04 December 2007

The present-day Pachuco refuses to die!



Never forget Ruben Sano!

The Story of Ruben & the Jets

Ruben Sano was 19 when he quit the group to work on his car. He had just saved up enough money to buy a '53 Nash & four gallons of gray primer. His girl friend said she would leave him forever if he didn't quit playing in the band & fix up his car so they could go to the drive-in & make out. There was already 11 other guys in the band so when he quit nobody missed him except for his car when they had to go to rehearsal or play for a battle of the bands at the American Legion Post in Chino. They are all still good friends even today. The other main guys in the band: NATCHO, LOUIE, PANA, & CHUY still come over to RUBEN'S house on Tuesday or Wednesday to listen to his collection of Richie Valens records & also "Eddie My Love". Generally speaking, they save "Cherry Pie" & "Work With Me Annie" till the late part of the evening so they can have something to hum on the way home or to Burger Lane. Some of them continue to hum & pop their fingers even the next day, working in the car wash. Now that they have gotten their big break in show business each one of the main guys in the group voted at the band meeting to keep the name RUBEN on the JETS not only because it sounds real fine & gives it class, but also because it makes it real sharp. RUBEN even likes it too & thinks its real sharp. All the guys in the band hope that you are sick & tired like they are of all the crazy far out music some of the bands of today are playing. They hope you are so sick & tired of it that you are ready for their real sharp style of music. They are good socially acceptable young men who only want to sing about their girl friends. They want everybody to start dancing close back together again like 1955 because they know that people need to love & also want to hold on to each other. Even holding hands is okay to them. They want you to hold hands & dance the bop & fall in love to their music. One of the main guys in the band was telling me a couple of weeks ago when we were talking about how only about half the guys in the band ever show up at rehearsals most of the time..."IF PEOPLE WOULD JUST HEAR MY PLEA I WOULD GIVE EVERYTHING JUST TO SING THE SONGS THAT WAS TURNING ME ON IN HIGH SCHOOL.

RUBEN HAS 3 DOGS.
BENNY, BABY & MARTHA.

Verve V6-5055x
 decryption code in new comment


"This is an album of greasy love songs & cretin simplicity. We made it because we really like this kind of music (just a bunch of old men with rock & roll clothes on sitting around the studio, mumbling about the good old days). Ten years from now you'll be sitting around with your friends someplace doing the same thing if there's anything left to sit on."

Ray Collins (lead vocals)
Frank Zappa (low grumbles, oo-wah, & lead guitar)
Roy Estrada (high weazlings, dwaedy-doop, & electric bass)
Jimmy Carl Black &/or Arthur Dyre Tripp III (lewd pulsating rhythm)
Ian Underwood or Don Preston (redundant piano triplets)
Motorhead Sherwood (baritone sax & tambourine)
Bunk Gardner & Ian Underwood (tenor & alto saxs)

TRACKS:
Cheap Thrills
Love of My Life
How Could I Be Such a Fool
Deseri
I'm Not Satisfied
Jelly Roll Gum Drop
Anything
Later That Night
You Didn't Try to Call Me
Fountain of Love
"No. No. No."
Anyway the Wind Blows
Stuff up the Cracks

In 1984, Zappa, unhappy with the sound quality of Cruising with Ruben & the Jets, enlisted Arthur Barrow & Chad Wackerman to re-record the original bass & drum parts (although they were not credited) for the Old Masters Box One re-issue of the album.


In addition to the new drums & bass, Zappa added several vocal overdubs & heavily remixed the album, nearly making it sound like a completely different album. 

 
The 1984 remix of the album has become the standard, & all post-1984 reissues of the album have featured this mix.

The 1968 version of the album with the original bass & drum parts has not been officially rereleased on CD, although bootlegs have surfaced.


The tracks here are from the original album release. They will be removed shortly.

Enjoy

6 comments:

  1. love that greasy re-constructed doo-wop! cheap thrills, baby!

    there's some more words about nathan of nothin-ness on the louie report - aka louielouie.net/blog

    me gotta go-go now....

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  2. Is there another decryption key? The one posted on 10/6/18 doesn't seem to work.

    ReplyDelete
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    1. It should be working fine now. Thanks for letting me know.

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  3. Cruising
    u7RHQwf9-CdX_FwlDmv9XlJzAaf0syE-RocfjyBM1y8

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  4. Hey thanks a lot! There's so much great stuff to check out here. Getting lost in your Blurt posts at the moment.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Thank you for letting me know about the problem. I don't have the time to keep tabs on past posts, so rely on the kindness of folks such as yourself to let me know. Glad you're enjoying the shares & Blurt is always a great place to get lost.

      Delete