Circumstantial Evidence - A life in Rock’N’Roll with Frank Secich
A fulfilling decades long career in Rock’N’Roll doesn’t always have to equate to a life in debauchery and the many cliches that come with Sex & Drugs and Rock’N’Roll. Frank Secich is living proof of that and at the age of seventy-three he is still active on many fronts in the music business, be it still as a musician, but also as an author or researcher of regional music history. Frank was kind enough to answer patiently questions regarding his rich and fascinating journey that has taken him from Blue Ash to the Deadbeat Poets with many highlights in-between.
Photo Credit (Geoff Jones - RIP)
When and how did everything get off the ground with Blue Ash, Frank?
Jim Kendzor the lead singer of Blue Ash and I met on the first day of 9th grade at Sharon Junior High School in Sharon, PA.. Jim and I and Jeff Rozniata (second Blue Ash drummer) had a garage band called The City Jail, which at times was also known as The Forbidden Few when we were in junior high school in 1966/67. So, we were kind of like a Blue Ash embryo and mostly played parties, teen dances and battle of the bands kind of gigs. We did a lot of Rolling Stones, Animals, Beatles and British Invasion covers. In 1968, I then played in local groups the Great Hibiscus and Mother Goose. Then in June of 1969, Jim Kendzor and I decided to get together again and get serious about our music and we went about to form Blue Ash.
Blue Ash (Bill "Cupid" Bartolin, Jim Kendzor, David Evans and Frank Secich) all of whom were Pinball Wizards at the Apartment in Youngstown, Ohio 1972 (Photo Credit Geoff Jones - RIP)
How did you meet the other members of the band?
We approached and asked Bill "Goog" Yendrek to join the band which he did on lead guitar in July of 1969. We started practicing at Goog's in Brookfield, Ohio and started auditioning drummers but didn't have much luck. My girlfriend at the time, Joann Rose recommended David Evans from Warren, Ohio and introduced Jim and myself to him at Champion Roll Arena which was a popular teen dance. We liked him a lot and really hit it off with him. He brought his drums to our practice place and he was great. He also looked very cool, so now we were all set. I remember the first song we did at our first rehearsal with him. It was "I Gotta Move" by the Kinks. We practiced all of August and September then approached Geoff Jones from Youngstown who owned Flowers Incorporated in Youngstown to manage us and book us. We played our first gig at a psychedelic themed club called "The Freak Out" in Youngstown, Ohio on October 03, 1969.
After the band became reality, how did things evolve? Please be as detailed as you like.
We had great fun in Blue Ash! In our first year we played 100 gigs in Pennsylvania and Ohio with Geoff managing and booking us as we slowly started building a following. One of the turning points was August 25, 1970 when we did the Who's rock opera "Tommy" in it's entirety, segueing each song into the next without a break. On the bill that day were Johnny Stanko, Steve Bator Band and Glass Harp. This was at Youngstown's Steelworker's Hall and the place was packed. When we finished we got encore after encore and the crowd wouldn't let us leave the stage.It was Blue Ash's finest moment in our first year. We got very popular after that and we were also playing many originals spread among our cover tunes as well.
