Music In My Shoes

The Uncle Floyd Show, and I Can't Live Without My Radio E117

• Episode 117

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We trace the scrappy brilliance of the Uncle Floyd Show and how a UHF oddity opened doors for punk and pop heroes, then jump across decades of songs that shaped our lives. From Dylan’s Desire to The Cult’s club thunder, we connect memories, charts, and the moments that stick.

• Uncle Floyd’s low-budget TV chaos and big cultural impact
• Ramones, Squeeze, Blue Öyster Cult, early Jon Bon Jovi appearances
• Lennon and Bowie fandom and references
• A campus “milk bandit” break-in detour
• Dylan’s Desire reassessed with Hurricane and Isis
• Paul Simon chart surprises versus memory
• Celebration as a timeless party staple
• Depeche Mode’s darker pull and a fireworks story
• The Cult’s Love, club memories, and genre friction
• LL Cool J, boombox culture, and early Def Jam
• U2’s return to rock with Beautiful Day
• Blue October’s raw honesty on addiction and family

Learn Something New or
Remember Something Old

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SPEAKER_00:

Got the feel in it out go. You've got to feel it in it out there, growing.

SPEAKER_03:

Hey everybody, this is Jim Boge, and you're listening to Music in My Shoes, podcasting worldwide. That was Vic Thrill kicking off episode 117. I'm thrilled to be here with you. Let's learn something new or remember something old. Back in 1979, 80, 81, somewhere around there, when I got a chance, I would watch this TV show out of New Jersey. And I think it was on UHF Channel 68. Okay. It looked like it was filmed in some guy's like living room. I think I know what it is. And it was the craziest show that I had ever seen. And he would talk, and then I guess like the stage hands that you didn't necessarily see all the time, they would laugh or they would crack up or yell back at him. And he would have like these bad puppets that he would use. But all of these music groups would just show up on this set that it looked like it was somebody's living room. Or basement, yeah. Yeah. And and he looked like he was out of vaudeville. He played the piano like no other. He played the piano. It was unbelievable. He was very vaudevillian, I guess you would say. Uh-huh. But play these old songs that people of Italian descent would listen to. It was just unbelievable. It was it was supposed to be a kid's show, but to me, I never thought it was a kid's show. That show was the Uncle Floyd show. Right. So the Uncle Floyd show is something I always wanted to talk about. And I didn't know where I was going to kind of put it in because I can't tell you, oh, I watched it from this date to this date. Like I said at the beginning, you know, I watched it 79, 80, 81. But unfortunately, Uncle Floyd passed away recently. And I'm really amazed at how many people have come out to say that they're really sorry to hear that he passed and that they got their start on TV on the Uncle Floyd show. Or Uncle Floyd just had them on when others wouldn't. And it's it's a crazy list. It's the Ramones, it's uh Captain Lou Albano with NRBQ. It's The Wrestler. The Wrestler, yeah. He was with uh Cindy Lauper. I think Cindy Lauper was on the show. Now that I think about it. Squeeze was on there. And I remember the Squeeze episode, and Squeeze, they really wanted to be on the show. Not a lot of people were saying, hey, we want to be on the show. You know, they had to go out and get them, but Squeeze liked it. They played a lot of shows in New York in the early days, and they're like, hey, how do we get on this show? They were on. Drama Rama was on, a big New Jersey band. Just uh John Bon Jovi. Uh he had a band when he first started called the uh John Bon Jovi band, and they they were on. And you had a lot of people that followed the show. John Lennon loved watching the show with Sean Lennon because again, it was supposed to be a kid's show, you know, with these puppets, weird puppets. Um I think one one was Oogie, and I cannot remember Mr. Bones or something.

SPEAKER_01:

Was it on after school?

SPEAKER_03:

I think it was on about six o'clock, maybe. All right. I if I'm not mistaken. This is UHF, and UHF, you know, that's a whole different thing. You know, before cable, or maybe at that time it was part of cable. Uh you know, again, I don't remember.

