at a glance...

Hometown: New York, NY
Year Formed: 1997

Personnel:
Marc Ribot -guitar, trumpet, vocals
Brad Jones -bass
EJ Rodriguez -percussion
Robert J. Rodriguez -drums, additional percussion
Anthony Coleman -organ
John Medeski -organ, mellotron
Gregory Ribot -baritone saxophone

Bands in the family :
See below for Ribot. Other members of this band have played with Ornette Coleman's Prime Time, the Jazz Passengers, the Miami Sound Machine, and Medeski, Martin, and Wood.

Marc Ribot has lent his clanking, junkyard guitar stylings to everything from singer-songwriter records to film soundtracks to raucous jazz-rock bands; you name it and he'll play on it, but he'll do it his own way.

This band was originally conceived as a low-key restaurant gig that would allow Ribot to explore the repertoire of Cuban big band leader Arsenio Rodriguez, but somehow it got a major label push. If purity is your passion, read no further; this record's as bogus as a three dollar bill and proud of it.

There's a pungent whiff of cheese about it; Ribot quotes "Tequila" on one track, he sings in beginner's Spanish that's marinated in a thick Noo Joizy accent on "La Vida Es Un Sueno," and when organist John Medeski pulls out the stops behind the leader's stuttering leads on the sole original ("Postizo") the combo sounds like an abbreviated pre-Swami Santana. But like the Southeast Asian noodle shop where I ate recently that was staffed entirely by Mexicans, the Prosthetic Cubans come up with something that sticks to the ribs, authenticity be damned!

It helps that the rhythm section smokes like high-grade tobacco. Ribot's willingness to streamline his guitar might bum out the tablature tabulators, but it ensures that he rides over the grooves rather than break them up.

This album won't change anyone's life, but its good lightweight fun.