It was mid-December 1997, between the time I received Armando Nava's first thrilling email contact and conducted my first telephone interview with him, when I got an email from a young Chicano college student based in Detroit named Manuel Magaña. He was the first American-based Mexican fan to find El Mundo Loco De Los Dug Dug's online and he was very complimentary to both my work and the music of Los Dug Dug's in his first message. He then went on to say that he was "searching for recordings of Avandaro." I had no idea what he meant at first -- was Avandaro another classic Mexican rock band of the '70s, or something? So when I interviewed Armando for the first time, I ran the name by him -- and that's when I first learned of the extraordinary music festival which took place in Mexico in September 1971 and was known by the name of the resort in which it was held -- Avandaro!
Naturally, I was quite intrigued. I was just starting to unravel the mystery of Los Dug Dugs in the wake of my nearly decade-long obsession with them up to that point, and now there was another mystery on top of that to solve! Of course, with the internet in its infancy then, it was just as tough to come across information about Avandaro. I had found just one short article on the festival, which I had translated into English with the help of some Mexican fans of the site, and published this translation as part of my Dug Dug's website.
Then, sometime in 2000, I received an email from a gentleman named Alberto Cruz. He was a lifelong Dug Dug's fan who had actually attended Avandaro, and he was quick to point out that the article I'd posted on my site was full of factual errors which he was eager to correct. I was apologetic about having posted such misinformation, but he was fully understanding of the situation at hand -- me, a gringo Dug Dug's fan, going along with whatever tidbits I could find out there. One thing led to another, and soon we were conspiring together to create the official sequel to El Mundo Loco -- a separate site on the Avandaro festival which would finally get the story told right.
Our intention to create such a site soon started a buzz which reached other participants of Avandaro, including members of two other bands besides Los Dug Dug's who had performed there -- Felipe Maldonado of Peace and Love, and Jacobo Aragon of El Epilogo (both of whom have recently released CDs of their performances). To me, the most intriguing part of the story was the fact that thousands and thousands of people had descended upon Avandaro to see a concert consisting entirely of Mexican rock bands. No world-renowned acts flown in to headline (not even Santana!), just local bands based in Mexico City and its outlying areas. Try drawing huge Woodstock-like crowds with a festival of YOUR city's local bands! It was just the world-inspired power of rock and roll and countercuture at that time, what can I say?
To get the ball rolling on our new site, Al Cruz requested my street mail address, promising to send me original Avandaro artifacts on the condition that I send them back to him when I was finished with them. In a few weeks, an envelope containing two very major souvenirs arrived all the way from Mexico City. One was a Spanish language edition of Rolling Stone magazine (Piedra Rodante, their ill-fated Mexican counterpart which only lasted a year) devoted entirely to the festival; the other was a picture book of the fest called NOSOTROS, independently published by a member of Tinta Blanca, one of the bands which played at the fest. Having only seen a few tiny photos online up to that point of what Avandaro had looked like, these artifacts were eye-opening and stunning to look at. I also got in touch with Eric Zolov, a fellow student of Mexican counterculture who wrote a great book on the topic called "Refried Elvis," and he sent me VHS video of actual footage from the event -- mindblowing stuff.
By now I had a nice little team of like-minded folks involved, such as Lalo Garcia, who'd played bass for Los Dug Dug's in the '90s (and later on for Chuck Berry of all folks), Roberto Ruelas (a "gardener to the stars," so he told me his occupation was), and Ulises Mavridis, who provided moral support and a box full of vintage Mexican rock magazines with a little surprise in the middle of the pile -- an original pressing of the "Cinco de Chocolate y Una De Fresa" movie soundtrack EP on which Angelica Maria is backed by Los Dug Dug's. Thanks to these gentlemen, I now had a team of contributors as well as translators who graciously volunteered their services so I could have these precious documents translated, and in turn publish both the Dug Dug's and Avandaro sites in Spanish for my ever-growing Mexican audiences. I still recall these people most fondly, and have even been back in touch with some of them in recent years and months. I hope all of them are doing well.
The goal was to have everything ready just in time to launch in celebration of the 30th anniversary of Avandaro. We worked on the site from late 2000 right up til the end of spring 2001. A highlight of this work was the weekly online parties which me and my team had going for awhile at the peak of production: every Friday evening we'd all get on the instant messenger and talk about Mexican rock, discuss angles on the online presentation of Avandaro, and trade digital files of old Mexican rock albums. Roberto Ruelas put together his own "sister site" to mine, which consisted of reprints of the original articles on Avandaro in Mexican Rolling Stone, and which hit the web just prior to my site. (Alas, his site is now offline.) We were all having a great time leading up to the site's launch and its tie-ins with the celebration to come -- the 30th Anniversary of Avandaro!
My Avandaro site officially hit the internet in June 2001. And it would have turned out to be all well and good and wonderful a celebration, had it not been for one very, VERY big problem which would arise very soon after the site was launched: namely, September 11, 2001. Which, by sheer coincidence, just so happened to be the very date of the 30th Anniversary of Avandaro.
I was taking the bus to work in NYC that morning, and up until we approached the Lincoln Tunnel, nothing seemed amiss. But we were forced to turn around at the last exit before the toll booth because of an emergency situation which had literally shut down the city. As we took that last exit, I looked across the Hudson River and saw clearly with my own eyes the horror of the two twin towers of the World Trade Center burning. As the bus returned me home, I could hear others on the bus sharing the details they'd heard on their cellphones. I got back home just in time to see both towers collapse on live TV. It was all too much to bear, on the worst possible day for it to happen.
I went online and almost immediately received an instant message from Al Cruz. It said simply, "What's happening?" I promptly answered back with "Do you really want to know, Al?" It was then that I found out how fast the news had traveled -- they were covering the twin towers' collapse on Mexican TV, and Al already knew everything that was going on. Thus, my "day of celebration" of the 30th Anniversary of Avandaro consisted of exactly one very sad and sobering online chat between me and the man who had initially encouraged me to start the Avandaro site. That was that.
So what was I to do now? All our hard work seemed to have just been ruined in the mere blink of an eye, and I at first felt guilty about continuing to promote a freshly-launched website marking September 11th as a joyous occasion, regardless of which September 11th it was celebrating. I even briefly contemplated taking the site down altogether. But the next day, after a great deal of reflection on the matter, I started thinking that as sad a day as September 11th had now become, it would be even more tragic if the memory of Avandaro wound up forgotten in the wake of it. I finally decided to update the site with a new introduction which made note of the terrorist attacks, and explained my decision not to cancel the website.
"It makes more sense to me, and I hope to all of you, to leave this site up as a necessary reminder of the beauty this day once meant in the hearts and minds of so many people," I wrote. "Even in the face of human tragedy, we cannot allow ourselves to forget September 11th of 30 years ago, and I hope to God that somehow, in years to come, we can all still remember what this day once stood for, a brighter September 11th where peace, love, happiness and music reigned supreme for one glorious night and 250,000 people in Valle de Bravo, Mexico." My audience agreed, and I received praise for my words and for my decision. The Avandaro site was a hit nonetheless.
