Inducted for the second time into the Rock and Roll Hall Of Fame of Puerto Rico - 2015
At work as a Java Web Application Developer before retirement. (I use an LCD monitor now )
Hi! I am Tony Alicea, born and raised in Puerto Rico. I was a child during the 1960s (years later I graduated #1 in Physics from the University of Puerto Rico.) In late 1965 my rock band (one of the first Rock bands of the 1960s in Puerto Rico,
The Stokes), was asked to record an Album. It was to accompany Gloryvee ("TeVe Guia" magazine, the issue of Vol 4, #189, julio 9, 1966).
The first time that she and I ever recorded in a recording studio is sampled
here with a 34-second audio clip (MP3 format, 101K). The complete album is in another page in Spanish.
The guitar that I used for the "NACE UNA FLOR" album with Gloryvee was a borrowed Hofner hollow-body guitar. This type of guitar never made it into mainstream rock. Or mainstream anything. I bought a Fender Jazzmaster in early 1966... (see below).
As I have suggested, I am an early member of the Rock Music movement in Puerto Rico... and so are
Adrian Buxeda, Raul Paonessa and Raymond Files (RPM), and Jorge Casas (for a long time musical director of Miami Sound Machine...)
and many, many other great guys and dolls, many of whom live in South Florida now.
Slightly over ten years after that great adventure, Raymond and I last played together in a public performance at a club in Long Island, New York: The Crow's Nest.
"It was the best of times...", and it was the best of times!
For a small segment of Puerto Rican Rock History and short bio of myself, click here.
...And to read about how I got to work in a "dream job" at the Arecibo Observatory
after graduating #1 in Physics from the University of Puerto Rico (read offer of employment letter), click here. (Spanish.)
For more photos of this magnificent structure, see this link.
Follow this link to read about four great days at the Island of Culebra.
(In Spanish)
To hear the first sound of the COQUÍ on the Web, go to its room by clicking on it:
To see in which corner of the Bermuda Triangle I was born and raised, click on the UFO:
To hear me play the intro electric lead guitar to Roll Over Beethoven (MP3 format, 50K), click aquí.
To hear me play the electric lead guitar solo to Nowhere Man (MP3 format,52K), click aquí.
To hear me play the electric lead guitar solo to You're Going to Lose That Girl (MP3 format,47K), click here.
NOTE: The guitar that I played in these recordings (which were made on Dec. 31, 1979) was the original Fender Jazzmaster that I used in The Stokes and that I bought in 1966 (when I was 15 and 16 years old) in Casa Margarida in the only store they had then near the PR "Escuela Libre de Música". It was a real Fender and not a CBS model. (CBS bought Fender during the sixties.) My Jazzmaster was a "pre-CBS" model. It was probably a 1965 model that Casa Margarida sold me in 1966. Good for me!
The best
party that I ever attended in my 20s (of course I played with members of my 'old' band!), was in
Miramar (across from the Condado Lagoon), Puerto Rico. I had promised to include more pictures of the young and beautiful Puerto Rican ladies that I had the chance of photographing in that party (my friends ask me which modeling agency I was working for...), but I have postponed the purchase of a scanner. So only one sound track ("Hanky Panky") and one photo (same theme... make sure you look at the pic at the same time you listen) is included... As I said:
The best
party that I ever attended, featuring:
Pictures of young and beautiful Puerto Rican ladies, and
music (MP3 format, 162K).