Music, art and film are my passions.

I am Rick Weedn. I grew up in Los Angeles when we still had street cars and electric buses, Hollywood still had its magic and I found great joy in simple hidden treasures. My mother was a tap dancer and painter and my dad was a night club crooner and Hollywood cowboy bit player. My grandfather was a fight promoter at the “Olympic Auditorium” and mystery writer nicknamed “The Senator”. My grandmother was a doll maker, costume maker, factory worker, shopkeeper and overall angel. She was one in a million and my teacher when I was 5. What a life it was in the late 50’s and early 60’s in Southeast LA for this kid.

RadioFlavia.org was founded in 2014 by The Artists Guild, a Swiss Verein created in Zug, Switzerland then in 2019 moved to Lugano on the Italian frontier where it remains today. As an association we are dedicated to the public good and earn no profits. Our simple recording studio doubles as repository for our various archives from a lifetime of publishing.

We broadcast on the web from Lugano, Switzerland for your enjoyment without any commercial undertakings.

Mom had an unusual name, “Flavia” and as a dancer, painter and writer she gained inspiration for her paintings and poetry from a shelf of Goodwill bought books and records. The books were of old photos of NYC and Europe. Hoagy Carmichael was a staple in our home. Jazz mixed with The American Songbook and a steady Marty Robbins and Elvis was ever present in the front room of our tiny Huntington Park bungalow. Our simple home on Benson Street was surrounded by newly arrived immigrants so music and unusual food for this little boy was all around me.

Many of my moms paintings were inspired by this region of Southeast Los Angeles. Its unique culture and her yearnings for dreams that included family, art and music. One of mom’s earliest paintings was of a couple looking into a travel agency window. That painting hit home for me.

I used to dive into moms books and get lost with her music and all the images of far away places with strange sounding names. Dad used to sing me “Streets of Laredo” to put me to sleep. Our neighbours were Cuban, Central Americans and Puerto Ricans so we had the full spectrum of tunes and culture filling the air. Later mom and dad were becoming successful in America and annual trips to NYC from my 12th birthday forward built up my passion for all the unusual eccentricity of the time. In NYC we would walk everywhere and I could see and hear the music scene from my sidewalk paces. This NYC jumping off point lead to Europe travels from my 18th year till now. I was hooked on world music, film and art.

After a lifetime of publishing imagery, stories and representing people like John Wayne and Marlon Brando, I now live in many of those far away places I dreamed of in my childhood. Starting from my original base in Los Angeles, Long Beach, Huntington Beach and Santa Barbara, California, then to Tokyo, Japan then to Bogota, Colombia, then near Lisbon, Portugal. Later to Madrid and to our Studio in Lugano, I still travel much of my time as I love the trains of Switzerland that can carry me everywhere.

Today, this young-at-heart boy still searches the forgotten treasures of archives, libraries, and museums—just as I did when I first began discovering other cultures in Southeast Los Angeles in 1961. It has been a wonderful life: never easy, but always full of wonder.

RadioFlavia.org is dedicated to music and imagery and stories of life. This legacy was from stories and songs and artists that both my mom and dad introduced me to as a kid. I have lived all over the world and traveled steadily since I was 18. More than 50 years on this magical road.

Thank you for visiting, stop by lets have a coffee.

email me here Richard Weedn.