This year marks the 25th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks. It also marks the 55th anniversary of Avandaro. I'm pleased to report that even in light of the 9/11 anniversary, Avandaro is not only still remembered, but celebrated as strongly as ever. And you can still celebrate it right now, folks, that other September 11th. I returned my original Avandaro website to the web as part of the 25th anniversary restoration of El Mundo Loco De Los Dug Dug's, and also to counter poor-quality bootleg reissues of my sites on servers of very questionable security. (It could use some updating, but it is what it is!) There are several recordings from the festival available; you can hear the entire performance by Los Dug Dug's online, and El Epilogo and Peace and Love have issued official albums of their performances. All are very much worth checking out, as is a 2-disc set of various highlights of the fest which came out in late 2003. There's also several Avandaro documentaries of varying quality on Youtube. In short, Avandaro is all over the internet now... but we were there first! And to this day I still feel there is room on September 11th to celebrate a happier time which happened on that same day, so many years before. I hope you agree.
It was late 2007. I'd finally settled into Orlando permanently after two years of back-and-forthing between there and my native NJ/NY. My favorite local band of the time, Dodger, had just disbanded and I was heartbroken. In their wake, though, were multiple projects on the parts of the ex-members. The most insane of these for sure was Necros of the Gods, a duo formed by ex-bassist Phil McCombs and a drummer named Mark Johnson. And one fine Saturday night I got the word that they were playing somewhere or other on Mills 50, Orlando's alternative to downtown (at least it was back then, anyway). I got the address and headed out to Colonial Drive, and I remember circling the main drag at least twice trying to find the place. I finally had to call the number provided with the address to find out exactly where it was. I finally found it, parked out front and headed inside... into a smoky pool hall with Necros of the Gods onstage playing an unhinged set to a similarly unhinged and enthusiastic crowd.
It was a strange and wonderful scene to wander into, to be sure, but the strangest thing about it was the presence behind the bar of one single solitary figure who stood out from all the rest. He was a big black dude with a BIG set of headphones through which he was listening to some sports program or other, while watching ESPN on the bar's big-screen TV at the same time. To say this man seemed COMPLETELY oblivious to the chaotic scene taking place in the same room is an understatement. He was in his own world to the point where nothing short of a full-on riot could bring him out of it. Meanwhile, Phil and Mark played their indescribable bass-and-drums funky noise racket and the crowd went wild. There was no trouble, the man at the bar took off his headphones and served up everyone when it was all over, and I went home in a delirious state feeling just how surreal the whole experience was.
And that was my very first visit to Uncle Lou's LMGA (Live Music, Gaming & Alcohol) in Orlando, Florida, named for the very character at the bar who'd hid behind his headphones all night. I didn't know it then... but I'd just found a place that was gonna change my world forever.
On July 5, 2008, I played my very first gig at Uncle Lou's as part of the All-Fucking-Right Fest at the invitation of ex-Dodger frontman Matt Kamm, now calling himself Tele V. Cheeseburger. It was more of an initiation rite than anything else, as I was shoved on first in the middle of the afternoon to play to less than ten people, one of whom was some old raging drunk who wouldn't shut the fuck up the whole time and clearly didn't belong there. I hadn't played out live in years and had nothing but a beat-up acoustic to play. But I did my best, and just by showing up I was officially in on the ever-growing scene at Lou's. The All Fucking Good Fest had been preceded by the All-Fucking Right Fest and the Good-Fucking-Bye Fest (both organized by Mark Johnson of Necros, the second to mark his move up north) and all three fests were all-day-and-night affairs, again with Uncle Lou behind his headphones ignoring most of it. At these fests I first made the acquaintance of one Joshua Rogers, whom I would go on to work with quite extensively years later.
I have some old flyers for the abovementioned fests, with lists of acts that are now a true time capsule of the earliest days at Uncle Lou's. I also own the official Good-Fucking-Bye Fest CD compilation, sold exclusively at that fest -- talk about your "collector's items," this is a TRUE collectible. Its notes date the fest as having taken place on January 19, 2008, a time surely before some of the more recent bands were even old enough to go to Lou's. Everything from soup to nuts is represented on it, from the introspective folk of Sean Moore (another ex-Dodger) to the electronic pulse of D00EY D3CIMAL and Discovery of Magnetic North to the hip-hop of Paul Wall's Teeth and Diplodocus and the flat-out noise of Sleep On Alligator and This Is Reggae. There's even a track by the Triscults, a two-girl performance art duo whose vintage live videos say more about them than I ever could. They would actually make Lou's the location of a short film they made called "Chances," and the Sunday morning I spent at Lou's as an extra in that short certainly stands as my most unusual day spent there.
By 2010 I'd snagged me a new electric axe I was eager to show off, and naturally, my Brazen guitar got its first official showing at Lou's in July of that year. Unbeknownst to me at the time, in the audience that night was a writer from the Orlando Weekly. A week later, much to my surprise, a review of my performance appeared in their music column, This Little Underground. Bao Le-Huu didn't quite get me at first, but over time he became a Brazen believer. He was much kinder to me in his review of the second time he saw me at Lou's in 2015, graciously acknowledging that I was like no other singer-songwriter playing in town at the time. By this time Joshua Rogers and I were doing shows together at Lou's with me playing alongside his Broken Machine Films light show, and we'd end up doing quite a few of these over the course of a decade.
By the mid-to-late '10s I was playing out more regularly and the majority of these shows were at Uncle Lou's. And as time went on, there had been a big change in our Uncle. At some point he'd opted to ditch those big headphones and pay more attention to whatever insanity went on -- and soon he was saying how much he dug what he saw. The Weekly and other local 'zines took note of this shift in his behavior and soon, Uncle Lou was giving interviews. He admitted he didn't know what he was getting himself into when he opened the place, and the whole hardcore thing scared him a little bit at first, but he had come to appreciate the energy which flowed through his little dive bar. In one interview, he even shouted-out his favorite band -- the all-girl punk band Wet Nurse, led by super-talented twins Nina and Susana Chaplin.
"Music is love," Lou would say in his Jamaican accent, spouting true reggae philosophy. And everyone loved Lou. Even in those early days the man was never rude. And as he came around to what everyone was doing, he put into place a no-frills booking policy in which most any band who played original music and didn't bring trouble could play Uncle Lou's with no questions asked and no profit sharing involved. This policy never changed. He'd post available dates on social media and watch as the bands (including mine) would book 'em up. You'd just snag a date on his calendar, invite whatever acts you wanted to share the night with, then show up and do your thing and it was all (fucking) good. You could have five or fifty people show up and he'd have you back either way. There are very few other places, especially in Orlando, who will give you a free gig that easy. So of course we came back again. And again. And again. And Lou was happy to have us back each and every time.
I've had so many great times and great adventures at Uncle Lou's throughout almost its entire two-decade existence, and the great folks I've met and hung out with and the live performances I've both seen and played there have made it one of the greatest live music scenes I've ever been a part of. But Lou's will forever mean the most to me as the place where I met both Joshua Rogers and my drummer in my band Los Jarritos, Cesar Marquez, and the place where he and I first played together as members of Bobby Clock & the Soda Pops. Bobby loved Uncle Lou and was a big, smiling presence there for a short time, until he sadly passed away in the summer of 2019. That first gig I did with with Bobby and Cesar is my all-tme favorite memory of performing there, though of course I played many other shows there that were just as memorable.