SPEAKER_01:

No, it didn't make it down to Atlanta, I'll tell you that. So it was it was only on terrestrial TV in the New York area. Trevor Burrus, Jr. Oh, okay. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03:

It it was really cool because it was not like anything else that you saw on TV, had all these cool bands. I mean, it was funny because the Ramones, they were on multiple times. I think uh Joey was on one time solo, I think Marky was on one time solo, but the Ramones themselves, they were on multiple. And there's a clip of them where Uncle Floyd's like, hey, what's the fuck are you gonna do? And Johnny's like, I don't know.

SPEAKER_01:

Because they don't have a song ready. They're like lip-syncing, and he doesn't faced Johnny actually starts cracking up.

SPEAKER_03:

Yeah. And it's like all of a sudden they put the song on, and you know, it's like two seconds later the band starts playing along. And I think, you know, I two seconds doesn't seem like a lot. It's a lot if you're lip-syncing to a song and you're just standing there and the song starts. But once they they start playing along, it's amazing. It looked like they really were playing the song. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01:

I thought the same thing.

SPEAKER_03:

You know, you know that they're not. Um who was it? Um Blue Oyster Colt, they did Burning for You in 1981. And I believe that Blue Oyster Colt played like one of the stagehands, one of the people behind the st scenes, not trying to, you know, say stagehand, make it seem simple. But one of them had Blue Oyster Colt at a party when they were younger, and I guess they still had the phone number, like, hey, we got a TV show, you want to come down? And they had to do it a couple of times, and then sure enough, Blue Oyster Cult is playing, you know, their hit Burning For You, on the Uncle Floyd show. And it just was something that was really cool, really different. I enjoyed it. I was not a regular watcher of the, you know, viewer of the show. But John Lennon was, and he would watch it with Sean Lennon. Sean Lennon, you know, was a couple of years old, I guess, uh in in 79, 80. In 80, he turned five. So he had watched it for a couple of years. And he got David Bowie into it because David Bowie started doing the Elephant Man um, you know, I don't know if it was Broadway off Broadway in New York City.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03:

And so David Bowie would do it. David Bowie wrote a song about it. The Ramones mention it.

SPEAKER_01:

And uh, it's not my place in the nine-to-five world.

SPEAKER_03:

Which is on Pleasant Dreams and celebrating its 45th anniversary this spring.

SPEAKER_01:

Yep, and they put out a 40th anniversary edition of it five years ago that's uh got some fun bonus tracks on it that I'd never heard.

SPEAKER_03:

Aaron Ross Powell Oh, well, I look forward to talking about that. That should be fun. So, Uncle Floyd, again, I just didn't know how, when, where I was gonna put him in the podcast because it's been on my mind since day one, unfortunately. He passed away, and this was the perfect time. And and again, I'm just amazed at how many people were just like you know, that sending their condolences. And really, for someone that did not have this national presence, had more of a New York, New Jersey presence, it it's it's pretty cool. I really think so. So Floyd, Uncle Floyd, his two brothers were in the Max Weinberg seven. Oh, wow. So Jimmy Vivino, when Max Weinberg was on tour with Bruce, Jimmy Vivino, his brother, would be the leader, and it would be Jimmy Vivino and the Max Weinberg Seven. And I believe they were the band for Conan O'Brien.

SPEAKER_01:

That's right. So Conan was on late night, which used to be late night with David Letterman, and that's where Conan got his start as a host, was taking over for Letterman. Then they gave Conan the Tonight Show, and it didn't work out for him at that 11:30 slot. I don't know. He just didn't do that well at the Tonight Show, and they actually brought Jay Leno back for a while, and now of course it's Jimmy Fallon on the Tonight Show. But then Conan got his own show on TBS, and I got to work on a lot of that stuff when I worked at Turner.

