New!
WALTER SCOTT
JUST YOU WAIT
White Whale Stereo album WW 7131, 1970
Album Designed by Kittyhawk Graphics
(Dean O. Torrence of Jan & Dean)
WS 8930 / 8931
Monarch Delta 15025 / -X
First Released As
GREAT SCOTT
Musicland USA album 3502, 1967
Album Designed by Lee - Myles Associates, NYC
Produced by Mel Friedman
(d. 30 June 1997)
01. JUST YOU WAIT (W-189-45)
(Mike Krenski - Greg Hoeltzel)
Musicland USA single 111,
Cash Box Review 16 September 1967
and White Whale single WW 259,
Billboard and Cash Box Reviews 28 October 1967
Monarch Delta 68701
KXOK Peak #3, Weeks Ending
Saturday 14 and 21 October 1967
02. SILLY GIRL (W-190-45)
(Mike Krenski - Greg Hoeltzel)
Musicland USA single 111 B
and White Whale single WW 259 B
Monarch Delta 68701-X
03. SOUNDS OF THE CITY
(Mike Krenski - Greg Hoeltzel)
04. MY SHADOW IS GONE (6876)
(Mike Krenski - Greg Hoeltzel)
Musicland USA single 20,009 B
05. WATCH OUT (6908)
(Mike Krenski - Greg Hoeltzel)
Musicland USA single 20,009, September 1966
KXOK #17, Sat 12 November 1966
06. ON BROADWAY
(Barry Mann - Cynthia Weil -
Jerry Leiber - Mike Stoller)
Musicland USA single 115 B
KXOK #15, Sat 14 March 1968
07. SALLY'S GONE AWAY
(Greg Hoeltzel)
Musicland USA single 115, July 1967
08. BUT NOW SHE'S GONE
(Greg Hoeltzel)
09. PROUD (7049)
(Mike Krenski - Greg Hoeltzel)
Musicland USA single 20,014 B
10. IT'S BEEN A LONG, LONG TIME (7048)
(Mike Krenski - Greg Hoeltzel)
Musicland USA single 20,014, March 1967
KXOK #9, Sat 25 February 1967
11. WHAT NOW MY LOVE
(Becaud - Delanoe - Sigman)
Exclusive White Whale Album Cut
My Side Of The Bandstand
an autobiography
by Bob Kuban
w/ Nancy K. Wenger
Published February 2006
In Memoriam
Mel Al Friedman
d. June 30, 1997
(Musicland U.S.A.)
Norman H. Wienstroer
d. February 11, 1999
(Norman Records)
BOB KUBAN AND THE IN-MEN:
LOOK OUT FOR THE CHEATER
CD Liner Notes
by Harry Young
Released May 26, 2003
The AeroVons
Resurrection
RPM CD 261
"Meetings with the Beatles, recording sessions at Abbey Road, and one amazing album, Resurrection. Beautifully-produced string-laden pop with soaring melodies and sweet harmonies, it's one of the most wonderful pop albums of the late 60's."
RPM's excellent AeroVons CD package includes:
AeroVons Teen Dance flyer from the Union City Auditiorium, Union, MO
'Rock AeroVons Fly High' illustrated Feb 1969 Post-Dispatch article by Harper Barnes
Original "World Of You" demo recording and acetate label from
PREMIER Film And Recording Corporation, St Louis, MO
1968 Photo of the AeroVons departing for London from Lambert International Airport (Eastern airlines)
Liner notes mention Bob Kuban's weekly column in the Post-Dispatch, the Guise, the Intruders, the Unknowns, the XLs, the Acid Set, the Good Feelin', the Bat Cave, the Castaways, the Rainy Daze and the Beatles' 21 August 1966 concert at Busch Stadium.
The Guardian (London, England)
July 16, 2003
Arts:
Almost famous:
They looked like the Beatles,
sang like the Beatles -
and should have been as big as
the Beatles.
So what went wrong for the Aerovons?
Byline: Dave Simpson
'Did you see The Matrix?" asks Tom Hartman. "There's a scene where time stops, and everybody stands frozen on the street. That's how I feel. It's like someone just released a pause button pressed in 1969." Back then, Hartman was 17, and his band, the Aerovons, were tipped to be the next Beatles. They had already travelled from their home in St Louis to London, been signed to EMI (home to the Beatles) and recorded their debut album, Resurrection, in the Abbey Road studio. But then everything fell apart: the band split up and the album was shelved. Now, 34 years later, that title (a reference to the then disappearing sounds of psychedelia) seems weirdly prophetic. Resurrection is finally being released - and hailed as a lost classic.