When Cesar and I began playing out again as Los Jarritos, we immediately made Lou's our first stop and decided to play there exclusively. It made for a very memorable series of shows and we made ourselves some new fans such as Jim Leatherman, photographer for the Weekly, who took great shots of us playing at Lou's on numerous occasions (such as the one above). Every night at Lou's has been a new adventure, and I seldom left the place without another crazy memory.
Sadly, it looks like Uncle Lou's time in Orlando is coming to an end. An arrest on a total bullshit-charge of illegal hard-booze sales led to Lou being transferred to ICE custody on an expired visa and as I write this, he is in the process of returning to his native Jamaica. He leaves behind one seedy little pool room with an uncertain future, a space hundreds of bands passed through in the space of 20 years. To say this would be the end of an era is an extreme understatement. Having a space where we could do anything we wanted, whenever we wanted... I must confess, the underground music and arts scene in Orlando has been spoiled.
I can't just conclude that Lou's deportation is simply due to the current wretched fascist political administration in America and leave it at that, though. Mills 50 is a very different landscape now than it was when Lou found what was then a nice quiet strip to open his bar on. Just like Williamsburg, Brooklyn before it, the place is being turned into another gentrified madhouse, and (coincidentally?) there have been recent attempts to drive Lou out of town. With notorious real estate thugs like Team Market Group buying up once-quiet spaces on Colonial Drive and turning them into trendy-ass food joints, I've long feared that Lou might not survive such an extreme transition. As such, I suspect that there were forces in cooperation with ICE here. Someone who doesn't think all these snooty influencers going to these new places would mix well with punks partying at a dive bar. Surely this isn't something that could've just happened as it did, and a lot of us here in O-Town want answers.
If this is indeed the end of Uncle Lou's, I can only hope its raw DIY, do-what-you-want aesthetic still remains somehow. All we would need now is for someone else to step up to the plate and create a new space with the same open-door policy and sense of adventure as that which prevailed at Lou's. A new thing which would both honor Lou and rage on with what he started. I would hope the whole spirit of Uncle Lou's is not only never forgotten but never allowed to disappear. Heaven knows we need it now more than ever. We will never forget Uncle Lou, and surely he will never forget us. I can only wish him all the best in wherever he winds up next, and that we haven't seen or heard the last of him. He has made all of us underground Orlando-based artists feel forever proud that we've done our thing here for sure. For that, and so much more, all the glory goes to Lou, our favorite uncle. And if you're reading this, Lou, I give a zillion thanks to you for everything and more... and I'm not just speaking for myself.
And so 2026 has arrived after a year's worth of some of the most devastating losses in music and culture we've seen yet, and already it's proving to be more of the same shit, and once again, this time the tragedy has REALLY hit me hard. Floyd Vivino passed away on January 22nd at the age of 74 from a series of very recent health issues including cancer and a stroke. Of course, if you're reading this, you know who he was and what he's famous for, especially if you're a Jersey boy. So I'll just cut right to the chase and add my own stories of growing up a major Floyd fan to the growing list of other fans' personal memories of the man. His is a devastating loss to all of us.
I first encountered Uncle Floyd one fine cold December morning in 1978, in the small auditorium of Gilbert Avenue Elementary School in my hometown of Elmwood Park, New Jersey. The school had booked him to do a special performance for the kids for Christmas, and we all packed ourselves into the room for his show. I'd seen the name "Uncle Floyd" before, several times in the listings of my local TV Guide. But there was never any description of the show except the word "Children" next to its name, which made me think that it was something my newly teenage self (I'd just turned 13) was too old for by that point, and so I had never bothered to investigate further 'til then.
Boy, was I wrong. Out came this crazy nerdy guy with this crazy wooden puppet named Oogie, and for the next half hour or so I laughed my ass off. He was wild, and he was zany, and he was pure New Jersey on top of it all, and I totally, completely dug it straight off the bat. I'm pretty sure I'm not the only kid who walked out of his performance a fresh new Uncle Floyd fan. And that very same day, when I got home from school, I knew what I had to do. I finally watched The Uncle Floyd Show for the very first time, and that's when I fully got it, in the course of another half hour of laughing my ass off -- a bonafide PUNK ROCK TV show!
I'm not just talking about the musical talent featured on his show, which I'll get to in a second. I'm talking about the full, top-to-bottom presentation of the show itself, low-budget, DIY, raw and with a wide margin for error... just like punk rock itself. Those once-mysterious TV Guide listings were now the most important part of every issue to me as I scrambled to keep up with the show's schedule, which for awhile seemed to change every month. They even had him on at 8 in the morning for awhile, which would be typical for a "children's" show, but this was no kid show even if its host was playing school auditoriums. Unless, of course, you expanded the definition of it to include folks who weren't exactly "kids," but you get the picture, I'm sure...
Now, again, as a punk I instantly related to Uncle Floyd's brand of off-the-wall TV. I also happened to be a huge Ramones fan. So when I tuned one night into my then-favorite radio station WPIX (which for one glorious year and a half championed punk and new wave like no other commercial station had before) to hear the Ramones proclaim themselves Floyd fans and plug upcoming appearances on the show, my jaw dropped to the floor. What a coincidence, my favorite band on my new favorite show! It all made perfect sense to me, and as it turned out, so many other punks both local and national were seeing the big picture as I did, including the other punks in my high school! So of course I caught all the Ramones' appearances and made a cassette tape from my little TV speaker of them, which I still have along with a few of Floyd's comedy bits (including Joe Frankfutter and Cowboy Charlie, my two favorite characters) which surely would be lost to time otherwise.
For awhile I had to watch the show on my tiny black and white Sanyo TV in my bedroom, because it had far better UHF reception than my ancient and woefully inadequate color TV in the living room. But then the miracle of cable TV arrived and at last I was able to see Floyd in color with a clear signal through the cable transmitter. It all came just in time for me to catch what many consider to be the Uncle Floyd Show's peak period on WTVG (later WWHT) channel 68 out of Newark, a truly punk TV station if ever there was one with its eclectic mix of local ethnic programs (all produced in the same studio as Floyd's) and national syndicated shows. I adored his "Voice of the Viewers" segment, which spotlighted artwork sent in by the show's fans, and was ecstatic when my very first contribution, a salute to the New York Yankees I'd worked up in my art class, made it onto the show! I met Netto at my hometown's annual 4th of July picnic and freely admit to camping out in front of his house hoping to hang out with him again when I found out he lived (and still lives) right next to the Elmwood Park Library.
I also caught several more of Uncle Floyd's personal appearances during this period. I saw him perform at Ken's Magic Shop, the show's primary sponsor, which was also Floyd's bearded sidekick Scott Gordon's day job. I went to an autograph session at Looney Tunez Records, another sponsor which was run by future members of Dramarama, and still have my signed photo of Floyd and Oogie from that day. And I saw him with the full cast twice at Clifton High School's auditorium, two fantastic Friday night shows in '79 and '80 which only years later I learned future Adrenalin OD drummer Dave Schwartzman helped organize. (I would go on to damn near get killed on that same stage in a stunt gone wrong during AOD's very first live performance there a year or two later... but that's another story.)