SPEAKER_03:

I don't know if the Max Weinberg 7 had anything to do with that show.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, no, the Max Weinberg 7 was only on late night with Conan O'Brien, his first show, the old Letterman show.

SPEAKER_03:

Gotcha.

SPEAKER_01:

So Letterman had Paul Schaeffer, and then Conan had Max Weinberg, and then Conan's later show on TBS had no band.

SPEAKER_03:

Oh, okay. Yeah. It just goes to show you I didn't watch that one. Anyway.

SPEAKER_01:

They had some funny bits.

SPEAKER_03:

So it's funny. I watched the Uncle Floyd show back in the day, but I didn't watch Conan O'Brien when he went to TBS. No. But anyway, so I'd just like to say rest in peace, Uncle Floyd, you brought a lot of uh joy to a lot of people, a lot more people than I ever even imagined. And you really helped out the musical world with so many bands, Drama Rama, Cindy Lauper. There's so many bands I could go on and on and on that were on his show. A Coastal Carolina University student was arrested for allegedly breaking into houses near the school's campus, Purnews 13 Myrtle Beach. What makes this interesting to me is that in one of the break-ins, the suspect went into the refrigerator and removed food, queso, eggs, and sausa, then he poured the queso on the TV in the furniture, Jimmy, smashed eggs on the floor, and flipped furniture over. Like you're breaking into someone's house. I don't condone it, but I would think that you're supposed to get the stuff and get out.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, it's more like uh old school vandalism at that point, I think.

SPEAKER_03:

Yeah. In another break-in, a resident was home, and this is his account of what happened. I heard the door go boom, and I'm like, what's that? Because I thought it was my buddy coming home from the bar. Nope, it was the milkman. It was the milk bandit, and I didn't even think anything of it. Went to the bathroom, went back to bed, woke up the next morning, milk everywhere. So got to change his MO up a little bit on these different break-ins. In another incident, the suspect allegedly poured maple syrup throughout a house and stole a marijuana bong. The residents of this home declined. They declined to press charges. And can you imagine why? I thought that was hysterical. I just find that funny, man. The only people that decline charges, they don't want to press charges, is because the marijuana bong was stolen. Why would you even tell the police what happened?

SPEAKER_01:

How did the story even get out?

SPEAKER_03:

Oh my lord, Jimmy. Oh, there are some oh there are some interesting people. You know what? But all I can say is let's revisit some more music in my shoes. Let's. Bob Dylan's desire album had a five-week run at number one on Billboard, January 24th, 1976, started. It included Hurricane, which peaked at number 33, early January of 76, a song about Reuben Hurricane Carter, a boxer who was imprisoned for a triple murder, and his sentence was overturned in 1985 due to him not getting a fair trial, not once, but twice, and then the third time they declined to try him again. There's a song called Isis. I absolutely love that song. And Bob Dylan has um uh, you know, bootleg series that he puts out, and he's got one called 1975, and it has a bunch of the songs that made it onto the desire album. It is just so good. Really good band that he had at that time. Uh I I enjoy it. And Romance in Durango. Really good album. And it's funny because I think as I'm doing the podcast, I'm realizing how much more of Bob Dylan in the 70s I liked that I didn't realize that I liked it. And I'm I'm finding that I'm learning, you know, I'm remembering old stuff that maybe I didn't realize was in the middle of the 70s. I always thought in the middle of 70s Bob Dylan wasn't that good, but he was much better than what I thought.

SPEAKER_01:

Oh, cool.

SPEAKER_03:

Until the end of the 70s, and then it just went in a whole new direction. Paul Simon, 50 Ways to Leave Your Lover, peaked at number one on Billboard Hot 100, February 7th, 1976. What's crazy about this, Jimmy? This was his only number one song as a solo artist. Really? All of the songs that he has. So I went and looked up. I was like, let me pick out a song. But what song would I think definitely was a number one song? Because it was on the radio all the time and it was on MTV all the time. Call Me Owl. Yes. It only made it to number 23 in 1987. I was floored by that. But 50 Ways to Leave Your Lover is actually a really good song. Great song. You know, it's got a good vocals, good words, good music. Everything about it's really good. Cool and the Gang, Celebration peaked at number one on Billboard, February 7th, 1981. All I'll say about Celebration is that when that song came out, it seemed like no matter what party you went to, what wedding you went to, that song was always being played.

