SQUEEZE - THIS IS GREAT - THIS IS LOVE

Valentines Day.... thats today isn't it? Eh.. er.. I think.....

But let me tell you something that I REALLY LOVE... Squeeze. Definately not a chicky band -- this one is straight from the heart. What makes this band endure the tests of time is due to the fact that this bands tells stories.... and tells them very well. In the span of just 3 minutes you get an entire story of what happened in the life time of an average schlugg.... He doens't want to get dirty on the dance floor, he doesn't want to steal your drugs, he doesn't even want to get nasty in the back of a cab..... if anything he just wants to live his life.... and hang out with his best mates at the local pub.... and kick out sweet jams like this.

A recent re-run of the Sopranos really nailed it. The thugs were getting into the music biz and these mob cretins were creating rock music, ala... The Smashing Pumpkins.. and this record producer blurts out, "This shits horrible.... I was around a long time and I met them all Hendrix, Joplin , The Who...etc. Those kids had a spark, they were magic, and I didn't even like their music .... but these kids today... especially this band you brought in here.... they got nothing... these guys are nowhere".

I feel the same way about a lot of bands we must endure today. Squeeze was a real band and they had real lyrics. You had to have somewhat of a brain to appreciate them. Which is probably why they never got really HUGE in their time. Oh... they did alright in fact they did more than just... OKAY. But they never really got as huge as some of these other acts that I won't even bother mentioning.

Yes yes... I first seen these guys appear on the Uncle Floyd Show in Newark New Jersey. Me and Floyd Vivino have good taste.

This stuff is like a great wine..... These are finely crafted pop songs.
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Ted Cantu writes for the Fascube Network - he can be found at 911Copywriters

ZOOGZ RIFT - ON THE UNCLE FLOYD SHOW

"what a show............."

In the 80's you didn't have a whole lot of channels to choose from. If you lived in my house with my cheapskate step father you had NO CHOICES.... The only saving grace I had during this cable early era was to create my own entertainment. In between endless rounds with my Atari 2600 I could get in the Uncle Floyd Show out of Newark, New Jersey. This proved to be a great deal after all.

The Uncle Floyd Show featured Squeeze, The Ramones, and David Johanson from THE NEW YORK DOLLS...... And then sometimes you wouldn't get so lucky and you would end up with a wacko band talent like Aztec Two Step, Gary US Bonds and ZOOGZ RIFT.

Zoogz was a Dadaist art performer and a creative soul. He was a free form artist. But judging from this video clip he was also somewhat of a lunatic.

Here is the man himself,

"It took us months to learn how to play out-of-sync like that. "
Zoogz, Jan. 2007

Back when TV was still good!
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Ted Cantu is the creator of http://www.beautyloungestore.com he has contributed to several blogs and podcasts such as…..http://911copywriters.podomatic.com. He served as a top rated art director for Interactive Web Marketing groups in Chicago and
New York City.

DEE DEE RAMONE LIVE ON THE UNCLE FLOYD SHOW

The best part of this video is seeing OOGIE the hand puppet.

I think Dee Dee used to sleep at the YMCA in Ann Arbor. That was the rumor when I was attending college in Michigan. The Ramones, his former band, had broken up around this time.

This clip is also interesting for another reason. I didn't know Uncle Floyd was still doing his show out of Newark, New Jersey! I didn't know that either of these guys, Dee Dee and Uncle Floyd Vivino were still working... let alone working together! HA.

WHO WAS UNCLE FLOYD?
Floyd Vivino was known as Uncle Floyd and a favorite to many kids growing up in the East Coast. He had a gaggle of grown men in their 40s for a peanut gallery and they were famous for making wise cracks, jeers and hoots of howling laughter off camera. The show was low rent humor, one liners and basement production quality, (slates drawn on pie plates in marker etc) and every once in a while they would feature a band.

A lot of bands got their start on Floyd, including Squeeze. They also featured wrestlers on the set, Gary US Bonds, Aztec Two Step, The Dreggs and many more smaller acts.
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fascube 2006

THE UNCLE FLOYD SHOW - DEE DEE RAMONE

SQUEEZE - IN QUINTESCENCE

what a band......

I had a good ear for music even as a kid.... no wait, let me finish. Let me explain. That is not an egotistical statement. You see in 1980 if you admitted you liked anything with a melody in junior high you would get flattened down to hamburger meat. Everything in 1980 was 666 and the definition of a "musician" preferably had something to do with long hair and beards, mustaches, mutton chops etc. IN short, you had to look like a troll from Lord of the Rings.

ENTER SQUEEZE.

I saw their first debut on the Uncle Floyd Show from Newark New Jersey as a kid. They did two songs -- BLACK COFFEE IN BED... and IVE RETURNED. They were able to tell an entire story of breaking up, getting thrown out, sleeping in a car and getting back together again in under 3 minutes. And I really dug Jooles Hollands keyboard playing and the soulful vocals.

I had to smuggle these albums home from the record store and make sure I would not be jumped by our local neighborhood thugs. U2, The Police and Squeeze were not welcome in the east coast neighborhood I lived in. So I had to smuggle anything I got home quickly ... how times have changed.

This is off the album ARGY BARGY.
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cantu fascube 2006