"Jurupa Mae", Pollo's tightly-wound masterpiece, pounds out itsmusical essence with irrepressible excellence. You can enjoy these goony Pollo tunes tonight when vocalist Brad Brooks, guitarist Pete Holmes, bass player Erik Merrill, drummer Dave Pankenier, percussionist Chris Carlone and Sterling Woodstein take the stage at Mudbuggs.

"Bayou Born" fires up the album by fronting the talents of former drummer Marvin Germain, whose eager tempo and wild cymbal crashes hurl the song along. Also, the guitar fills show Holmes' ability to stretch his soloing fingers in the studio, a luxury he doesn't have on stage.

On the next track, Brooks sings, "My heros are Cheech and Chong / Shut up baby that era's not gone". This line opens a song named after one of the deserving symbols of the '70's, "Big Black Van".

This song and the following piece, "Lava Lamp," feature quick funk beats studded with psychedelic guitar.

"Van Gogh's Ear" starts as an obvious hard core metal guitar arrangement, and breaks into a cover of the "Mission Impossible" theme. That's the song, all 30 seconds of it.

"Behemoth", a song celebrating the sensuality of large women, rounds out the first side. Give 70's rock a funk rhythm and flare, along with tongue-in-cheek lyrics, and you've created "Behemouth," a song that will most surely be widely requested at shows.

The bookend songs for the second side are the usual rowdy Pollo favorites. First there's "Hula Hoop," with an innovative vocal style that invokes ancient cannibals at feast. Finally there's "No Party" with a trademark Pollo sing-along chorus.

The second side is just as satisfying as the first. "Mood Ring," addresses one of the more troubling questions posed during the '80's, "What color is your mood ring?" More importantly, though, as Brooks sings, "If I dies before I wake, what groovy colors will my mood ring make?"

Right in the middle of it all comes the title track, "Jurupa Mae." In a telephone interview yesterday, Brooks pointed out that this song pertains to a little town in California near Riverside that the group uses as a metaphor for being stuck in the middle of "a lot of industrial waste bullshit."

"Sterling Woodstein" starts with the harmonic beginnings of an old Yes song, jells into a cruising rock facsimile of the Beatles "Daytripper" riff, and finally breaks with a slightly altered version of the guitar intro to Jimi Hendrix's "purple Haze." Pollo holds this medley together with some excellent power chording. Who was it who siad that "amatuers imitate while professionals steal"?

During interviews with singer Brooks and Pollo's mamanger Dug Woods, both were reluctant to mention names for a major label release, but the interest is there and deservedly so. It would come as no surprise if "Jurupa Mae" were Pollo's last underground release.

But hometown fans shouldn't worry. During the interview Brooks promised that, "The main thing is just trying to have fun. That's what Pollo is all about."

Every connoisseur of good Tucson music should acquire this album...