Thou Swell

Childhood on a Sunday afternoon in Brooklyn, circa 1977. Breakfast has been devoured, and now it's onto the NY Times (and the funny-pages for the little guy). Blossom Dearie's voice floats across the apartment; the sun shines through the venitian blinds. The family, sits at peace... And the future seems a million miles away.

© 2012 Lee Greenfeld

45 Revolutions: The Beathovens

Though the Beathovens debuted at the Gillet club in Motala, Sweden in 1963, they were already skilled musicians, having belayed classical music for some time. The Beathovens were a band that were ahead of their time, coming, as they did, from small-town Sweden; among other things, they experimented with light-shows on stage, and music from Bach to the Stones. The people in Motala weren’t always impressed, and they found the group's name somewhat offensive. However, the band worked hard to get record contracts, and to help them, they had an energetic manager, Per Månson. They recorded a demo of "Let Me Go," and a producer at Triola, Beppo Gräsman (a former member of Gals & Pals), became interested. The problem for The Beathovens was that they didn’t come from the "big city," and as such they were never really given a chance to show what they could do. In interviews from the time they complained about how booking agents in Stockholm froze out all the groups who didn’t live there, gave them poor wages, and treated them unfairly. The band released three 45s — the classic, Zombies-inspired "Summer Sun" being their third — before breaking up in late '66.

Download: "Summer Sun" (45 a-side, Triola Records)

* Text adapted from a Swedish article,

originally published in Stora Popboken.

Quote Of The Week

"With a little more deliberation in the choice of their pursuits, all men would perhaps become essentially students and observers, for certainly their nature and destiny are interesting to all alike."

Hard Rain

Photograph by Lee Greenfeld © 2012

Quote Of The Week

"Deception, flattering, lying, deluding, talking behind the back, putting up a false front, living in borrowed splendor, wearing a mask, hiding behind convention, playing a role for others and for oneself — in short, a continuous fluttering around the solitary flame of vanity — is so much the rule and the law among men that there is almost nothing which is less comprehensible than how an honest and pure drive for truth could have arisen among them."

Borough Rock

An aural and visual tribute to the city of our youth.

Video edited by Mr. Lee

The New Breed: Giuda

Giuda: A new band we at A.I.T.A. can get behind...

Boot-stomping, hand-clapping, scarf-waving rock'n'roll action!

"Working from the same glammy three-chord blueprint as contemporaries like Slade, T. Rex, Status Quo, and the Sweet, Italy's Giuda take you back to a monumental bygone era of rock'n'roll. Specifically the early '70s pre-punk, glitter days when music was all about monstrous riffs, bousterous attitudes, high-energy experimentation and fun. Giuda take that same glammy, proto-punk foundation and fuse it with the grimy, tattered muck of bands like Eddie And The Hot Rods, The Pack, PVC, and The Kids to create a timeless arsenal of glam-injected, pub-rock classics. Top notch glitter-fused, punk-rock slop that has as much to do with the Faces and Slaugher And The Dogs as it does the UK junkshop bands from the '70s like Hector, Plod, and the Rats... Ex-members of Taxi."

- Discography -

Racey Roller LP/CD (Deadbeat/White Zoo, 2010)

"Number 10" b/w "Crazee" 45 (Surfin' Ki Records, 2011)

"Get Over It" b/w "Kidz Are Back" 45 (White Zoo, 2011)

The Faith And The Voice

Stay High 149 - The Voice Of The Ghetto

(aka Wayne Roberts)

Rest In Peace

"Wayne Roberts was born in Emporia, VA in 1950; his family migrated to Harlem seven years later. He grew up at a time when the social unrest of the streets resulted in riots. He watched as Harlem almost burned to the ground in 1964, a year later at the age of fifteen two assassins opened fire on Malcolm X and Harlem wept as it buried its native son. Wayne’s journey was far from over as his family made a brief escape to the Grand Concourse in the Bronx." ... Story continues here: Stay High 149 bio (Stay High 149 official site)

Quote Of The Week

"All important persons have about them someone in a subordinate position who has their ear. These dependents are very susceptible to slights, and, when they are not treated as they think they should be, will by well-directed shafts, constantly repeated, poison the minds of their patrons against those who have provoked their animosity."

A Coney Island Of My Mind #10

Photograph by Lee Greenfeld © 2012

No Particular Night Or Morning

Ray Bradbury

Rest In Peace

"Author of more than 27 novels and story collections — most famously The Martian Chronicles, Fahrenheit 451, Dandelion Wine and Something Wicked This Way Comes — and more than 600 short stories, Ray Bradbury has frequently been credited with elevating the often-maligned reputation of science fiction. Some say he single-handedly helped to move the genre into the realm of literature." ... Story continues here: Ray Bradbury Dies At 91; Author Lifted Fantasy To Literary Heights (LA Times)

Quote Of The Week

"Public opinion is a weak tyrant compared with our own private opinion. What a man thinks of himself, that is which determines, or rather indicates, his fate."

To Raise The Voice

"At lunch I'd go to Blimpies down on Montague Street,

And hit the Fulton Street Mall for the sneakers on my feet."

BARD-1 (aka Adam "MCA" Yauch), R.I.P.

Photograph by Lee Greenfeld © 2012