Blue Ash signs with Peppermint Productions in Youngstown, Ohio and Mercury Records in late 1972. Left to right: David Evans, Bill Bartolin, Gary Rhamy, Frank Secich, John Grazier and Jim Kendzor. (Photo by Geoff Jones - RIP)
Right after that in September on 1970, Bill Yendrek suddenly quit the band to go back to college. We were devastated! (Much like the Yardbirds probably were when Eric Clapton quit their band) That is until our Jeff Beck (Bill "Cupid" Bartolin) joined our band. Bill was an amazing guitarist and a world-class songwriter. At this point in October of 1970, Blue Ash really started to take off. We played over 200 gigs in 1971 and also had our first forays into recording studios. In June of 1972, we signed a production contract with Gary Rhamy at Peppermint Productions in Youngstown. Peppermint sent out our first demos and to our great surprise four major record labels (MGM, Polydor, Metromedia and Mercury) wanted to sign us. Paul Nelson from Mercury Records in NYC signed us in late 1972. Paul also signed the New York Dolls at the same time. Our first LP "No More, No Less" was relased in May of 1973, and received fantastic reviews from the rock magazines like Rolling Stone, Creem, Circus, Phonograph Record Magazine as well as newspapers everywhere. We started touring nationally and in Canada and opened for the Stooges, Ted Nugent, Nitty Gritty Dirt Band, Raspberries, Cactus, Nazareth and many others. Our contract with Mercury required us to sell twenty five thousand units to get a second album, but we had sold close to twenty thousand. Paul Nelson and all the A & R folks at Mercury loved us and fought for us but the suits at the company didn't know what to do with Blue Ash. It was decided to give us one more single in the spring of 1974 and if that was successful we could put out another album. Mercury released "Anytime At All" b/w "She's So Nice". Even Dick Clark played and promoted it on American Bandstand but Mercury didn't and as a result of that in June of 1974 Mercury dropped us for lack of sales.
Blue Ash opening up for the Stooges at the Aragon Ballroom in Chicago on June 15, 1973. (Photo by David Evans)
Over the next few years we continued to record at Peppermint two days a month (amassing a ton of demos) and got close to being signed by Columbia, RCA and by Natt Weiss at Nemperor. Somehow they all fell through and we were getting very frustrated. Then in 1976 we signed a production contract with Steve Friedman who once worked at Peppermint and he also produced and managed Left End. Steve got us signed to Playboy Records in Los Angeles. Playboy released a single "Look At You Now" b/w "Singing And Dancing Away" in May of 1977 which became a regional hit all over Texas and the rest of the South as well as in PA, Ohio and Michigan. Playboy then offered us an album deal and we flew out to LA to finish the album "Front Page News" at Village Recorders in Los Angeles. The "Front Page News" LP was released in October of 1977 and was distributed by CBS. Over the new few months it was selling very well and had sold well over fifty thousand copies. Then in the beginning of 1978, Playboy Records suddenly went out of business and Blue Ash was left out in the cold yet again.
Blue Ash in Youngstown, Ohio in March of 1973. Left to right: David Evans, Jim Kendzor, Bill Bartolin and Frank Secich. (Photo by David Gahr)
Who was mainly responsible for the songwriting in Blue Ash?
Bill Bartolin and I wrote most of the songs in Blue Ash although Jim Kendzor wrote a few good ones as well. Bill and I wrote over five hundred songs together in ten years, and one time we wrote eighteen songs in two days for a mini rock opera called "Dombie Goes West" which we actually performed a half dozen times. Our contract with Peppermint Productions in 1972 gave us two free days of recording every month for five years. So, we would go in the studio every month and put down any new songs we had. Many were done live just for copyright puropses. I remember one day we did thirty-six songs for Paul Nelson in the studio. The best compliment a songwriter can ever get is when someone covers one of your songs. In 1979, British power pop legends The Records recorded an outstanding cover version of "Abracadabra (Have You Seen Her?)". The Finkers from Australia did a great cover of "Tonight's My Lucky Night" and Michael Monroe did a killer version "A Million Miles Away" and many others.
When it comes to the two Blue Ash albums the first one seemed highly popular in certain regions of the United States, whereas the second album had a bigger and more commercial sound. In looking back at the two albums, how do you assess them next to one another?