But of course, all of what I've told here so far merely scratches the surface of what a distinctly Jersey phenomenon the Uncle Floyd Show was. And as for punk rock, he was keenly aware of the aesthetic similarities between what he and the new bands were doing and he dug it. No further proof of this is needed than the fact that the Ramones were just one of literally hundreds of bands who appeared on the show as musical guests. It was a time when so much great new music was happening and I was absorbing it all like a sponge. There's a list circulating on Floyd's Facebook fan site which is striving to list EVERY band which ever played, which may never turn out to be complete, and it's far more convenient for me to refer you to said list than make a big list of my own here. Suffice it to say that the show was every local band's dream gig, and I made a few wonderful discoveries through Floyd's exposure of them, and TV Toy, WKGB and Fats Deacon & the Dumbwaiters remain personal favorites of mine.
But my favorite Uncle Floyd Show memory of all time has to be the Misfits' appearance on Halloween night in 1980, which was perhaps even more incredible than any of the Ramones' appearances and a moment my local punk crew regarded as our equivalent of the Beatles appearing on the Ed Sullivan Show. I'd heard rumors that they'd be on the show that night but didn't believe them and so didn't tell my pals. Afterwards, I felt bad about having kept my mouth shut about it... until I met up with the gang shortly afterward to find they'd all seen it themselves anyway and couldn't stop bouncing off the walls about it! This defining moment, like most episodes of the show, only aired once and was never repeated, and you either saw it or you didn't.
Floyd himself was also a recording artist, releasing a slew of 45s on the BIOYA label, whose odd name was an acronym for "Blow it out your ass!" These were mostly novelty tunes geared to some of the show's characters like Oogie, Bones Boy, Looney Skip Rooney, Don Ho-Hum, and Cowboy Charlie, whose "Deep in the Heart of Jersey" remains Floyd's all-time greatest hit. Floyd would also play it straight from time to time, banging out old standards like "It's A Sin To Tell A Lie" on his upright piano. All of these singles have his brothers Jimmy and Jerry Vivino's band backing him up, and they still don't cost a fortune to own! Later on, he released an album on Mercury, and a few CDs as well, one of them a most fittingly punk-themed collaboration with Dr. Demento. And not to be outdone, multi-instrumentalist cast member Netto put out a fine version of Django Reinhardt's "Minor Swing," which the Looney Tunez record shop financed. I should also mention the late, great Mugsy, the show's resident songwriter, whose parodies of everyone from Springsteen to the Beatles sometimes provided the musical entertainment, and who did a split 7-inch with Floyd called "Public Enemy" under the name of... Peter Punk!
Now, If you knew Uncle Floyd, you know that he was an absolutely PHENOMENAL piano player. To my ears quite possibly the best I've ever heard, ever. Even my father, who didn't care for most anything else about the show, had to admit that Floyd sure could play the hell out of that upright in the corner of the studio when he overheard him jamming out on the TV one evening. In fact, the last time I saw Floyd perform live was one of his evening lounge piano gigs at the now-defunct Colucci's Italian Restaurant in Haledon for my 30th birthday. He dazzled me with astonishing playing the entire time and made it look as easy as riding a bike. I passed him a note that it was my birthday and got him singing "Happy Birthday" and a photo opportunity with him for the privilege. As I recall, he went into "Volare" and I sang a few bars of it (much though I hardly know any of the words!) as my mother snapped the shot. Uncle Floyd was always a class act to his fans, always happy to sign autographs and smile for the camera no matter where he was or what he was doing.
For a very short time it looked like Floyd could've become the next big thing nationally. TV Guide profiled the show in a story which ran nationwide, Paul Simon called (IYKYK) and cast him in a small role in his movie "One Trick Pony," and NBC eventually signed him up. But alas, his part was cut from the final edit of Paul's movie (which flopped anyway), and he was given the truly unenviable task of following SNL (which, tellingly, stole a lot from Floyd) at one AM. Indeed, he had his share of famous fans who boosted his good name out there, like the Ramones and David Bowie. But in the end, the man was Jerseyan to the core, and Jersey was part of his thing to such a degree that I don't think too many folks outside of Jersey would've fully caught on to it (and they certainly didn't during his ill-fated national stint for sure). Sure, Bruce and Bon Jovi and Frankie Valli may have that Jersey thing going for them too, but not to such a degree that the world at large wouldn't understand. And that, I think, was what made Uncle Floyd cooler than all of them, that commitment to his local fans which never wavered. He may have tried to capitalize on his success, but in the end he never sold out, and I honestly don't think selling out would've suited him anyway.
When news of Floyd's recent stroke reached me, I knew it was the beginning of the end and that he would sadly never be rockin' that piano again. Much effort was made to try to bring him back, including extensive (and, I'm told, grueling) rehabilitation, but it was a lost cause. Floyd made his last appearance on his own podcast just five days before Christmas. He spoke only for a few minutes and sounded like he was talking in his sleep. As soon as I heard it, I knew it was only a matter of time. And now yet another great legend is gone, in a world where I seem to wake up to the news of another dead cultural icon every goddamn day.
Floyd Vivino was a truly unique and special talent, a bonafide eccentric who somehow figured out how to make a career out of just being his crazy self, and isn't that what all eccentrics aspire to? The Uncle Floyd Show deeply defined my culture as a punk and as a New Jerseyan both at once. There will never be another like him, nor another crew like his cast of characters (nor will we ever see another presidential candidate like Artie Delmar!). You didn't have to grow up or live in NJ to appreciate Floyd, but it surely went a long way towards fully understanding him.
When I posted the simple words "Goodbye, Uncle Floyd" on Facebook upon hearing of his passing, a friend of mine who grew up far from Jersey told me "Hey, sorry to hear about your uncle." I gently corrected him at the moment, explaining who he was. But looking back, I should've just accepted his condolences and left it at that. Because with all now said and done, Floyd not only WAS my actual Uncle, but the very best one I ever had. Farewell, Floyd, and thanks for the memories, music, and laughter.
Well, my dear friends, we've made it a full decade. Ten years ago today, on July 2, 2015, this blog was officially inaugurated with a post about my one and only trip to Max's Kansas City, just months before it closed. In the process I shared the first of what would be well over fifty chapters of what was to become my online memoirs. The truth of the matter, though, is that I was also relaunching a blog I'd already started a full decade earlier, in 2005. That was the year Myspace launched the social media craze, at a time when I was looking to it for ways to connect with much-needed new friends in my new home of central Florida. Along with each account came a free blog, which I wasted no time in exploiting, having also becme curious about blogs at that time.
This first version of the Brazenblog was quite a bit different from the one you all know today. It was a lot more free form, a fact which was reflected in its original subtitle "Random babblings from the racing brain of Ray Brazen" (those last five words also being the name of my then-current CD release). As such, I just posted whatever I felt like writing back then. I blogged about the local music scene I'd found in Orlando, posted poetry I'd written on occasion, and made it into the exclusive online source for updates on the health battles of my friend and fellow music freak Billy Syndrome, who'd had a stroke in late summer '05 (sadly, this coverage would end with a eulogy here in early 2017). After awhile I sort of fell out of it for a spell, but then I woke up one morning with a new idea and logged onto Myspace only to find that my blog had mysteriously vanished without warning. To say I was pissed at seeing my work up to that point go down the crapper is an understatement, and my association with Myspace ended right then and there.