SPEAKER_01:

I think it's still played at almost every wedding.

SPEAKER_03:

Everybody comes out on the dance floor, everybody loves it. It just it's one of those classic things, I guess, that you expect to hear, and it comes on and you're like, oh, I gotta go out because I have to do it. Yep. You know, everybody else's. Depeche Mode, Fly on the Windscreen, WLIR Screamer of the Week, third week of January 1986. An industrial-sounding song from the soon to be released Black Celebration album, Death is Everywhere. There are flies on the windscreen for a start, reminding us we could be torn apart tonight. I really like this song, and I got a quick little story. If we flash forward, I want to say it's probably 1989, maybe 88. And it was around 4th of July, and I had all these fireworks. I had really good fireworks. I knew someone that sold them. So I had top-of-the-line fireworks, and I went over to a friend's house who was having a party, and I'm gonna blow off some of the fireworks. And I put them in his bedroom, and they were hidden because it was a party. You didn't, you know, you didn't want them to be taken or anything. And someone took a bunch of them. All of a sudden I went in, they're gone. And then I got word who it was, and it was someone I knew, and I wasn't expecting it to be that person. And so I just walked to like the sidewalk, there was like a tree kind of there, and his car was over that way. And I remember I just stood there and people would come up and I wouldn't say a word to them. And finally, this guy goes to leave, and he's got all these people like all around him, like to protect him. Like, I'm just standing on the sidewalk by like a tree. And as he comes by, I just go, Death is everywhere. There are flies on the windscreen. And that was the only thing I said. And you would have thought that you know, I had screamed all kinds of crazy stuff, and people like, ah, you know. And they get him to the car, you know, and they got him into the car, and you know, he took off. And as soon as he left, I was like, hey, how's everybody doing? I mean, it was just this bizarre moment. And that's what I always remember of this song.

SPEAKER_01:

Stole the fireworks.

SPEAKER_03:

Stole the fireworks. And you know, fireworks, sometimes they go tick, tick, tick. It's Minute with Jimmy.

SPEAKER_02:

It's time for a minute with Jimmy, Minute with Jimmy, Minute with Jimmy. It's time for a minute with Jimmy, Minute with Jimmy, Minute with Jimmy.

SPEAKER_01:

Well, you know, we like to keep things on the five-year increments here, right? So it's uh it's 2026. We're talking about things from like 1981, 1986, but hey, what about 1985? We missed one last year. It was a big one. It was the cult album Love, which was not their first album, but it was kind of their first one to have hits on it. And uh, I remember going over to my friend Jeff Wallace's house in 1985, and he had his brother's records, and and he played me a bunch of stuff that I hadn't heard, and one of the things was this album. And the weird thing for me was my favorite song hearing it that first time was uh Rain, which is a good song. Here comes the rain. But it also has Nirvana as the opening track, a real good one, uh Brother Wolf, Sister Moon, Revolution's another good song. But the song that I kind of overlooked the first time that I heard it is one of their biggest hits ever, is She Sells Sanctuary. And it surprises me that uh that didn't just bowl me over immediately because I still love that song.

