Rancho Alegre hit up Turntable Records this past weekend and picked up Gambler Style, the new release from Ricky Naranjo y Los Gamblers! Like it was Christmas morning, we tore into it, popped it into the CD player and we weren’t disappointed.

You know it really pisses me off…in country music and rock and other genres, you have so many duets, it ain’t even funny. Stevie Nicks and Tom Petty. Johnny and June. Kenny Rogers and Sheena Easton. Springsteen and Sting. All over the map. The duet albums that Frank Sinatra did. And all the other artists who released duet albums.

Hello, Piper here, giving this report. Frank has given me a lot of plans since he’s on bed rest, and honestly, I don’t want to forget what he said. So, humor us a little bit and let us know what you think about these plans.

First of all, Rancho Alegre Entertainment started Rancho Alegre Radio to preserve a lot of the old recordings that are no longer being produced, as well as to help promote new recordings that aren’t being played on the radio. Especially since we live in Austin, where Tejano radio stations are scarce and Conjunto stations are non-existent. More projects to come include Traders Village (in the final development phase), where you can trade music with no fees.

Conjunto music at one time in the Southwest was king. It was the next phase after Mariachi and dominated the airwaves, especially in Texas. Then from Conjunto, Tejano music broke out and Conjunto was pushed to the side as Tejano, with its exciting horns and, later, synthesizers, ruled the airwaves. And all was good. But then, Norteño came into the picture, pretty much burying Tejano, as Tejano did Conjunto. It didn’t kill Tejano, but at the very least, it dominates the airwaves now.

Everyone knows this story, but that’s not what I’m here to talk about.

okay now folks,

here at Rancho Alegre Entertainment, we have started a new site called Tejano-Conjuntopedia, just a site that will tell you a bit of history of your favorite tejano & conjunto bands, and the best thing is, that it is a profile made by the artist's or artist's family members.

this site will be here where you can get your favorite groups booking info, as well as contact info. it will also feature artist's discography and as much inside info that the artist's want to share with you.

alright now, we all know that piracy, as in making copies of cd's and selling them is wrong, it takes money away from the record company as well as the artist.

BUT!?!, what if the record company has quit producing copies of cd's or is out of business? i mean EMI Latin, Sony Discos, have all stopped producing Tejano music, so lost are a lot of great titles by Chente Barrera, Hometown Boys, David Lee Garza y Los Musicales and La Tropa F among others.

okay now, i seem to be picking on "para la gente 95.1" in Austin,Texas, but i have noticed that joe the kidd has been saying "Si Senor" during his live remotes, as well as when he is at a local club called "Tejano Ranch", the only problem i have with it is that this saying belongs to the great late Conjunto legend Ruben Naranjo, so what i guess i want to say to mr. jk is...if you're gonna say that, then play some fucking Ruben Naranjo or at least Ricky Naranjo.

okay now, it may seem that i am picking on "95.1 para la gente", but c'mon people, what message are they sending? so they have added country to their tejano catalog play-list, basically telling the listener, tejano is not good enough, so here's some country and a little bit of hip-hop.

so, i read castillo's interview on the Austin American Statesman the other day, and i read on how new tejano music should be pushed by radio stations, and that's fine....but!, his thoughts on radio playing tejano classics kinda rubbed me the wrong way.

ya' see, the 90's were the glory days of tejano, EMI Latin,Sony and all the big record companies stood up and noticed tejano music.