After a couple of years off, I decided I was going to start the Brazenblog all over again from scratch. this time on the far more reliable Blogspot platform. All I knew at first was that I wanted this blog to go in a different direction than the first. But where?
I didn't have to wait long or look far for the answer, for it was arond this time that I was invited to appear on a local podcast in Orlando run by my friends Jeff Ilgenfritz and Dirt McCoy. They were brothers and second-generation Misfits fans who had heard me talk about growing up in that band's shadow, and were curious to get the full scoop. Along the way I also told other tales of growing up punk, and as I related them I saw the looks of awe and envy on their faces. The reactions were priceless, and immediately afterward the answer struck me -- make the new blog a memoir! After all, I had many more stories where those came from that would make rock fans and historians swoon, and never enough time on any podcast to tell 'em all in full. And so I commenced to writing and posting once again, and the new improved Brazenblog 2.0 was born. It was an instant hit which has since blossomed into one of my proudest and most successful projects, thanks in no small part to my wonderful readers.
In these last ten years I've shared many memorable eyewitness accounts of seeing (and sometimes meeting) many legendary names in punk and classic rock, including the Misfits, the Ramones, the Ventures, Dead Kennedys, Motorhead, Wreckless Eric, the Beach Boys, Steve Miller, Sun Ra, the Godz, the Minutemen, Butthole Surfers, Adrenalin OD, the Dickies, Frightwig, Silver Apples, Uncle Floyd, and of course those Mexican rock gods I've championed throughout my entire 28 years on the internet, Los Dug Dug's. I've also written about my experiences living and performing in Williamsburg in its pre-gentrification days (which earned this blog recognition in the New York Times!), related my own personal musical history (which got the attention of a professor at Harvard!), and paid tribute to some fallen friends including my personal heroes William Berger and Billy Syndrome. And yes, there's even a cameo appearance from GG Allin in there!
It's been a blast reliving it all in my head, and I've always written with great care. Some of you may notice that I only blog a few times each year. This is because I take a lot of time to complete a post to my full satisfaction, working on and off and making sure I've remembered every detail I want to include in each story I tell. As this is an historical blog and not an online diary, I will work on a post only when true inspiration strikes, because I know I'm going to write a much better piece when I'm in the proper headspace for it. Aesop once said "It's quality that counts, not quantity," but it's all added up either way and many of you seem to agree, all over the world, as I've got readers from not only here in the USA where this blog is based, but also in Canada, all over Europe and even in countries like Vietnam and Singapore! You all know who you are, I'm sure, even if you are anonymous to me. It boggles my mind to think of my work going worldwide, but my blog stats say it's true, and I'm deeply appreciative of that fact. I may not have made even one penny from all this, but your moral support is worth far more to me anyway.
And so, here's to ten years of this Brazenblog and twenty since I started the first one. And I'm still not done with this thing yet, so get ready for more! Happy anniversary to me... and to all of you. Thanks so much to everyone who has ever read even just this post here for your support and comments and all the other love you've shown, for it inspires me greatly, time and time again. Keep reading, all of you.
There's been a lot going on in the wonderful world of Brazen lately, and I have several big updates to provide, some with regards to recent posts on this blog, all of them bringing very exciting news. And I'm pleased to start things off with a MAJOR announcement: "What Was Lo-Fi," Adam Harper's long-awaited study on the history of lo-fi music and culture, has finally been published.
I first reported on the production of this book early last year after Mr. Harper, a music professor at Oxford University of all places, contacted me to request a hi-res scan of the original flyer promoting "Lo-Fi Night" (the site of my very first live performance in NYC, and a night which changed many a life, including my own), which I gladly provided to him right off my original copy of it. Well, not only did he include it in the book as promised, but he used it as the starting point for his historical overview of Lo-Fi, even going as far as analyzing Terry Folger's flyer design and comparing it to the cover illustration of a 1985 issue of Sound Choice spotlighting the cassette revolution of the time! I only wish that Mr. Folger and the man who started the whole lo-fi scene, the late great William Berger, were alive today to see this -- alas, we can only imagine what they would have thought of their efforts now officially becoming a part of musical academia at Oxford!
"What Was Lo-Fi?" is an interesting piece of work indeed, tracing the history of the term from its humble pre-WFMU origins and beyond, analyzing its various meanings and its application to recordings of many different styles, and questioning the current (mis)appropriation of the term as part of something new called "relaxing lo-fi hip-hop," hence the question being asked in past tense. Harper's book is an admirable effort to ensure that the true meaning of lo-fi doesn't wind up lost in the shuffle of this increasingly popular new subgenre... which has nothing at all to do with lo-fi as far as we're concerned! It namechecks many well-known artists including Daniel Johnston, Guided By Voices, and Pavement, and credits WFMU for not only bringing us lo-fi but "outsider music" as well. It's all worth reading and best of all, the entire book is available as a FREE DOWNLOAD right here! No costly shipping fees from the UK to read THIS one, no siree! My heartfelt thanks to Adam for his fine work acknowledging and (most importantly) respecting our history, and for making it so easily accessible for all to read.
Moving right along to a very exciting thing that's happened to me recently, I was floored when I received an invitation to be interviewed for my absolute favorite podcast! What's more, the invite to appear on Joel Gausten's show came courtesy of my oft-mentioned dear old high school friend Tommy Koprowski, who just so happens to do some of the bookings for this amazing show. Mr. Gausten is a New Jersey-born, New Hampshire-based writer and musician who is currently producing a series of podcasts devoted to the history of the New York and New Jersey punk scenes, and he's interviewing just about everyone he can track down who was involved. The results so far have been nothing short of astonishing. Mr. Gausten's show is an old-school punk's dream come true with one punk lifer after another sharing their stories, and with his easygoing late-night chat style leading them on, he comes off as nothing less than the Johnny Carson of punk, a noble (and truly unprecedented) thing to be.
Now, I may sound biased calling Gausten's my fave podcast now that I've appeared on it, so let me state here that it was already number one on my personal podcast hit parade long before I received the invite. That said, Joel and I got along like a house on fire during the recording session, and we're already talking about collaborating further on future episodes, which I'll say more about in the future. For now, please lay back and enjoy almost 90 minutes of Joel and yours truly talking about NJ hardcore punk and WFMU in the 1980s, from the Misfits and Adrenalin OD to Pat Duncan and lo-fi and back again. And if you dig it, do check out other episodes of Joel's show (already over 150 as of this writing and still counting) which not only include the aforementioned NY/NJ punk history series but also some great episodes featuring many well-known punk (and even a few non-punk) legends as well. You'll be glad you did, for it's all chicken soup for the old punk rocker's soul! (We ARE the new old hippies after all... hell, some of us even LOOK like old hippies now, and I'll say no more about THAT!) 'Twas such an honor to be on this thing. A million thanks to Joel Gausten and Tommy Koprowski for this golden opportunity!
