Asbury Park Press from Asbury Park, New Jersey • Page 170

G6 Asbury Park Press, Sun. Aug. 19, 1979 Music Knack Boosts L.A. Rock By ROBERT HILBURN The Los Angeles Times LOS ANGELES "Get the Knack," the debut album by L.A.'s Knack band, may be the most important album of 1979. Not only does it reintroduce the concept of blistering teen-age rock 'n' roll to AM radio, but it also helps legitimize the burgeoning rock scene in Los Angeles.

Ever since dozens of new bands surfaced here last year, record companies have been scouting them, cautiously signing one or two just in case something caught on. Trends spring up overnight in the record biz and no one likes to be caught short. The Knack, a four-piece group that deals in a simple but infectious '60s-style rock, was the act most labels seemed interested in. Thirteen companies reportedly made offers before the Knack signed with Capitol for a hefty $500,000 guarantee for two albums, according to one source. Released in mid-June, the album went gold (500,000 copies sold) in 13 days.

That's the fastest climb by a new rock group in years. The Knack's driving, sensual "My Sharona" is the hottest single in America. THIS SUCCESS SHOULD inspire the record labels to move into the local scene with greater confidence, thus opening the door for many other worthy, challenging bands. Though many of the L.A. groups differ greatly from the Knack's unadorned poprock approach, they, too, represent a change from the tired, soft- -Lock norm that has dominated AM radio for so long.

When I first saw the Knack last January the group had just signed with Capitol. I wasn't impressed. It exhibited traces of the gee-whiz exuberance of the Monkees, the leaping choreography of the Who and even a touch of new wave wryness. And Fieger was a confident fellow. Much of the time he looked as if he were already practicing for the bows he expected to take someday before larger audiences.

The main complaint I had was that the band was aiming at such a low level. In a review of that show, I dismissed the band as coming across as if it were trying to capture former Bay City Roller fans before they graduated to Foreigner. The whole thing seemed contrived, reflecting little of the originality and daring of other bands on the local scene. BUT THE ALBUM, produced by hitmaker Mike (Blondie, Suzi Quatro) Chapman, was an eye-opener. Side one, especially, was a dazzling display of the intense teen emotion that was at the heart of early rock.

To underscore the band's link with rock's teen roots, the Knack included a Buddy Holly song on its album and designed the cover along teasingly Beatlesesque lines. Even the title, "Get the Knack," was a play on the Fab Four's debut, "Meet the Beatles." The key was the songs. They touched perfectly on the junior and senior high school crowd that has been largely unrepresented in pop in recent years. By speaking the language of the kid on the street, the Knack has restored the teenage viewpoint to rock. The tunes, which are sometimes presented in the crude language of the locker room or in the aroused passions of the drive-in-backseat, range from the innocence of "Yor Number or Your Name" to the shy romanticism of "Maybe Tonight" to the frustration of "(She's So) Selfish." THE HIGHLIGHT is "Good Girls Don't," an amazing re creation of agonizing teen desire.

The by a dream girl that ma fantasizes around the "good girls don't" protests to imagine her saying "good girls don't. but I The song's chorus: "It's a teen-age sadness everyone has to in-between age madness that you know you can't erase." The language then dips into blatant sexual imagery that may offend some listeners, but no more than many rock bands, notably the Rolling Stones, have done over the years. "As a band, we like to think we follow in the straight tradition that goes. from Elvis Presley to Buddy Holly to Jerry Lee Lewis to Little Richard to the Beatles to the Rolling Stones to the Kinks to the Sex Pistols," the Knack's Doug Fieger explained recently to a writer for San Francisco based BAM magazine. "To me, all of those bands follow the same basic tradition of playing rock 'n' roll with a simple, small combo, making a bigger sound than the sum of the parts.

And that's what we do Rock 'n' roll is about true feelings, true love, real innocence." THE KNACK DETROIT-BORN Fieger came to Los Angeles in the early 1970s and recorded two largely ignored albums with a band called Sky. He then was in and out of groups, including the shortlived Sunset Bombers. The other members of the Knack were also active in bands and as studio musicians: guitarist Berton Averre, drummer Bruce Gary and bassist Prescott Niles. They got together early last year and made a demo tape that was turned down by every company contacted. That's when the group decided to blitz the local club scene.