I loved our first album "No More, No Less". We were and are very proud of it and it still holds up very well. We didn't have a hit with it but that LP became quite a collectors' item and Blue Ash has become a well respected part of the 1970's powerpop echelon along with the likes of Flamin' Groovies, Big Star, Raspberries, Badfinger, Dwight Twilley, the Records and others. Our second LP "Front Page News" on Playboy Records in 1977 was commercially more successful but I'm not particularly fond of it. I don't like all the string and horn embellishments and I thought we had much better songs we could have recorded at the time. In 2004, Not Lame Records released a Blue Ash double CD called “Around Again" (a collecition of rarities from the vault 1972-79) that contained 44 previously unreleased Blue Ash recordings. Most of the songs from our second album were on the compilation in their early unembellished demo form and they sound way better on there than on the "Front Page News" album. There is also a Spanish double LP release called "Hearts & Arrows" on You Are The Cosmos Records that's still in print and contains even more of these early demos. Also, "No More, No Less" has been reissued on CD by Collectors' Choice and it has also been reissued in Europe recently on colored blue vinyl. So interest in that album remains alive around the world and that's nice to see.
Jumpin' Jack Flash clothing store in New York City 1973! Blue Ash spent a ton of money there! (Photo by David Evans)
Why did the band eventually break up?
After Playboy Records went out of business in early 1978, we were pretty disheartened. So, after ten years and fourteen hundred gigs we decided to call it a day. We would be back twenty-five years later in 2004 for some great reunion gigs when Not Lame Records released the double CD, and we did more reunion gigs in 2008/09 when Collectors' Choice reissued Blue Ash's "No More, No Less" on CD for the first time. Unfortunately Bill Bartolin died from cancer in October of 2009.
Next you joined The Stiv Bators Band. Were you always a fan of punk rock and The Dead Boys?
I was a fan of Punk and loved the first Dead Boys LP when it came out. I was very proud of Stiv. In November of 1978, Stiv and his then girlfriend Cynthia Ross from the B Girls came to Youngstown to visit his parents in Girard, Ohio. Stiv and Cyn came over to our apartment in Sharon, PA to visit me and Lisa. That night we wrote the song "The Last Year" together. Right after that Stiv set up a recording session in Cleveland at Kirk Yano's After Dark studio. It was Jimmy Zero on guitar, Johnny Blitz on drums, me on bass guitar and Stiv on vocals. We recorded "It's Cold Outside", "The Last Year" and the old Adam Faith song "It's Alright" with Jimmy singing lead vocal. Stiv and Cynthia then went to LA and Bomp Records which was the B Girls record company. Stiv played the demos for Greg Shaw and he was quite taken by them and in April of 1979, Stiv and I signed to Bomp Records. The first single cut was "It's Cold Outside" b/w "The Last Year". It was a great success and Stiv and I went to NYC and LA and promoted it on radio and in the press while we were also touring. In January of 1980 we released our second Bomp single "Not That Way Anymore" b/w "Circumstantial Evidence" while again having promoted the record on the road.
I played live with Stiv Bators in various Dead Boys and Stiv Bators Band line-ups from 1978 until 1981. The first gigs I did with them was at the Oriental Rock Palace in Toronto, Ontario, Canada from October 25 through October 27 of 1979. We were filmed at those shows for the DOA movie about the Sex Pistols. The concerts would go from the sublime to the ridiculous. One of my favorite gigs was when John Belushi joined us on drums at the Whisky A Go Go in LA on January 25, 1980. We toured North America constantly from 1979 to 1981 and very often other stars like Joan Jett, Johnny Thunders, Dee Dee Ramone, Rick Derringer and others would join us on stage in LA or New York City to do a few numbers. We opened for Iggy in Chicago and we played the West Coast tour of "URGH! A Music War!" To sum it up we played some great gigs and had a lot of fun in those days.
A great Theresa Kereakes photo from the "Disconnected" sessions at Perspective Studios in Sun Valley, CA August 1980-Frank Secich, David Quinton Steinberg, George Cabaniss and Stiv Bators.
How did you and Stiv originally meet?
I met Stiv in 1967. I used to go the the Carousel Teen Clubs and teen dances around Youngstown. Niles and Hubbard, Ohio to see all the great bands in our area like the Human Beinz, Pied Pipers, Holes in the Road and I met him there. There was a whole gang of us who would hang out together Stiv, Geri Jones (Geoff's sister), Carol Maurer, Karen Wagner Carothers, Joann Rose, Mike Miller. Mother Goose Band which I was in at the time played a lot at the Dream Merchant in Youngstown in 1968-69 too.