Meanwhile, back in central Florida where I'm still presently based, my power duo Los Jarritos is still going strong, having released not one, but TWO new singles on Bandcamp so far in 2025. The first is a new version of a song originally written by Orlando's prime local legend Syd Zed called "Made in Taiwan," which we've turned into a tirade about broken 4-track machines and the sobering fact that most all of those old portastudios Tascam made back in the nineties turned out to be cheaply made and unsustainable pieces of crap in the long run. It's backed by a fiery instrumental called "Stop!" which is the latest in a long string of wordless Brazen compositions dating all the way back to the '80s, all reflecting my deep love of instrumental rock & roll.
The second single, "Musicians > Politicians," is our simple but bold statement about the current fucked-up state of things in this world post-2024 election. The words are simple but say it all: it's musicians who should be running the world! This one is coupled with "Influencers," which makes some pointed observations about the continued wretched gentrification of our major cities in general and Orlando in particular, set to a stunning cumbia-styled beat.
Musically, we've retained our basic garage-rock/punk edge, but we're getting more experimental as we progress, and my right-hand man Cesar Marquez is helping to make my quirky ideas a reality with his precise and versatile drumming. Please check out our new music here, and a whole truckload of other Brazen stuff at my Bandcamp site... and if you're ever in O-Town, come see us play at Uncle Lou's sometime.
When I last blogged, I wrote about my work producing a website for one of New Jersey's most unsung and underappreciated bands ever, TV Toy. Well, that long-lost 1982 Toy documentary I'd mentioned that was recently uncovered has since been fully remastered and uploaded to Vimeo and is now available for your viewing pleasure. This, too, is pretty amazing, presenting jaw-dropping live performance footage (in black and white!) of the band playing some of its greatest hits, interspersed with an interview with the band which stands as a real period piece of both the NJ music scene in the early '80s and the worldwide music scene in general. This important documentary is a must watch if you're an aficionado of the 1980s New Jersey underground scene, just as relevant and vital as Joel Gausten's podcasts in that respect.
Last, but certainly far from least, the Brazenblog is turning all of ten years old this July, and soon afterwards your humble blogger will turn... well, if you don't know how old already, I'll just sit back and let you do the math as I've dropped more than enough clues to my age here over this past decade. Just know that a big celebration is on the way, and that I deeply appreciate all of you who have read any or all of this blog so far, particularly those of you who have posted comments and who have either praised my work or cited it in their own writings. Stay tuned, folks, for there's always more to come...
I really miss the early days of the Internet. I really miss how primitive it was when it first started. Lately I find myself longing for a return to the time before Facebook and Twitter and all that other horseshit came along. When I first started online back in '97, I had to literally feel my way around the damn thing with no clear guidance other than a few rudimentary search engines, which in retrospect was part of its initial charm. I was learning how to build a website and at first it seemed like a joke for an obscure Mexican rock band to have one. Would anyone even care? And where the hell was I to promote it? Message boards and online email groups were the era's social media. I joined two groups which discussed garage and psych music, Bomp Digest and U-Spaces, and built an early audience there (and finally heard "Smog" in the process).
Really, it should've been a huge struggle to get my online efforts off the ground all those years ago. But miraculously, my work found the right people at an incredibly fast rate, and the best of them were coming not from these little message groups, but right out there in the wild. Folks who, like me, were feeling their way around the web using little more than basic instinct, who found me and others just by seeking us out. It was all a matter of fate placing the right people at the right web pages at the right times. It all seems so pure and simple now, looking back at it in this complex, mentally challenged social media world.
Before I started, all of the other people I knew who liked Los Dug Dug's had been folks I'd turned on to them myself, but now I was meeting people who'd discovered my all-time fave Mexican rock band without my involvement. And by far the most colorful gringos my site ultimately attracted were a group of insane obscure music fanatics from right in my home state of New Jersey, people so deeply into crate digging that they themselves had found Los Dug Dug's in much the same way I had (minus the trip to Mexico, of course). My initial contact from this bunch, just weeks before 1999 gave way to 2000, came from a man who identified himself as The Mickster. He had a radio show on Saturday evenings called "The Dangerous Rock & Roll Show" on WNTI-FM, broadcasting from Centenary College near the NJ/PA border. He invited me to tune in that weekend and when I did so, much to my pleasant surprise, I heard him spin Los DD's and then give a heartfelt plug for my website!
Sounds like a pretty simple story so far, but it was about to take a major, unexpected twist. The Mickster's co-host was a man identified only as Rob the Foil. Well, when I called in to the show to express my sincere appreciation for their free publicity, Mick and I ended up talking for a good few minutes and somehow we got to talking about the fact that we were both musicians. That was when he revealed the Foil's big secret to me: Rob was once the frontman for TV Toy.
TV TOY! It had been quite awhile since I'd last thought of them, but oh what a memory jog. They formed about half an hour's drive away from me in the city of Dover in the mid-'70s, and started off playing pure progressive rock. But seeing the Ramones and Talking Heads at CBGB changed their lives, and soon they were forging their own very unique and masterfully crafted blend of prog and punk, at a time when such musical hybrids were unheard of.
Back in the Channel 68 heyday of the Uncle Floyd Show, around 1979, they'd appeared on an episode which Tommy Koprowski (there's that man again) and I had happened to catch. We'd sent away for their EP and were knocked out cold by its A-side, "(Don't Blame It On The) Weekend." I, in particular, loved this song so much that I actually made it into a weekly ritual: every Friday afternoon, as soon as I got home from school, the very first thing I did was fire up my stereo and blast "Weekend" as loud as the neighbors could withstand. The lyrics said it all: "I know the weekend goes too fast... but this time the weekend's gonna last!" It was a truly inspiring and uplifting song, and the ritual was a beautiful reward for making it through another shitty school week. Furthermore, the song's significance went that much deeper by virtue of the fact that it came from a band on my home turf, a fact none other than the late, great John Peel once noted accordingly: "A Jersey band who doesn't sound like Springsteen? That's a measure of their courage, I think!"
Never in my wildest dreams did I think my love for Los Dug Dug's and TV Toy would intersect in such a way, but lo and behold, I now had a line on Toy's fearless leader, Rob Barth, and the story was about to become gloriously complicated from there. Soon after, I was invited to bring my love of all things Dug Dug's to the Dangerous Rock & Roll Show for a two-hour special focused exclusively on the band. I was so thrilled by the opportunity, I had Armando Nava himself do a promotional ID for the show, which we recorded long-distance over the phone from Mexico City to New Jersey. The show aired over WNTI on February 5, 2000, and while it generally went well, I frankly admit to cringing a bit when I play back the aircheck now.
Mick and Rob were nice enough guys but they insisted on sprinkling their slapstick on-air humor throughout the program, and there were times when I honestly wanted to slap them both. But I did succeed in blasting the Jersey airwaves with roughly two hours worth of Los Dug Dug's, and I'm still proud of the accomplishment itself, especially since we were able to present it as a worldwide broadcast over the net on WNTI's web stream. Indeed, the night's biggest thrill for me, even more so than meeting the man who sang "Don't Blame It On The Weekend," was receiving an email from a fan of my site in Mexico whom I'd befriended, saying he was listening to the show down there and totally loving it. How fucking cool is that, folks?