Response was immediate. Bruce Garfield and Bruce Ravid, who work in talent acquisition for Capitol, saw the Knack at those early shows and began a campaign to bring them to the label. Recalls Garfield, "I liked the music, but what really impressed me was the ferocity of the fans. The kids were going crazy." After signing the Knack, the Capitol staff began laying plans for its promotion campaign. They got some early breaks when rock hotshots like Bruce Springsteen and Tom Petty got on stage with the band, thus providing rock gossip columns with news about this "hot new L.A.

band." "THE CAMPAIGN began on the West Coast because it was a Los Angeles band," said one Capitol source. "If the radio spots, bus posters and the rest worked here, we'd spread it across the country." The irony is that Capitol never got a chance to test the effectiveness of the campaign. The record began attracting immediate airplay and sales all over the country not just in the Western test market. "Capitol did a terrific job on the Knack," said an executive at a rival label. "I have to give them credit.

They felt they had something and they went all the way with it. But the thing that made the record a hit was the people liked it. "It don't care if Capitol called in every I.O.U. the company had or went around to radio stations with bags of cocaine; you can't guarantee a hit." If the Knack doesn't represent everything that rock 'n' roll can be, it certainly is a lot better than we've been fed by AM radio in a long time. "The timing was perfect for the Knack," explained a CBS Records executive.

"I don't think the radio would have touched 'My Sharona' a year ago. They were afraid of anything with a loud guitar in it. "But things are opening up. Every time Cheap Trick or Tom Petty or the Police gets played, it opens the door for someone else. The Knack should open a lot more doors.

Teen-age rock 'n' roll is back in Donna No Waitress Donna Pescow, the title star of ABC's "Angie," states that there's one big difference between her and the delightful character she portrays. "You never see me waiting tables in the show," says Donna, "because I can't do it. When I got this part, I used to hang around the coffee shops near my home, watching the waitresses and how they worked. But, when 1 try to do what they do, I drop plates all over the place." Dr. Hook Celebrates 10 Years in Show Business NASHVILLE, Tenn.

(AP) Zany. Wacky. Riotous. That's the image of Dr. Hook, the rock group now celebrating its 10th anniversary in show business.

The seven-member group, best known for hits like "Sharing the Night Together," Sixteen," "Sylvia's Mother," of the Rolling Stone" and this summer's You're in Love With a Beautiful Woman," still is rolling out hits years after some of its one-time contemporaries have disbanded. Dr. Hook has sold millions of records throughout the world and is more popular abroad than in the United States. In fact, members of the group can't appear in pubLic Europe without a swarm of fans. "I' don't tike to analyze our success because once you figure it out, you blow it," said Dennis Lecorriere, a lead vocalist and guitarist for the group.

But unquestionably a major factor has been the group's stage show shenanigans, which are appealing for their unpredictability. Mike stands fall over. Band members are pulled by frenzied fans into the crowd. People from the audience leap onto the stage and help with vocals. Instruments are noisily moved around, and occasionally dropped, during songs.

Nobody knows what song will be next. "We try to keep things real loose and set Lecorriere said in understatement. There have been zany off-stage, happenings as well. In England, the group was met at an airport by a journalist assigned to do a story about the medical profession and thought Dr. Hook was a physician.

After going bankrupt in the mid-1970s, the group released an album entitled Ray Sawyer, another lead vocalist, has just released a single, "I Want Johnny's Job," in which he pleads to succeed 8 Johnny Carson as host of NBC's "Tonight Show." But there have been serious moments. After going bankrupt, band members, their entourage and family members held a meeting to discuss the future. Not one person wanted to leave the group. In fact, despite the appearance of carefree disorganization, the group actually is closeknit and the members get along well together. "That meeting was comforting," Lecorriere said during a break while recording at a studio on Nashville's famed Music Row.

"It's been like a family thing." Said Hazel Smith, Dr. Hook's office manager, "They are the sweetest people I know." Their musical inclination defies description. They've played on country music's revered Grand Ole Opry, dabbled in the blues and sometimes close their show with the Roy Rogers' theme, "Happy Trails." That kind of versatility may account for the group's popularity in Europe, where music is not categorized as it is in the United States..