THE MOTHERS OF INVENTION: CRUISING WITH RUBEN & THE JETS

The year 1968 was a pivotal year in American history as the USA was shaken to its core with assassinations, riots and political scandals but on the positive side the world got three albums in this calendar year from FRANK ZAPPA AND THE MOTHERS OF INVENTION! That's right, FZ & his boyz in this year began releasing at least two albums a year with a whopping three coming out in 1968. This came about from what was a project called "No Commercial Potential" which produced enough material for four albums. The first released was "Lumpy Gravy" which technically emerged in 67 but for most it was delayed until early 68 followed by "We're Only In It For The Money" followed by this experimental pop and doo-wop soaked release CRUISING WITH RUBEN & THE JETS. The fourth, "Uncle Meat" wouldn't come out until 1969.

While the other three albums were exercises in avant-guard experimentalism laced with political protest and societal satire, CRUISING WITH RUBEN & THE JETS was the oddball of the pack and looked back to the previous decade and served more as a tribute album to the R&B, soul and doo-wop sounds that kept malt shops in America the coolest hippest places of the era. Believe it or not, this album is a concept album that deals with a fictitious Chicano doo-wop band called, you guessed it - RUBEN & THE JETS! However if you're like me you own this and have it sit and the shelf and haven't listened to it enough to figure that out! Inspired by artists like the Four Aces, the Four Freshmen, Frankie Lane, Frank Sinatra and Jesse Baldwin, this is one of those albums that an artist just has to get out of his system before he can move on. Thank the creator that mr ZAPPA did!

After several experimental albums steeped with irreverence towards social norms and pretentious fads, this one seems woefully out of place in the MOTHERS canon as it is the most normal rated G album of the entire ZAPPA universe! There are no digs at power structures, no calling out phony baloney societal nonsense and no freaky sound experiments. None! This is on the other hand a fairly faithful representation of the malt shop music of ZAPPA's youth and honestly not a very good one at that. Ironically radio stations picked up on this one as some sort of long lost doo-wop classic that somehow got overlooked during the 50s and many of the tracks received steady airplay although they were actually referred to as being performed by RUBEN & THE JETS instead of the MOTHERS themselves. ZAPPA sure had a way of playing practical jokes in ways even he couldn't have anticipated!

What we get on this one is basically 13 tracks of doo-wop and 50s soul and R&B with authentic themes and even more convincing sounds however everything is just too faithful to really be of any interest. Another interesting fact is that four years later ZAPPA gave permission for Ruben Guevara to use the name RUBEN & THE JETS for a real band who released two albums. Honestly, if i want to listen to 50s music which i actually do love, i'd rather go straight to the source than hearing THE MOTHERS do a decent but rather unflattering attempt at recreating it. There is nothing inherently bad about this album but seriously if i'm in the mood to hear malt shop music than i'll throw on some Coasters, Flamingos or perhaps Frankie Valli! Grease is the word ya know ;)