Hartman, a child prodigy who played piano and guitar, formed the Aerovons with two brothers, bassist Billy and drummer Mike Lombardo. All three shared an obsession with the Fab Four. They had the same equipment as the Beatles, and were persecuted by greaser gangs for liking the Liverpudlians - almost an alternative act in pre-Vietnam America. "They'd say, 'Hey Mary, come here, we'll give you a haircut,' " Hartman recalls.
It was through sheer naive bravado that the band ended up on the same label as their heroes. Initially they were offered a deal by the California-based company Capitol USA, but Hartman turned it down, declaring: "I don't want to be like all those Beach Boys groups." Despite the rejection, Capitol pointed the Aerovons in the direction of Roy Featherstone, the Beatles' A&R man at EMI. With just the "thinnest of leads", the band set off for London in September 1968, armed with their Beatlesesque demo, World of You. "Looking back, it was so easy," says Hartman. "He [Featherstone] just went, 'You're from St Louis and you wanna come to record here? That's great!' It was like something out of the movies."
EMI courted the band not with huge advances, but with a trip to the Speakeasy - the exclusive nerve centre of celebrity swinging London. Among the guests that night were Diana Ross, Michael Caine . . . and Paul McCartney. Even now, at the age of 52, Hartman's voice quivers at the memory. "It was dark, dinner tables. I walked up to Paul and said, 'Hi, we're from the States.' Our band card said, 'The Smashing English sound.' He said, 'Oh, Smashing English sounds - from America. Can I keep this?' It was the biggest moment of my life to that point."
The Aerovons returned to London in March the following year to record at the Abbey Road studio - at the same time as the Beatles were recording the album Abbey Road. "They were forever sneaking off to have their pictures taken with Beatles equipment," remembers Alan Parsons, who engineered both albums.
The Beatles would often ask how Resurrection was progressing and were always on hand for advice. "If I had a guitar sound question I could always ask George," says Hartman. "But John wasn't so approachable. I mean, he probably was but I didn't feel like bugging him. He was always with Yoko, every second. He'd go into the bathroom and she'd lean against the wall and wait for him to come out."
The Aerovons couldn't help being inspired by their heroes - but they are more than Beatles soundalikes. On Resurrection they created a magic, melancholy cobweb of sound, drenched in cellos, the cries of seagulls and even Big Ben chimes. "The buzz around Abbey Road was that these guys are really good," says Parsons. "I remember thinking, 'My God, they really have a chance to be the next Beatles.' Everybody at the label thought that."
But then trouble struck. The band's additional guitarist, Pete Edholm, began to moan that Hartman was dominating the songwriting - and so EMI sent him back to St Louis. The label was also worried about the album's budget (pounds 35,000, not far off Sgt Peppers' pounds 50,000). It didn't help that the band's single, Train, wasn't being taken up by DJs. Worst of all, the Aerovons arrived back at St Louis airport to find that Mike Lombardo's wife was having an affair. "He fell apart," says Hartman. "Me and Billy were staring at each other and EMI were calling saying, 'Look, you've already lost one member. Are you guys ready to promote this?'" They weren't, and the label pulled the plug.
The band couldn't abandon music altogether: Hartman gained a film degree and enjoyed some success with film scores, while Billy works in construction but also plays in St Louis clubs. Having come so tantalising close to being a fab four, don't they feel bitter? Not one bit, Hartman insists. "I was talking to my mum one night before she died and I told her that my big regret was not being successful enough to buy her and dad a house," he says. "But she just said, 'Tom, don't you realise that it was a ton of fun for me, too?' She was as big a Beatles nut as any of us."
Resurrection is out now on RPM.
Tom Hartman
Bell single 998
May 1971
Sunshine Woman
w&m Tom Hartman
reg 10 May 71 /
A Little More
w&m Tom Hartman
reg 10 May 71
St Louis Riverfront Times
August 27, 2003
Abbey Roadkill
The Aerovons were this close to becoming America's Beatles.
What happened?
BY JASON TOON
Lounging in the bohemian confines of the Venice Café's outdoor patio, Bob "Ferd" Frank looks like anybody else in the place, beer in hand and short-brimmed straw hat perched jauntily atop head. Many of Frank's pals at the Venice have no idea that this unassuming little dude was in the first American rock band ever signed to a British label. Ferd hung out with George Harrison at Abbey Road? Ferd watched Jimi Hendrix freak out onstage at the Speakeasy? Ferd took a pee next to Paul McCartney?