In the summer of 1969 there was an outdoor show in Canfield, Ohio and I put together a pick up band to play it. I got Myron Grombacher who later played drums for Pat Benetar, Steve "Ace" Acker on guitar who later played in LAW (who were later signed to MCA with the help of Roger Daltrey and opened for the Who at stadiums), Goog from Blue Ash, me and Stiv who said he could sing and play harmonica without actually having a harmonica. He just cupped his hands and made harmonica sounds, and it was amazing. Anyway we did some Yardbirds, Stones and Stooges covers. Near the end of the set, Stiv threw a mic stand in the air and it hit him in the head. He was bleeding but still kept on going. He then took a can of whipped cream and started shaking it in his crotch area and spewing the shooting cream into the audience. Needless to say the crowd loved it. Afterward, I took him to the hospital to get stitches. He joined the Mother Goose band right after that. This was his first real stage appearance. After Mother Goose in the mid seventies he went to Cleveland and got in Frankenstein which eventually became the Dead Boys and the rest is history.
What was he like to hang around with, and anything you remember fondly about him?
Stiv was hilarious to hang out with. He was always on. I'll tell you two of my funniest stories that I experienced with Stiv. In late 1979, the Dead Boys were gigging a lot around New York City and Anita Pallenberg invited us to Keith Richard’s 36th birthday party on December 18, 1979 at the Roxy Roller Disco in Manhattan. Cheetah was already at the party while Stiv, Jimmy Zero and I took a cab to the Roxy and Anita met us at the door. She introduced us to Keith and Ron Wood as soon as we walked in. Keith said to us "Your Cheetah did it! He broke his wrist roller skating. My driver took him to the hospital." Keith was very cool and friendly and he was everything you'd expect him to be. Later on at the party we noticed Mick Jagger talking to two Jamaicans. We hadn't met him yet. He was on roller skates and had a full beard and was drinking a bottle of Michelob. I saw Stiv inching over toward him and said to Jimmy "We'd better go with him, he's going to do something".
So Stiv walks up to Mick from behind and taps him on the shoulder. Mick turns around and gives Stiv the most condescending look I'd ever seen. Then Stiv says "Where's the men's room?"Jagger says "What?" Stiv says louder "I said, where's the men's room?" Jagger shakes his head, points and says "It's over there around the corner." So, we went off to the rest room and just fell over laughing. I said to Stiv "I can't believe you fucking did that!" Mick Jagger was always his hero. He just had to do something. The Stones were always our idols and that was a great night.
Then there was the time we met actor Dick Van Dyke in the parking lot of a dry cleaners on Sunset Boulevard. While he signed an autograph for us I tried to keep a straight face as Stiv said to him "Mr. Van Dyke this is a great honor, especially for me. You see, I grew up in an orphanage in Ohio and the only TV they let us watch once a week was the ‘Dick Van Dyke Show’". Then Stiv became almost tearful and with a pathetic voice and looking Van Dyke straight in the eye, Stiv said, "You were like the dad I never had. As a matter of fact, you inspired me to do what I do today" Stiv says while Dick takes the bait. "And what would that be?” to which Stiv answers "I'm a singer in a punk rock band." Dick looks at his watch. "Nice talking to you guys but I've got to run!" After Dick drove off I asked Stiv, "Where in the hell did you come up with that stuff?" He just laughed.
“My wife Lisa took this photo of me and Stiv at our old apartment on West State St. in Sharon, PA in November of 1978 when Stiv and Cynthia Ross came for a visit. That night Stiv and I wrote the song "The Last Year"!”
Frank, not sure where I read it but it was said that Stiv Bators actually always wanted to be a pop star and not a punk rocker. Do you share that view and would that explain why Stiv was open to being in a band that musically more or less distanced itself from the Dead Boys days?
