Perhaps best known in the UK for their cover of Tommy James’ I Think We’re Alone Now, California’s Rubinoos were among the finest exponents of 70s power pop. Tommy Dunbar and Jon Rubin met in high school, aged 12, and graduated from playing campus parties to become one of the leading lights of the fondlyremembered Beserkley label, where Jonathan Richman made his most enduring records.
But whereas the likes of The Raspberries immersed themselves in the splendour of mid-period Beatles, The Rubinoos made no secret of their desire to be the next Monkees. There was an almost throwaway fluffiness to their dumbass ditties such as Hard To Get or I Wanna Be Your Boyfriend, but it was still a bold combination of raucous garage sounds and classically-crafted girl group concerns of broken-hearted first love.
Two CDs of their most hookladen high points are augmented here by a third disc of a previously unreleased live show from the Hammersmith Odeon in 1978. It’s arguably those recordings that best capture the group at their most frolicsome. The Rubinoos were never going to rewrite rock history, but they left us with some fun doodles in the margins.