It all seems unbelievable but for one concrete piece of incontrovertible evidence: Resurrection, the album recorded by the Aerovons in 1969 but issued for the first time only recently. Frank actually left the band just before the recording and plays only on one bonus track, but he's pictured all over the impressive liner notes. Even without his shaggy '60s mop, Frank is easily recognizable as the skinny kid with the big eyes in those grainy old eight-by-tens.
The Aerovons' story is surely the only rock & roll legend that begins It all started at Bayless High School.... That's where Frank met Tom Hartman, a musical prodigy one year Frank's junior who had recently moved to St. Louis from Miami with his family.
Frank was in a band called the Generation, but was disappointed by his mates' lack of musical training or ambition. When he saw Hartman onstage with an early Aerovons lineup in 1965, Frank was instantly impressed. "I go hear him play," Frank remembers, "and it's like, 'Man, this guy's great; I could learn so much from this guy. I'd love to be in a band with him.'"
Within a few months, Hartman agreed, recruiting Frank to join the embryonic Aerovons on rhythm guitar. The band hit the mid-'60s teen-club circuit, regaling venues such as the Bat Cave and Castaways with its Brit-fixated sound. "As soon as a new Beatles album came out," Frank says, "we'd rush our asses down to Famous-Barr, pick it up and pick it out. We'd sit there and just study every song. At that time, we weren't thinking originals. We wanted to be a damn good copy band."
The Aerovons might have remained as such were it not for Maurine Hartman, Tom's mother, who stepped in to manage the still-teenaged band's business and booking. In Frank's words, Maurine "wanted to be in showbiz, but she got married and had kids. So she was sort of living through Tom." Her hardball attitude and business savvy opened doors for the fresh-faced teens. "Mrs. Hartman dealt with all the business, then she would tell us all the details," Frank says. "She could be a bitch, so she was very good out in the business world. Suddenly we were playing a lot of good gigs.
"Some of them didn't make us money but got us talked about on the radio. She got us on this train that went from downtown St. Louis to Clarksville, Missouri. They called it the Last Train to Clarksville and had a band playing in each car of the train. Well, it was a huge failure because the electricity on there couldn't handle the bands. But we got noticed."
Under Maurine's direction, the band played up its Anglophilia even more. The CD sleeve of Resurrection shows priceless promo photos of the Aerovons in full-on Rubber Soul mode, emoting meaningfully from beneath prodigious Swinging London hairdos. Business cards and fliers proclaimed "The Band With That 'Smashing' English Sound." Maurine Hartman was also absolutely determined that no romantic entanglements would slow the rise of the Aerovons. "She was always pushing us to get rid of our girlfriends," Frank says. "Here we are, just discovering girls, and she'd tell us, 'All they're going to do is hurt you. Get rid of them.' Was she right? Of course she was."
By 1967, giddy with local success and naïve enthusiasm, the band members set out to record at Abbey Road. That being the case, Maurine Hartman advised them to start writing their own material. "We went and bought this reel-to-reel and quit playing out," Frank says. "All we did was start writing songs and recording."
In the liner notes of Resurrection, Tom Hartman says that a Capitol Records rep heard the Aerovons recording at Premier Studios in St. Louis and brought the band to London. Frank can't recall that particular detail but remembers virtually everything else about their February 1968 trip. Still in high school, the impressionable Aerovons did a week on the London rock-star circuit, mouths agape and hearts aflutter. "The second night we're there (in London), she gets us into this club called the Speakeasy," Frank recalls. "There's Paul McCartney, Diana Ross, Michael Caine. I'm still in high school, seventeen years old at that point, and we're standing in the same room with these people! Later that night, I'm in the bathroom taking a leak next to Paul McCartney!
"There was this little black guy running around the club in this big bolero hat. And Hartman and me are like, 'Who's this fucker think he is, Jimi Hendrix?'" Sure enough, it was. Later on, Hendrix got onstage, borrowed a guitar and wowed the pop elite with half an hour of feedback. "We'd never heard that before," Frank continues. "Now, anybody can do it, but back then? He just had the whole place totally silent and focused. Stuff that had never existed before was happening right in front of your eyes."
On a tour of EMI Studios at Abbey Road, the St. Louis teens interrupted Syd Barrett's Pink Floyd in Studio Three ("They were nice, but you could see it in their faces: Get the hell out") before moving on to the almighty Studio Two. For these Beatles-besotted youth, the moment was as inexpressibly transcendent as you might expect. And then it got better: George Harrison popped in. Frank and Hartman barraged him with questions about guitar minutiae.
