Unbreakable Spirit

Umbrella Skies

When I was a teenager there was a short-lived tradition among some of my boys to do Well-Dressed Men Nights, where we'd go out to dive bars in the city dressed to the nines — or our budget interpretation of what that was — get loaded, and pump quarters into the jukebox, playing Frank, Frank, and more Frank. The nights always ended with something breaking — one of our hearts, glass, knuckles, or someone's nose — and a long subway ride back to our respective boroughs.

"Summer Wind" was our unofficial theme song, and will forever remind me of those carefree days, and my lost friend James.

Summer Wind tattoo by JT Miller at NYHC Tattoo

The New Breed: Lvger

Lvger are a new band straight out of New York City who play tough street-rock — think Motörhead meets the punkier side of early NWOBHM. The power-trio is comprised of Chris (The Templars/ Prowler), James, and James. Dig their two-song demo here.

Photography by Lee Greenfeld © 2017

Third Avenue, Circa 1989

Pitchers of beer consumed in mugs, never pints.

In places where the tables were always sticky,

The jukebox too loud and distorted,

And the good times never seemed to end.

That was the atmosphere.

Words by Lee Greenfeld © 2011-2017

A Gallery Of Cool, Take Twenty

True cool is timeless.

Dig: A Gallery Of Cool, Take Nineteen

Double The Pleasure

While I was waiting to enter a nightclub on a side-street in South Brooklyn, there was a commotion out front. I was with my childhood friend Len, who went pale and started to point furiously. I looked over and I was staring at myself, dressed to the nines in a sharkskin suit, cursing, and pushing people around while swigging out of a forty-ounce bottle of Old English beer. Before I could process what was happening, the alternate me staggered in front of me, sneered, and then smashed the bottle at my feet, soaking my legs in malt liquor. I was immediately torn as to how I should retaliate...

Words by Lee Greenfeld © 2017

The Roads to Freedom

"He was free, free in every way, free to behave like a fool or a machine, free to accept, free to refuse, free to equivocate: to marry, to give up the game, to drag this dead weight about with him for years to come. He could do what he liked, no one had the right to advise him, there would be for him no Good nor Evil unless he brought them into being. All around him things were gathered in a circle, expectant, impassive, and indicative of nothing. He was alone, enveloped in this monstrous silence, free and alone, without assistance and without excuse, condemned to decide without support from any quarter, condemned for ever to be free."

Photograph by Lee Greenfeld © 2017

Words by Jean-Paul Sartre from The Age Of Reason, 1945