The curse of The Knack, of course, was that they wrote and played catchy, smutty pop tunes that took their first album to the top of the charts, but were almost universally hated by punk rockers and power poppers alike for their perceived arrogance and Beatles pretensions when they arrived in 1979 from the lame skinny tie LA "New Wave' scene with an obnoxious push from Capitol Records. Doug Fieger, who died of cancer today at 57, was in the end just another Beatles-obsessed rocker who wasn't half so bad sitting in with Art Fein on his Poker Parties and whose brother gained just as much prominence as the attorney for Doctor Kevorkian. Drummer Bruce Gary, who makes an unbilled cameo appearance in The Seventh Python, the Beatles-related Neil Innes film from our pals at Frozen Pictures, died of lymphoma three and half years ago, going to his grave complaining that he never got the credit or the royalties for the distinctive drumbeat he created for My Sharona, which topped the charts for six weeks in 1979.
Death has struck The Knack twice now, taking two rockers too young. Now there are two original members of The Knack still alive.
Just as there are two surviving Beatles.
Death has struck The Knack twice now, taking two rockers too young. Now there are two original members of The Knack still alive.
Just as there are two surviving Beatles.
1 comment:
my sharona came out my junior year in high school. we danced our feet off to that one, good girls don't and other songs from get the knack. cancer really sucks. they weren't a rock band but the music was a lot of fun.
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