"He didn't know any of the answers," Frank recalls. "We're at home buying our albums trying to figure out what guitar, what settings he's using, and he's like, 'I don't know, I just picked one up and used it.'"
A contract was signed with EMI/Parlophone, and the Aerovons were sent home to write more songs before returning to Abbey Road in March of 1969. "Buzz" wasn't a music-industry term yet, but the Aerovons had it; EMI execs were trembling with anticipation of the band's limitless future. But Frank wouldn't be around to see it. True to Maurine's warnings, he was led astray by "a girl" and his youthful impulses, and he quit the band. Further details are neither forthcoming nor necessary. The Aerovons marched onward, finishing Resurrection at Abbey Road in June 1969.
Resurrection reveals that Tom Hartman had a melodic facility and confidence far beyond his seventeen years. "World of You" is a haunting pop-psychedelic masterpiece, heavy with Gothic atmosphere and sophisticated harmonies. "Words from a Song" is a sweeter, almost traditional ballad, whereas "She's Not Dead" gets tricky with some jazzy chords and rhythmic changes on the chorus. Throughout, Hartman speaks with the Beatles' vocabulary, recycling guitar sounds and arrangement tricks from every era of the Fab Four's career. It might have gone the other way, too: A persistent rumor has it that "Say Georgia" and "Resurrection" were swiped by the Beatles for "Oh, Darling" and "Across the Universe," respectively. Frank insists that the rumor is true.
After the sessions, it all started falling apart. Phil Edholm, Frank's replacement on rhythm guitar, had already quit the band, complaining that his songs weren't given a chance. Upon returning to St. Louis, drummer Mike Lombardo discovered that his wife had been cheating on him and went into shock, disappearing for long stretches at a time. EMI, balking at the dicey line-up situation, dropped the Aerovons and canned the album. "World of You" was released as a single in September 1969 -- a melancholy postscript, not the herald of a new sensation.
If Frank ever agonized over his missed opportunity, he doesn't show it anymore. Later in life, he just missed another shot at rock stardom: After playing bass for Johnny Cougar (Mellencamp) for five years, Frank cut his hand in a fall in 1981, quitting right before the breakthrough American Fool. He's played a little music here and there since then but not as a career. (Tom Hartman, on the other hand, lives in Miami and composes incidental music for television commercials; the two remain friends to this day.)
Frank is married now and devotes most of his time and energy to his business, repairing dents in cars. He gives the impression of someone who's too busy to muse about what should have been. As is his right, though, Frank is also proud, summoning Venice Café pals over to see the Resurrection jacket photos. "Hey, take a look at this," he says. "This is that band of mine I was telling you about." The kid who went from Bayless Road to Abbey Road orders another beer and laughs gently at his own unbelievable past.
Released May 26, 2003
The AeroVons
Resurrection
RPM CD 261
Mail Call
October 9, 2003
South County ’60s band releases CD
Album recorded at Abbey Road studios in London
by Bill Milligan
The Aerovons spent three months in 1969 recording at Abbey Road studios. The Aerovons were popular at St. Louis night spots in the late 1960s and early 1970s.
Memories of the Aerovons, a legendary Beatles- inspired band that was popular throughout St. Louis in the late ’60s and early ’70s have been resurrected in the wake of RPM Records’ release of the all-but-forgotten album the group recorded in 1969.
For members of the band who grew up around south county, it’s a continuation of an unusual story full of potential and irony — the stuff of dreams.
“We called the album Resurrection when we recorded it in 1969,’’ said singer and songwriter Tom Hartman, who led the band when it recorded at EMI Records’ Abbey Road studios when he was 17. “The fact that it sat in a vault for more than 30 years before they decided to release it is just a coincidence. A lot of things about that band seem to be serendipity.’’
Hartman, who turned 52 Oct. 2, still remembers Jan. 20, 1964, and his race across icy sidewalks and blowing snow drifts on his way home from the Lindbergh School District’s Truman Junior High School.
“My mom told me she was going to Famous-Barr that day and I knew they were releasing ‘Meet the Beatles,’ so I asked her if she would pick up a copy,’’ Hartman said. “When I got home she told me she was too busy for that kind of thing. I was crestfallen. But when I got in my room, there it was on my bed.
“I played it over and over that night,’’ he remembered.
