RUBINOOS: Theoretical Boys In Search Of The Summer Single

It is a perfect world: the date is anywhere between May 15 and June 28; you are fourteen years old, and the days are getting longer; school lets out at three, and at the clang of the bell, the heavy doors fling open and you stampede into the 76 degree afternoon; there are hours until dusk, tingly hours after nightfall, and the girls are on the verge of adorable compliance—in their smiles, boundless promise; all the transistor radios are tuned to WABC, and the song cheerfully blaring from each one is The Rubinoos' "I Wanna Be Your Boyfriend": "Gonna make you love me before I'm done." Oh, yes. It is a moment to freeze, and savor.

And just might happen. To me, and maybe to you, "I Wanna Be Your Boyfriend," like any number of otner Rubinoo toons—"Failin' In Love," /"I Never Thought It Would Happen," "1-2-3-Forever," "Gorilla," "As Long As I'm With You" sounds like the summer single of dreams:, boyish, irrepressibly, full of hope and hooks, a true heir of "Please Please Me" and "Happy Together," a conversation with The Jelly Beans. So what's taking them so long? That question may be dealt with later (keep posted). For the moment—the moment being lunch in a Japanese restaurant on 56th Street— the question is one of exposure, audience, approach. To wit: why are these scrubbed poppers, whose slogan seems to be the tautology "it's no fun if it's no fun," doing reconnaissance for Elvis C.'s Army? Here it is, their first national tour, and the boys are opening for The Last Angry Man. Wotta match.