It feels like any reminiscence of the late Doug Fieger, frontman for The Knack, should begin with a trip back through the mists of time to when I first heard “My Sharona.”
The problem, unfortunately, is that I haven’t a clue about when that might’ve been. It’s probably safe to presume that it was sometime in 1979, as it’s a song which quickly became so inescapable upon its release that even the Chipmunks covered it, but in ’79, I was a kid whose interest in and knowledge of music began and ended with whatever was played on top-40 radio, so while I remember hearing and enjoying the band’s follow-up hit, “Good Girls Don’t,” those two songs were the sum total of what I knew or cared about The Knack.
(As such, it would be years before I heard a version of the latter song where Fieger wasn’t singing “when she puts you in your place” rather than “‘til she’s sitting on your face.” Mind you, even if I had heard it when I was nine years old, I think it’s fair to say that my reaction would’ve been, “Yeah, I bet that would hurt!”)
A few years later, however, my next-door neighbor would give me an album that changed my life – The Beatles’ 20 Greatest Hits – and a short while after entering my full-blown Beatles obsession, I soon expanded my musical palate to include many bands who worshiped John, Paul, George, and Ringo at least as much as I did. At last, I could understand why so many people had been snatching up copies of Get The Knack back in the day, even if I couldn’t quite figure out…and still can’t, for that matter…why anyone could possibly have disliked the band enough to start a campaign called “Knuke the Knack.” The foursome of Fieger, guitarist Berton Averre, bassist Prescott Niles, and drummer Bruce Gary were a tight musical outfit, and while it’s a given that what one person may view as a loving homage can be easily seen by someone else as derivative tripe, these guys had – as the stock line goes – more hooks than a tackle box. The only reason I can imagine someone having a grudge against them is because they got tired of the band’s songs getting stuck in their head…but, then, I guess I’m a little biased, because, man, I love that album.
In 