But the story of my relations with Mick and Rob had only just begun. The very next week, they called me and said, "You're such a big TV Toy fan, how would you feel about creating a website for them?" To say I was startled by this request is an understatement. "I'd love to," I replied, "but shouldn't that be Rob's task?" After Toy broke up in '84, he'd left the music scene for a career as a renowned graphic designer, and I told him honestly that I thought he could do a much better job than I, given his designing skills and the fact that he could just write the whole story himself. No, he insisted, that would not do: "We want a site with the same fan perspective as your other sites." Fair enough, I reckoned. I thought about it for a day or two, then agreed to do it.
Just as with Los Dug Dug's before them, my role as TV Toy's webmaster gave me access to a fanboy's dream lot of very cool and personal stuff. Rare and unissued recordings, cassettes and vinyl and CD-Rs, original press kits and posters and stickers, news clippings, even a few authentic Max's Kansas City handbills. I interviewed Rob over the phone and weaved it all into an overview of Toy's history. Word of the project quickly spread to all the other former Toys and all pledged their full support.
Meanwhile, I was becoming the toast of the Dangerous Rock & Roll Show. Every week Mickster would plug my websites, often playing our favorite Mexican band and eventually hyping up the TV Toy site as it neared completion. The show's biggest fan by far was a man named Bill Kopp, who religiously taped the show each and every week and had a huge archive of DR&R Show airchecks. He became probably the second biggest Jersey-based Dug Dug's fan after myself out of all of them, completely in agreement with me that "Smog" was an all-time rock masterpiece. He also designed the famous "I Dig Dug Dug's" button, which started as our own little exclusive thing and has since been spotted on leather jackets in Mexico City! (Bilko, if you're reading this, please hit me up sometime. It's been ages, my friend.)
Work on the TV Toy site progressed very quickly, and creating the content was no problem, but the matter of designing the site worried me greatly, and for good reason. I'm good at writing, of course, but I am not a graphic designer by any reasonable stretch of the imagination. I know nothing about creating logos or any of that stuff -- hell, I can't even draw a straight line! Right from the start I'd been designing my sites from the seat of my pants with no idea at all what the fuck I was doing. I was just experimenting with the various design programs I was learning and just going with whatever looked stylish to me. And now I was expected to create a web layout which would please a pro designer who had Netflix and AT&T among his clients. This, in fact, was the main reason I wanted him to do it. Oh lord, help me, what have I gotten myself into?
I did my best. I was determined not to admit defeat. I messed around with some graphics I'd found online and by some miracle came up with a neat Javascript rollover design, a staticky TV which "switched channels" to band photos with a move of the mouse, and a big scan of the band's TV Guide-spoofing logo placed next to it. (As big as the original designs looked on the ancient desktops on which they were produced, they look shockingly miniature on the laptops of today.) I put up a test version online at a secret link, sent it to Rob Barth... then held my breath.
The verdict came quickly. And guess what... he loved it. And not only did he think the design suited TV Toy perfectly, but he even praised the fancy rollover effects! I took it as a huge compliment and breathed just as huge a sigh of relief. And so on May 5, 2000, exactly three months to the day of the Dug Dug's radio special, The TV Toy Channel officially launched to everyone's delight and satisfaction. Over time we eventually expanded it to include a history of Morris County's "Moco Scene" of the '70s and '80s which spawned Toy, complimenting its complete history of the band. It's unfortunately been relegated to the web archives by now, but I'm still trying to find all my original master files for the whole site, and perhaps I'll get it back out there someday, though for sure it would need some serious editing and updating first. In the meantime, there's this only partially functional "bootleg" of rather poor quality to go by, accessible via this blog's menu. View it at your own risk, folks.
I still think it was a great site, and one very close to my heart, and in a more perfect world it would've sparked the same sort of revival for TV Toy as my Dug Dug's site ultimately did for them. It did, however, reconnect various band members to old friends they hadn't heard from in ages, and attract a British fan who'd taped a TV Toy track off John Peel's show on the BBC and was thrilled to finally track down the band over 20 years later. In the wake of all this, Toy's ex-drummer Steve Peer compiled a superb collection of their music spanning the years '76-'84, called "Shards." It's a truly stunning document of some very original and courageous sounding high-energy Jersey rock that doesn't sound like Bruce. You should also grab any and all original Toy 7-inchers you find in your crate digging travels -- there's not a bad one in the bunch.
(As I wrap up this latest chapter in my online saga, word has reached me that a 35-minute TV Toy documentary once thought to have been lost forever has just been discovered in someone's garage, and that said film will soon be available for all to see. This is the absolute Jersey music find of the century as far as I'm concerned, and I can't wait to see it! I'll post more about it here when it drops. Plugs are also in order here for ex-Toy drummer Steve Peer's awesome Steve's Theme Park project, a rollicking yet poignant reflection on old age as seen through the eyes of a bunch of old punks -- if you are one, it'll getcha right there for sure. And if you're ever in Ellsworth, Maine, check out the new pub Steve just opened there, Black Moon Public House, and his current band the Crown Vics. Tell 'em Brazen said hi!)
It's time once again to tell you all about what's been going on in my world in the here and now, because Brazen has a new musical thing going and I think it's about time to tell you the amazing story behind it, and also to pay tribute to the man who started the ball rolling on it, then tragically left this world before I could finally make it happen.
Perhaps the story begins one fateful day in Orlando in late 2017, when a wonderful and eccentric young guitarist and songwriter named Bobby Clock was just taking a leisurely evening walk 'round his 'hood after work one day. Suddenly, he heard some very live drumming blasting out of someone's garage. Naturally, the musician in him just had to investigate, so Bobby hopped the fence in front of the house and almost scared the drummer walking in. He was from Mexico, his name was Cesar Marquez, and he had been living in O-Town for about a decade but hadn't played in any bands since he'd left Veracruz -- in fact, he was just starting to get back into playing drums. Bobby told Cesar he was looking to get his band going again and invited him to audition. In the process he found a very unique migrant with a mind of his own and a taste for musical adventure no one would have suspected.
Or maybe the story begins a few months earlier than that, when yours truly was invited to share a bill with Danny Feedback and Dr. Faux & the Right Angles at the infamous Copper Rocket Pub and Bobby was in the audience supporting Danny, his very best friend since high school. I remember him complimenting me quite enthusiastically afterward, and you can hear him roaring out his approval from the crowd on my recording of the show for sure. I, of course, had known of Danny pretty much since I first came to Orlando and was (and still am) in total awe of his eccentric and ever-changing all-around creative genius. Little did I know that he and Bobby were both about to become a big part of my O-Town rock & roll family.
As far as I'm concerned, though, the real story here starts sometime in the spring of 2018 when I first saw Bobby Clock and the Soda Pops play at a show at Uncle Lou's, backed by the outrageous visual effects of my longtime collaborator and friend Joshua Rogers. It seemed strange to me that the name was plural, seeing as how Cesar was the only Soda Pop at the time. But this time I complimented Bobby afterward and then, without thinking, suggested we make some sounds together. Mind you, it wasn't like I was looking to play with anyone then; I hadn't been in a band in 20 years and felt contented to just keep on truckin' as a solo act. So I surprised even myself when that suggestion came out of my mouth so suddenly.