From what I recall he was quite a punk when I first met him in 1967. He was always a character but he also had a very good singing voice and loved pop music. Greg Shaw used to call him "the thinking punk's Eric Carmen". In late 1978 as the Dead Boys were falling apart Stiv approached me about playing and writing songs together. In addition to his obvious influences like the Stooges and MC5, Stiv also loved the "Nuggets" stuff like Electric Prunes, Syndicate Of Sound and Magicians and things like that. At the same time he was also a powerpop fan and loved local Ohio groups like the Choir, Cyrus Erie (pre-Raspberries Eric Carmen and Wally Bryson), The Holes In The Road and Blue Ash, which is why he wanted to work with me. After the Dead Boys were winding down in late 1978 Stiv asked me to start writing with him and form a new band. It was good timing because Blue Ash was winding down at the same time. He wanted to reinvent himself and do something really different.
What are some of your memories recording the classic record “Disconnected”, and was the album a success?
Recording the "Disconnected" LP was a blast. Before going into Perspective, we went into Andy Chappel's Stone Fox rehearsal studio in North Hollywood, CA for a few days to rehearse the songs and arrange them for the album. We had "Evil Boy" (Zero-Secich), David Quinton's "Make Up Your Mind" and my song "A Million Miles Away". We also rearranged mine and Stiv's "The Last Year" changing the key from D to F# and making it much easier to sing in a power pop vein. In addition, we also had "Swinging A Go-Go”, another great contribution by George Cabaniss. Stiv and I had written two more for the album "Ready Anytime" and the album closer "I Wanna Forget You (Just The Way You Are)". The second song on the album "Bad Luck Charm" (Quinton-Cabaniss) has an interesting origin. In July of 1980, we were playing at Heat in New York City. Johnny Thunders joined us on stage and we played "Pills" with him. Johnny had on what looked like a severed deer hoof around his neck held on by a thin strip of leather. George and David came up to me in the dressing room afterward and George asked me "What's that around Johnny's neck?" I said "That's his bad luck charm. You guys should write a song about it!" and they did! It's one of the best tunes on the album. The last song we picked for the LP was "I Had Too Much To Dream (Last Night)", which was the one cover we did that suited Stiv's voice perfectly.
After a few days of rehearsing at Stone Fox, we went into Perspective Studio in Sun Valley, California. Greg Shaw hired Thom Wilson - who would later become a famous punk rock producer for the likes of Offspring, Iggy Pop, Dead Kennedys, T.S.O.L., Bad Religion and many others - and Stiv co-produced with Thom while Thom and Andy Chappel were in charge of the engineering. Famed punk photographer and our good friend Theresa Kereakes was also in the studio with us the entire time along with Greg Shaw from Bomp Records as the Executive Producer.
