Los Cheez-tones was a sort of proto-Polecats band that was mostly me and Marty Stevens, with Richard von Busack wandering in and out as he chose. Marty and I had some gigs, but I think we had a band with Andy Average called, variously, El Rancho Dressing, the Radar Rangers and Los Buckaroobs before the Polecats formed. I remember Dave Lowery of Camper van Beethoven sat in on drums at the reception when Sharan and I got married. I don’t think he’d ever played drums before.
Anyway, whatever we were called, Caballero was one of my favorite songs from that band.
Personnel: Marty Stevens, high vocal, rub board; Broos Campbell, not as high vocal, guitar; Richard von Busack, accordion.
Frank Lawrence recorded this at a house on McGee Street in Berkeley way back when God was a pup. All I remember about it was crawling out the back window to smoke. I think there was a concrete patio out there.
I particularly like Richard’s chugging accordion workout here. It gives the song a lot of needed jauntiness that nicely underscores the lyric, which I partly stole from some Jack Kerouac poem from a City Lights book I had when I was a kid. I remember it had a black-and-white photo of him in a cap, taken in North Africa somewhere.
Words and music copyright © 1986 Broos Campbell. All rights reserved.