SPEAKER_03:

That is a fantastic song, Jimmy. Did you know on February 1st, 1986, it peaked at number 36 on the Billboard Dance Club songs? Whoa. So it took a while from 1985 into 1986. All right, so it really is the 40th anniversary of it being the number 36 song on Billboard Dance Club songs. And I'll tell you what a foot-stomping song this is. Like I tried to think for a minute, how do I want to describe it? This really is like a foot-stomping song if you're just standing there. I mean, the lead electric guitar, the driving bass, thumping drums, slashing acoustic guitar, uh, Ian's voice. I mean, it's just crazy. And the world, the world turns around, and the world, and the world, the world drags me down. I love those words. I think they're fantastic. So this song would be played at a club I'd go to a lot called Spit. And it was one of those songs kind of like, you know, uh celebration when this song just started, you know, boom, people would just hit the dance.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, because it gives you a little time with the long intro, you know, the light little plucks on the guitar. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03:

And so Man, it you would be hanging out and you'd be talking to someone in the middle of a conversation and the song would start be like, I sorry, I gotta go. And you would be right out on the dance floor.

SPEAKER_01:

It comes in with that big snare hit and then the guitars and everything come in full. It's it's great.

SPEAKER_03:

Aaron Ross Powell And the video is a great video. If you watch it, like uh Ian uh is just constantly like moving in, you know, like he's almost foot stomped, kicking his feet and moving around.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, he still does that on stage a lot. You know, that's just the way he moves.

SPEAKER_03:

It's just I mean, it was a lot of fun, it really was. I don't know how she sells Sanctuary or Rain, because Rain is excellent. Also, I don't know how those two songs never made it to be a W L-I-R Screamer of the Week.

SPEAKER_01:

Amazing.

SPEAKER_03:

And I looked at the time frame of when the song, the album came out in '85, and then when it hit the dance club songs chart, and there was a lot of songs that I was like, how could that have been a better song than either one of these songs? You know, it just goes to show you at the time what you know, your mind works a certain way. These songs they stay on the test of time. They are fantastic.

SPEAKER_01:

I think one thing about the cult back then was if you think about the genres of music that were popular in 1985, 1986, there there was pop music, pop rock that's on the radio. It didn't sound anything like that. There was alternative music, things like REM, or like even, you know, U2 back then was kind of put into that alternative basket. And it it was harder rock than either one of those. You know, it was it had a hard harder edge to it, but it it didn't fit into hard rock from 1985-86, which was all dominated by like the motley crew and that type of stuff. So I think people didn't know where to categorize the cult.

SPEAKER_03:

I would agree with you. I I definitely would agree with you. It was much harder than what was being played probably on WLIR at the time. But if you look at 1987, when the cult had Love Removal Machine come out, which was even harder in my opinion. It was at that point, radio kind of caught up with it. That actually is a WLIR screamer of the week. They would play that song at Spit, and at a certain point of the song, they would do a balloon drop, and they would just have this net come out, and balloons would just start coming down as you're dancing away to this song, and they would play a lot of the um what do you call it? The strobe light, you know. It was just a really cool scene at the time. It really was. Yeah. Hey, that was a really good minute with Jimmy. My name was Jimmy. Jimmy, back on February 1st, 1986, LL Cool J, I Can't Live Without My Radio, peaks at number 15 on Billboard Hot RB hip-hop songs. My radio, believe me, I like it loud. I'm the man with the box that can rock the crowd. Walking down the street to the hardcore beat while my JVC vibrates the concrete. I had an Emerson 8-track mini boom box that we've talked about. I borrowed it from 8-track Johnny back in 1979, 1980. And I had a Sanyo boom box that I bought in 1982. I got it the summer of 82. I worked at a flea market and I had worked there a number of years. A guy that was selling it knew me and knew the guy I worked for, and I got to do a layaway. So I got the I actually got the boom box right on the first day, and I would make payments every week.

SPEAKER_01:

When I got paid pay-Th it's like eight-track Johnny almost.

SPEAKER_03:

Yeah, almost. When I got paid at the end of my day, because you got paid cash, then I'd be like, hey, I got to go over to the guy to pay for the boom box. And my boss hated the boom box because I was just like playing, you know, music loud and everything.

SPEAKER_01:

Aaron Powell How much did the boom box cost?

