POP MUSIC/COMEDY REVIEW : Frayed Knots and America Mix It Up in a Coach House Yawner

Talk about backwards.

The double bill of improv group Frayed Knots and veteran mellow popsters America at the Coach House Thursday held up as a pairing, but the Knots were most effective during a musical segment, and America’s set was pretty funny before it even began.

Since the beginning of America’s career in 1972 when it scored a No. 1 record with its first single--the very Neil Young-like “Horse With No Name”--the group has been criticized for Xeroxing the Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young sound.

The resemblance is unmistakable, and many critics haven’t been overly kind, referring to America as “pre-pubescent CSNY,” “watered-down CSN” etc.

So guess which group’s music was played on the P.A. Thursday just before America took the stage? True story.

Whether the moment was intentional or not, you took your humor where you could find it during this pleasant but mostly dull evening of pleasant but mostly dull songs played by a pleasant but mostly dull band.

Another amusing moment came after America had performed five songs including “I Need You” and “Ventura Highway”--both 16 years old--and singer-guitarist Gerry Beckley announced that the group was going to dip into its “bag of oldies.”

He delivered the announcement without a hint of irony.

Maybe just as well. An America concert remains a nice, wholly unchallenging experience and, increasingly over the years, a smooth trip down memory lane. No one ever has accused America of being especially original or poignant, or particularly inspired or inspiring.

The group itself doesn’t seem all that interested in moving forward: Beckley said a new song, “Call of the Wild,” will appear on an album that will “be out just as soon as we record it.” Witty enough, but again, a suggestion that America is content merely to tread water.

Maybe they figure “Why not?” If they can pack the Coach House for two shows (and headline the Universal Amphitheatre, as they will Tuesday) by gliding through such moldies-but-goodies as “Sister Golden Hair,” “Lonely People” (which they reportedly hadn’t done on stage for 11 years) and “Tin Man,” why bother much with anything new, unexpected or exciting?

The opening act, the Frayed Knots, was in the wrong place at the wrong time--and compounded the problem with some of the choices it made during a 25-minute set.

When you are out of your element (a comedy-improv troupe in a rock club), with the odds stacked against you (you are facing a packed house of partisan, impatient America fans), the trick is to seize the crowd’s attention immediately with something sufficiently potent, striking or even just loud--and then to prove that you deserve to hold their attention.

Over the steady rumble of audience chatter, the Knots opened with a talent-show piece that was fine on its own terms but not really funny or energetic enough to tear most people away from their conversations.

Then, the group moved into a round of freeze tag, a standard improv device that allows the audience to suggest scenarios and call “freeze,” stopping the action and bringing in a new member who then takes the scene in an entirely different direction.

It is essential, obviously, for an improv group to involve the audience. But except for a few folks shouting out suggestions, the Knots lost more of the audience here than it gained. The set’s modest energy waned further while the piece was being prepared, and beyond that, the troupe members often were too far from the microphones while delivering the piece, so most people couldn’t hear the improvised exchanges.

The Knots recaptured some attention--and earned some polite applause--with a more forceful closing segment, “The Unemployment Blues,” ostensibly an improvised tune with each member singing a verse composed on the spot.

Frayed Knots performs every Wednesday at the Comedy Club, 49 S. Pine Ave., Long Beach.