LuminoMagazine.com - Rubinoos nerd rock complements "Nerds"

Rubinoos nerd rock complements "Nerds"

Written by JON SINGER

Sunday, 28 August 2005

Now that you're inspired to watch "Revenge of the Nerds" for the 100th time, try doing something different throughout the film. Pay attention to its wonderful music.

Words to live by:

Mom packs us our lunch and we're off to school.
They call us nerds 'cause we're so uncool.
They laugh at our clothes. They laugh at our hair.
The girls walk by with their nose in the air.

So go ahead, put us down.
One of these days we could turn it around.
Won't be long, mark my words.
Time has come for revenge of the nerds.

We wear horn-rimmed glasses with a heavy duty lens,
Button-down shirts and a pocket full of pens.
We're straight-A students. Teacher's pets.
They call us nerds, but we've no regrets.

While the jocks work out with the football team,
We're tryin' to score with the girl of our dreams.
You know, we ain't good-lookin', but here's a surprise,
Nerds are great lovers in disguise.

So if they call you a dork, a spaz, or a geek,
Stand up and be proud. Don't be meek.
Hey, beautiful people, haven't you heard?
The jokes on you, it's revenge of the nerds.

Heading up the solid soundtrack is the Rubinoos, a duo that performed the opening theme song and a song called "Breakdown" later in the film.

The song was written by Paine and Helmut, but was performed and produced by the Rubinoos. Members Tommy Dunbar and Jon Rubin spoke to Lumino about their role and thought about "Revenge of the Nerds."

The Rubinoos were chosen to be the theme song performers by their friend Scott Wilk, who recommended the band to "Nerds" producers. Plus, director Jeff Kanew was a Rubinoos fan. The band had played somewhat mainstream pop-rock. They didn't sound like the Devo-like work they performed on the film's soundtrack.

The band headed to the studio without having seen the movie. They were given a cassette containing the writers' demo of the song.

"Jeff Kanew and Peter MacGregor-Scott came by, too," Rubin says. "They gave us Devo's "Whip It" as a model."

The band recorded with keyboardist and drum programmer Charles Judge.

"I played guitars, and Jon and I sang the lead in unison together, trying to sound as dorky as possible," Dunbar says. "Not that that's necessarily much of a stretch for us!"

"I remember we had a couple of sound effects from the film on tape, such as girls sighing and guys yelling, 'Nerds!' which we flew in over our track," Dunbar says.

"We also flew in a recording of Robert Carradine's famous nerd laugh into the song," Rubin says.

When "Revenge of the Nerds" came out, the Rubinoos had low expectations.

"To tell you the truth, my main memory of it was just being surprised that the movie was not terrible," Dunbar says. "I remember when we first heard the title we thought it had to be really foul."

"When I saw the screening I thought the film was a cut above your average teen movie and it wasn't mean spirited," Rubin says. "So I was very pleased to see it do well. It revived my faith in teen taste for about 3 seconds."

Nowadays, the Rubinoos are still a band, but the group gathers mostly to record. They play few shows right now, as they live cities apart.

Dunbar, 47, lives in Sacramento, Calif. He writes radio jingles in his home studio as part of Bassemental Productions. He also plays gigs in San Francisco fairly often.

Rubin, also 47, is in Los Angeles. He recently sold his music studio. He sings with an a cappella Doo Wop group called the Mighty Echoes. Dunbar is the group's producer and arranger.

On the recording front, the Rubinoos just finished recording a new CD of all-original material. The name and release date is to be determined. West Coast Rubinoos concerts will follow, but a U.S. tour is unlikely.

Photos courtesy of the Rubinoos

Comments