Lito

Born Emanuel Micallef 1st February 1969 at St Lukes Hospital Pieta.

Residing in Birgu since his birth. Given the nickname Lito at the early stage of Primary School by one of his class mates.

His first experience in music was through his elder brothers Pawlu Micallef and Horace Micallef along with their friends from Birgu and the surrounding area.

At the age of 13 (1982), he first appeared on stage as a member of the cast of the Vittoriosa Rock Opera Group directed and choreographed by his brother Horace Micallef.

February 14th 1984, Lito auditions as a singer with Trash, a Cospicuan band influenced by Black Sabbath MKI.

He works with the band as a roadie instead and eventually takes interest in his local band Purple Haze lead by guitarist Steve 'l-Impejst'. With Purple Haze, Lito was their official lyric writer which lead him to write a Rock Mass at St Lawrence Church in Birgu, a tribute to Lito's father known as Il-Mike, much loved by the soccer enthusiasts.

The Bormla band Trash and the Birgu band Purple Haze joined for a short time as Dark Medallion of which Lito was their roadie.

Lito co-founded the band Avalanche as The Vittoriosa Rock Opera Group had obtained a section from fort St Angelo in Birgu for their acitivities. Purple Haze and Stratkast MKII had also their own studios.

Lito leaves Avalanche and was replaced by Frankie Tanti. During Frankie Tanti's time, Avalanche played one gig at Cafe Riche in Birgu and another for one of Haz-Zabbar's festa band clubs.

Lito joins Exorcist for a short while without any gigs.

1985 Joining Ivory Cross rehearsing at Zejtun, with his only live appearence at the RockPak concert (1986) at the Floriana Catholic Institute.

1986 Lito leaves Ivory Cross to replace Ivan Grech (presently Winter Moods) with Lords Of Misrule, Lito sang at the yearly Maltasajf concert at Pembroke's Shooting Range two times. He was replaced by Daryl Ebejer, ex Entracht, later Purple Haze and Kartridge.

Meanwhile Lito teamed up with Ivan Filletti to form Filletti & Friends as a side project supporting headlining bands.

This Filletti & Friends line up was a resident band at the Rock-A-Buzz 1987/88 in Kennedy Grove and The Splash And Fun Park at Bahar Ic-Caghaq.

During this period, he got involved in writing reviews of live gigs on Far Out and occasionally replacing and assisting Tony Miceli's musical page on Il-Mument and Mark Doneo's musical page on It-Torċa.

The Vittoriosa Rock Opera group works on an original musical Iskra, Horace Micallef scripted the musical story of the Russian Revolution, words by Raymond Tabone and music by Mark Vella of Stratkast fame. Lito's debut in a recording studio. This musical was staged at Dar Il-Mediterran Valletta and later at the Depiro Centre Tas-Sliema. Due to logistics, Iskra's cast and crew members were reduced and Lito was promoted to the acting role of Batinov, miming to the voice of Charles Azzopardi at the Citadella Rabat Ghawdex and in a cultural exchange program in one of Turin Italy's local councils.

Co-founded The Moviment Muzika Rok movement which had a very short lifetime.

1991 - After some years as a singer without a band, Lito joins Brainstormreplacing Mark Storm in the time when The Alley in Paceville open its doors for live bands.

Brainstorm with Lito on vocals subsequently recorded two tracks in the Watching The Music multi-band compilation. The recording took place at Temple Studios Imgarr in 1992. The compilation included 2 tracks of 5 bands commissioned by Radio 101 in the occasion of the station's first anniversary. The project was launched live and on radio at the Eden Palladium at the Bajja ta' San Gorg San Giljan.

Lito debuts as a rock dj at Sticky Fingers in Qawra.

The same trio that created Iskra formed the events company Synergix and worked on another orignal musical called Living Legends, this time a live performance. It was staged at Dar Il-Mediterran. Lito took part as Hasan.

Leaves Brainstorm and after some try outs with various bands as a singer, decides to change his musical career as a rock dj, playing at different venues through the years.

His debut on radio as a dj/presenter was anonimously on pirate station called Radju Alternattiva commissioned by the then new political party Alternattiva Demokratika AD.

As AD where given a Valletta local broadcasting licence, Radju 99 was born. He aired rock/blues shows such as Rock On and The Blues Connection. Forsaken were the only band interviewed during the lifetime of Rock On.

1997 Lito co-founds Mediacoop which gave birth to Capital Radio 88.7FM airing its first Rock Show called Radio Lito in the first Saturday of July 1998. Some of the bands interviewed were Winter Moods, Scream Daisy and Joe Mizzi.

2000 A new radio schedule for Capital Radio includes the rock show System Overload and the Sunday soft rock/power ballad program Slow An' Easy later Easy on Sunday. Some of the bands interviewed on System Overload included Forsaken, Winter Moods, Scream Daisy, Fire, Frenzy Mono, Corkskrew, Beengrowers, Diffrent Strings and Nomad Son.

2002 Lito starts updating the live upcoming gigs list on geocities, the list is aired on Capital Radio 88.7FM.

2009 1st April, Capital Radio stops airing. On the 9th of July Lito joins Joe Genovese on Xalata Rock and on the 8th of October replaces Joe Tanti and joins Noel Mifsud on Rock Moods both shows on (Super)One Radio 92.7FM.

Geocities, the host for Litorcks69's upcoming gigs stops operating and was replaced by Litorocks.com.

2010 April 6th Tuesday. Lito airs his pre-recorded programs of The Cottonera Rock Show at Kottoner 98FM transmitting from Bormla with repeats on Sundays and later Saturdays.