Five years later, he and the Aerovons were recording in the same studio as the Beatles.
Looking back, Hartman said he must have come off as an exuberant fan when interacting with his idols.
He recalled the band’s tour of the Abbey Road studio after the Aerovons signed a contract with EMI when he first met Beatles guitarist George Harrison.
“We were all dressed in fashion gear we had purchased from Carnaby Street,’’ Hartman said. “George was working in a sound room above Studio II and I saw him looking at us through the glass. I figured what have I got to lose, and motioned for him to come down. He disappeared from the window and I figured, well that did it. “But he stuck his head out of the door and asked if we were with a magazine, my mom was carrying her camera,’’ Hartman recalled. “He came down the steps and said: ‘Hi, I’m George.’ I said: ‘I’m Tom,’ and we talked for about 20 minutes — mostly about guitars.
“Talking with him, I realized that the songs I was playing over and over in my room were just another day at the office for him,’’ he said. “He didn’t recall much. I probably knew more about the songs they produced than he did as we stood talking.’’
Paul McCartney was taken by the band’s business card when Hartman met him at the Speakeasy, a private night club that was the epicenter of London’s late ’60s pop culture. EMI music executives got them inside where guitarist Jimi Hendrix was playing. Actor Michael Caine and singer Diana Ross were among the celebrities present that night.
He struck up a conversation with McCartney when they passed in an aisle. McCartney signed some of the band’s business cards as souvenirs, but kept one for himself when he saw its inscription.
“It said ‘the smashing English sound,’ but he knew we were from America. He said: ‘The smashing English sound from America,’ and asked if he could keep one of our cards. Of course, we said yes.
“It was a dream come true,’’ Hartman said from his home in Pompano Beach, Fla. He still has the card McCartney autographed and he, like McCartney, still is in the music business.
He has composed music for Blockbuster Video television commercials, the Home Shopping Club and most recently a modern rendition of “What the World Needs Now’’ for Sandals’ Bahamian Resort Spa.
“When you’re a musician, you take just about every job that comes along just to pay the mortgage,’’ Hartman said with a chuckle.
His wife, Karen, is a singer and several of his five children, ages 1 through 12, are showing an interest in one musical instrument or another. Hartman happily is giving them lessons, thankful they are interested in music.
He hopes his children won’t have similar experiences he did as a teenager pursuing an interest in music.
“I remember when we were freshmen at Mehlville High School,’’ Lemay Fire Protection District Board of Directors Chairman Jim Stonebraker recalled. “There wasn’t a day that went by when someone didn’t want to beat him up because he had a Beatles haircut. The worst was the day there was a group of them waiting outside for him to leave.
“We went to the principal and asked him to help get us past the gang waiting outside and the guy just looked out the window grinning. He said if he was their age, he’d probably be out there too.’’
Hartman still remembered the incident.
“Yeah, but a few years later all those guys had long hair, too,’’ Hartman said. “We converted most of them.’’
Hartman wrote each of the 12 songs on the Aerovons’ original album. The CD released this summer contained four bonus tracks — their single, “Train’’; its B-side “Song for Jane’’; “Here’’ — a previously unreleased tune that Hartman recently updated; and the demo track “World of You’’ that got them their EMI deal.
The professionally produced version of “World of You’’ leads the CD followed by the title track “Resurrection,’’ “Say Georgia,’’ “With Her,’’ “Quotes and Photos,’’ “Words From a Song,’’ “Bessie Good-heart,’’ “Something of Yours,’’ “She’s Not Dead,’’ “The Years,’’ “Everything’s Alright,’’ “The Children’’ and the four bonus songs complete an album Hartman’s group recorded so long ago it sometimes seems like a dream.
The British rock magazine New Musical Express ranks “Resurrection’’ eighth on its top-10 releases of the summer.
Without knowing anything about the band, it’s easy to see the Beatles’ influence on the musicians who made it. Stonebraker, who until recently was among a handful of people who had ever heard the music, said the band covered acts like the Who, the Bee Gees, the Beach Boys and the Hollies in its St. Louis-area live performances.
Despite what some reviewers have criticized as a naive reliance on ‘60s-era studio effects, the music has a melodic quality that still speaks to listeners in 2003.
Band members returned from three months of recording in London in the fall of 1969 and the wheels fell off their dream after drummer Mike Lombardo left the group to try and patch up a marriage strained by months of absence. Second guitarist Bob Frank had left the group before it went to England fearing he was about to be drafted and sent to Vietnam.
