In '04 he released "As Constant As The Northern Car," his debut CD, which received rave reviews, and charted locally and nationally on college stations. He is on the cusp of releasing new material, like an album that has been 2 years in the making, and an EP that was 2 1/2 days in the making.

Keenan has also been the host of a radio show called "Let's Go Jack I'm Red Hot" on Winnipeg's Listener Driven Radio, CKUW since 1994. It now can be heard Saturdays at 4 p.m. central standard time, or one may download archives if one wishes.