SPEAKER_03:

You know, I I don't remember. But it was more than money that I had. Let's just say that. I know that. Like a hundred bucks, you think? Yeah, I I think it was. I think it was. It's a lot. I'd like to go and, you know what, maybe I'll try and do some research to see what it really came out to be. But I love that boom box. And, you know, when you hear the song I Can't Live Without My Radio that, you know, came out in 85 and, you know, peaks at number 15 in 1986, it just reminded me of myself because I had that boom box with me all the time. You know, I brought that to school with me. I put that in the locker. Uh when I hung out on the weekends, I had that. It just was something that was uh part of me. I think they did a skit in my senior variety show, something like, What's this? And they had a person running across the stage with a radio and then someone in impersonating me, you know, following behind. You know, that's how much people kind of put me in the whole boom box thing to go. But that was uh LL Cool J's first song. He wrote it with Rick Rubin. Rick Rubin would go on to um do the Beastie Boys. He, you know, just a guy that uh was super huge. He did a bunch of stuff with uh Johnny Cash, you know, the uh American Recordings, uh a huge person in uh in the music industry. Yeah. And here he was with uh LL Cool Jay back in the Def Jam uh records days. YouTube, beautiful day, peaked at number 21, January 27, 2001. It had been playing on the radio since like September 2000. It had been playing for a pretty long time. It's a beautiful day, sky falls, you feel like it's a beautiful day, don't let it get away. And I always liked that. Like, you know, no matter what's happening, it's always good to be on this side of the earth and, you know, not down below. And you can make a beautiful day, you can do your best and try and make the best of every situation. And it was a return to straight up rock after the disappointing 1997 pop album. Um you know, I just wasn't thrilled with that by any means, and it was good to see them get back to some straight up rock. Blue October Hate Me released January 24, 2006, and it ended up peaking number 31 on Billboard Hot 100. I think it took a lot of courage to write and release this song because Justin, the lead singer, he sings about drug addiction, he sings about depression, and he sings about how it affected his relationships. And to put that all out there for the public, I think it's really tough. And it's some words are like hate me today, hate me tomorrow, hate me for all the things I didn't do for you, hate me in ways, yeah, ways hard to swallow, hate me so you can finally see what's good for you. And I just find, you know, we we've talked about this since probably day one. I find songs that sound like they come from the heart very intriguing. Those are songs that I want to listen to. And this is one of those songs, you know. I haven't been in his situation, but I can feel his pain. I can feel what he's singing. What a great song. The song opens up. He's got his mother, who had left a uh voicemail, called up his phone, his answering machine. I think it was on a they didn't have voicemail then. It was an answering machine, I guess. And she's like, Justin, just checking to make sure you're okay, you're taking your meds. And he put that on. It's not a fake thing, it's the real deal, you know? And it's got piano that's absolutely awesome. It's got cello on it. It's a really, really good song. It's hard to believe it's 20 years old already. Jimmy, I know we talked about a lot of different things today, you know, a lot of different types of music. You know, we talked about Uncle Floyd, we talked about the thief in uh Coastal Carolina University with uh maple syrup and all kinds of craziness.

SPEAKER_01:

We talked about the fireworks thief.

SPEAKER_03:

The fireworks thief, you know, we talked about I Can't Live Without My Radio, Hate Me by Blue October. It's kind of all over the place today. And these are episodes that I absolutely love to tie in all of the different things that I've liked and have enjoyed throughout my lifetime. And to me, this is really what makes it Music in My Shoes. So if you have anything that's in your shoes, you can reach out to us at musicinmyshoes at gmail.com. Please like and follow the Music in My Shoes Facebook and Instagram pages. That's it for this episode of Music in My Shoes. I'd like to thank Jimmy Guthrie, show producer and owner of Arcade160 Studios, located right here in Atlanta, Georgia, and Vic Thrill for our podcast music. This is Jim Boge, and I hope you learned something new or remember something old. We'll meet again on our next episode. Until then, live life and keep the music playing, and I know I can't live without my radio.

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