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.