Eventually Bobby and I did get together and jam at his place, just making a lot of neat improvised noise with me doing some cool shit on the bass, which caught his ear most noticeably. The following week, on the fifth of July, I went back for another jam and Cesar was there with him. "Ray, we've got a proposition for you," he began, before praising my bass skills to the heavens and inviting me to officially make the Soda Pops a full power trio. And that was the start of a whole new musical journey for me that I'm still on to this day.
Bobby Clock and the Soda Pops, with me on bass and Cesar on drums, played a string of shows in the Orlando area that wonderful summer of 2018, and brought anarchy and mayhem everywhere we went. My unannounced debut with the Pops had friends walking in off the street and looking on goggle-eyed as we blew the roof off Uncle Lou's. A couple weeks later, kicking off a bill at the Haven (now known as the Conduit), we reportedly made the next band nervous about following us, and were later called "magic" by the show's promoter. And I almost killed Bobby after the last show we played when he borrowed my guitar and proceeded to stupidly duct-tape his broken strap to it and break a string on top of it! Folks loved us, hated us, feared us, but we triumphed with our sludgy, heavy sounds. It was a great summer, one of the most memorable of my life, and it was topped off with Bobby and Cesar throwing a lovely surprise party for me on my birthday.
Unfortunately, my time as a Soda Pop was fleeting, and I'd only wanted to stick around for a short while anyway, so Bobby replaced me with none other than Danny Feedback, who brought a very different bass style and vibe to the band. (The two had previously collaborated on other projects, most notably Hippy Gone Wrong's "Analog Wildflower," perhaps the hardest, heaviest album I've ever heard come out of Orlando, Florida.) But tragically, these changes coincided with the rapid downward spiral of Bobby. After years of struggle with heroin addiction, he overdosed at the far-too-young age of 32 the very next summer. Bobby was both brilliant and troubled, a truly complex and overwhelming figure who was impossible to pin down. There was so much going on in him that just one summer spent as the Soda Pops seemed like half a lifetime's worth of rock & roll band experience to us. The adventures we had in just that short a time are way too much to go into here. But he would leave us to carry on as loud and proud as ever.
The times became rough, very very rough. Bobby's demise marked the beginning of the darkest period of my entire life, as my dad passed away just a few months later and then the pandemic hit, which fueled my inevitable descent into a very deep depression. But in a strange twist of fate, Cesar and I wound up quarantining together, and this situation would save my life. In all honesty, if he hadn't been there for me during this time, I don't know what the fuck I would've done with myself. Cesar deserves all your praise as well as mine for this alone.
We turned out to be perfect lockdown partners, and spent countless hours together just sitting in the shitty apartment he shared with his cousin at the time and talking about food, music, food, Bobby, food, and Mexican culture (especially the food). We went over his video archives from our days as the Soda Pops and from these resources we created a Youtube channel to preserve Bobby's memory. Somewhere along the way I introduced Cesar to my beloved Dug Dugs, whom he hadn't heard of back in Mexico, and as always happens when I play "Smog" for new friends, he became another huge fan! Our times hanging out together during Covid really helped us cope with all we were going through in the wake of Bobby's death, and a close friendship quickly grew out of it.
Cesar and I had made a vow to make music together again in honor of Bobby -- in fact, the deal I'd made to join the Soda Pops was that they were eventually going to be MY backing band -- but we had no place to play at the time. The apartment complex Cesar lived in was just horrible, with neighbors living directly under him, and you couldn't even attempt to use it as a practice space. So instead we just sat on his balcony and stared into the sky, week after agonizing week of quarantine, just as bored shitless as everyone else with no shows to play or go to. One day we plugged his Korg Kaossilator synth (which he'd used many times to create spacey effects with the Soda Pops) into a practice amp and blasted it on the balcony just to watch the reactions from folks on the street, taking it just about as far as we could -- that's how bored we were. But when the police locked down that decrepit project one Saturday looking for an active shooter, we knew we had to get the fuck out of there as soon as possible.
So as our wretched 2020 came to a close, Cesar finally moved to a little shack not far away in a much better area in Apopka, and at last the seeds were planted for a new beginning. We now had a place we could make noise in, and I remembered the deal I'd made with him and Bobby to make them my backing band as well. By this time Cesar was keeping his drumming chops up playing in Danny Feedback's band, and when they shared the bill with me at the Subgenius Church-sponsored X-Day Fest over the July 4th weekend of '21, they devoted half their set to Pops covers while I played songs which would soon feature in our next phase. The lockdown was over, my depression was lifting, and finally, on Labor Day weekend, Cesar and I blew the lid off that boring holiday and had the jam session which officially started it all anew. On the spot I suggested we rename ourselves Los Jarritos, after our favorite Mexican... wait for it... soda pop! The perfect new name, one which alluded somewhat to the past while firmly establishing a new beginning.
Los Jarritos began with a few cover tunes and some of my classic songs, but soon our renewed partnership inspired new original material in a tighter and more garage-y style than the Soda Pops. Taking inspiration from our scene and our surroundings, I came up with numbers like "Agua Fresca" and "Take Me Back To June" and "Chili Candy," songs reflective of our cultures, our environment and those weekly practices in Cesar's neighborhood in Apopka, a little mini-Mexico just on the outer tip of Orlando which has some of the most amazing Mexican food I've ever eaten in my life. I also wrote a very personal song called "Lifers" inspired by my own long rock & roll history and all the other old friends I know out there who are still playing it. We quickly got good enough to start playing out again, and where else could we have started doing shows but at the place we first and last played together, Uncle Lou's. Since then we've made one nice, raw, live Bandcamp release with my trusty pocket recorder which longtime Brazen & Bobby supporters Orlando Weekly wrote a great review of (thanks, Bao), and have even more musical surprises in store for the very near future! (Listen to "Lifers" below!)
When Los Jarritos performed at Uncle Lou's on the fifth anniversary of Bobby Clock's passing, it was just for a few very close friends and family members including Bobby's mother and younger brother (who already looks a lot like him!), and we all got something very positive out of it. We continuously referenced Bobby throughout the set before becoming the Soda Pops all over again for an extended jam on Bobby's "See & Look" as our last number. That was a moment which truly brought the whole thing full circle, and drove home the fact that Los Jarritos formed not only to respect Bobby, but to heal ourselves from perhaps the most untimely losses we've yet witnessed, not just of Bobby but of ALL THREE band members' fathers as well. (Fate can be very cruel sometimes, what the fuck can I say?)
And that's the story of two of the best bands I've ever had the pleasure of being part of. Just as Nirvana became the Foo Fighters, the Soda Pops have become Los Jarritos. Indeed it is a story with all the classic elements involved. One has to wonder if any of this would've happened had Bobby not heard that drumming coming from that garage down his street, or liked what he'd seen and heard of me weeks before. Would we ever have known what we would've missed?
A zillion thanks to Jim Leatherman, legendary photographer and big Brazen fan, for his awesome photos of us playing live at Uncle Lou's!