“EMI said: ‘Look, you’ve already lost two members,’’’ Hartman recalled. “‘How are you going to be able to tour and promote this record?’ They offered to go ahead with it if I would agree to move back to London and let them build a band around me or they said I could be one of their staff producers.
“But living in London is a lot different than living in St. Louis and that sounded crazy,’’ he said. “Professionally, it was frustrating because we had all come so far. We were all such good friends.’’
EMI shelved the recording after Hartman declined to return to London.
Hartman kept playing concerts in the St. Louis area at venues like Rainy Days, Bruno’s Bat Cave in Festus, Castaways in Berkeley and “The Last Train to Clarksville’’ that featured local acts who entertained party-goers on regular jaunts from St. Louis to Clarksville, Mo.
His mother, Maurine, who acted as his manager, took him to Los Angeles after his return from London. He did some recording for Bell Records. But the label never promoted him, and they returned to St. Louis. Because of the time he spent in London recording his album, Hartman had to quit Bayless High School and eventually got a GED, which allowed him to enroll in Southern Illinois University at Edwardsville in 1972.
“No one would have believed I recorded an album at Abbey Road studios, but I did play it sometimes for friends,’’ Hartman said. “I got really involved with this girl and that softened the blow. I transferred my emotions to her.’’
In 1975, he moved to Florida and finished his music degree at the University of Miami. He has been in Florida ever since.
“I’m going to come back and visit St. Louis someday. It’s been over 25 years since I’ve been there,’’ Hartman said. “I’m going to take my kids to 7938 Kammerer Ave. and show them where all the Aerovons’ songs were written. I’ll take them to the Crestwood shopping center. I hung out there a lot. I can’t take them to the 66 Drive-In, I hear that’s gone now.’’
Hartman never dreamed his album would ever be released, but just before last Christmas English rock critic Kieron Tyler contacted him for an article he was doing about his album being bootlegged all over Europe. Tyler’s article spurred RPM to officially release the recording and the buzz has been growing ever since.
“It could have been sitting in EMI’s music library forever and no one ever hear it,’’ Hartman said. “It makes you feel real good to know that people are going to enjoy it after all these years.’’
Had it been released in 1969, it would have beat the group Badfinger’s Beatles-inspired release by a year and could have taken its place in music lore. Musically, Hartman said he’s gotten much better with age, but the success of “Resurrection’’ doesn’t make him want to form a new band.
“If it had been released, the band would have broken up by now, and by now, the money would have been spent,’’ Hartman said. “In a way, it may be good that things went the way they did. If there is any lesson in my experience, I guess it’s that you should believe in yourself and your dreams.’
Aerovons ‘coolest name for a rock band I ever
heard,’ band leader says
by Bill Milligan
For the Call
The Aerovons arrive in England in 1969 to spend three months at Abbey Road studios recording what would become ‘Resurrection.’ The recording sat in a vault at EMI for more than 30 years until it was released this past summer.
The Aerovons, a popular band at St. Louis night spots in the late 1960s and early 1970s actually was the third group with that name.
Aerovons was a corrupted pronunciation of the name of a loudspeaker manufacturer from New York — Aerovox.
“I first heard the name when I was in Florida,’’ said Aerovon band leader Tom Hartman from his home in Pompano Beach, Fla.
Hartman lived in Affton when he and his band recorded “Resurrection’’ in 1969 at EMI’s Abbey Road studios in London. “It really doesn’t mean anything.’’
The group broke up shortly after returning to St. Louis from the London recording sessions and the recording sat in a vault at EMI for more than 30 years. It was released last summer on RPM Records because it had become one of Europe’s most popular pirate music titles.
The name was first used by a band in New York that used the Aerovox equipment. The second group to use the name was a Beach Boys’ cover act in Florida.
It was there that Hartman heard the name and became a fan.
“We spent a lot of time in Florida when I was a kid,’’ Hartman said. “When I heard the name, I just thought it was the coolest name for a rock band I ever heard. I asked their band leader if it was all right if I used it for my band in St. Louis and he said: ‘Sure.’ We’ve become good friends since I moved to Florida.’’
Lemay Fire Protection District Board of Directors Chairman Jim Stonebraker remembers Hartman’s attraction to the Florida-based Aerovons.
“He had a big poster of them on his wall in his room,’’ Stonebraker recalled. “They had the striped shirts that the Beach Boys wore and everything. Tom’s band covered the Beach Boys, too. But, they were known for their covers of Beatles tunes.’’