Recently found footage by filmmaker Rob Luttrell! It's Stiv Bators, Jimmy Zero, David Quinton Steinberg, George Cabaniss, (guest star) Dee Dee Ramone and Frank Secich at the Whisky A Go Go in LA in May of 1980 and Town Hall and Heat in NYC. (Used with kind permission by Rob Luttrell)
We started recording the album in the studio proper then Thom suggested we move the drums and bass and guitar amps to a basketball court adjacent to the studio. The basketball court had strangely great and lively acoustics, so we recorded all the basic tracks there. We did all of the overdubs and multitracking in the studio proper. The great thing for us about recording the "Disconnected" LP was that Greg Shaw at Bomp had given us carte blanche to do or try anything we wanted. We had complete freedom in the recording studio for the first time. We had so much fun! For the explosion sound on “Too Much To Dream”, Stiv and I dropped a Fender Twin Reverb amp (rented of course) off a ladder and recorded it as it hit the floor. While recording “Ready Anytime” Stiv couldn’t quite get the vocal the way he wanted so he said he had to go to Hollywood to get some inspiration. We did overdubs while he was gone until he returned four hours later very drunk with some girl. He went in the vocal booth and started to perform while she performed on him in, just out of sight from all of us. It was a keeper. To top it all off for the real climax of the album, I wanted an 1812 Overture type ending for “I Wanna Forget You (Just The Way You Are)” - big, bombastic and over the top. An audio Napoleonic Wars cannonade it was to be! We got our friend Kent Smythe to bring in hundreds of fireworks and we dutifully and strategically placed microphones around the fireworks that we had meticulously fused together while producer Thom Wilson started rolling the tape as Stiv and I lit them on fire from inside the studio. We then fell into one major problem, because as the fireworks went off, the studio immediately filled with smoke. In the midst of all the explosions, Stiv and I couldn’t see or breathe. We were suffocating and choking and had to literally crawl for our lives out of the studio while David, George, Thom, Andy and Kent were falling over laughing in the control room. We spent the rest of the session clearing the smoke out of the studio. To cap it off, when we played it back it sounded so crazy we couldn’t use it. One of the highlights of the recordings for me was was the solo of "A Million Miles Away" where George played a wild and unhinged six-string solo and I played a 12-string baroque solo underneath it on a Rickenbacker. I also loved the guitar solo on "Ready Anytime" and the thunderous sound that Thom Wilson got from the rhythm section on the basketball court for "I Wanna Forget You (Just The Way You Are)".
The "Disconnected" LP was quite a success for Stiv. It won an award for Best Rock LP of 1981 from the National Association of Independent Record Distributors and was and still is critically acclaimed. "Disconnected" has been constantly in print since it's release in December of 1980. It has been released in various forms in America, Japan, France, Germany, Finland, Canada, UK and just recently as a deluxe reissue in Spain on Munster Records, which looks and sounds fantastic and includes liner notes of mine. There have been over hundred cover versions of the songs from Disconnected. On March 23, 2019 Danny Garcia's film "Stiv…No Compromise, No Regrets" had its world premiere at Cinematheque in Cleveland, Ohio. It is a great tribute to Stiv and features songs from "Disconnected"."STIV" has been shown in theatres around the world. It was a best seller on Amazon's Music Video Charts and can now be seen on Netflix and Amazon Prime around the world.
Band shoot from 1980. (Photo by Vicki Berndt)
To tell you the truth I get more fan email and messages about that album than anything I've ever done. I still get messages almost every day about that LP. I remember Stiv telling me in 1987 that Michael Monroe from Hanoi Rocks had recorded my song "A Million Miles Away". I didn't believe him. Stiv said "No it’s true, Michael always loved that song and that he ran off to Stockholm when he was a teenager and he would hear it on the radio and really loved the song." Right after that his album came out and he got signed to Mercury Records and went on tour in America. I went to see Michael on that tour at Graffiti in Pittsburgh and he was great. I sent a note backstage that I'd like to come back and say "hello". It's funny because backstage at Graffiti that night there were about twenty groupies all dressed up and waiting for him. Suddenly the dressing room door burst open and I hear this voice shouting "Where is he? Where is he?." The girls parted as he went through them over to me. He picked me up and hugged me! He said "That's so cool you're here!" as all the girls around just stood there open-mouthed as we talked in the middle of them.
When it comes to the "Disconnected" album the band was living in Los Angeles at the time, and was signed to Bomp! Records. Please expand on the differences between working with a label like Bomp! versus Mercury during your Blue Ash days. More importantly please expand on working with Greg Shaw, a person that seemingly lived for music and must have had a tremendous amount of passion for music.
I'll give you a few examples. When we first got the first pressing of the Blue Ash LP and our first single, we were quite surprised when we saw the song title was changed to "Abracadabra (Have You Seen Her?).” It had always been just "Abracadabra". The executives at Mercury thought that listeners would be confused because the hook was "have you seen her" and we never mention Abracadabra in the song. Also, they edited off the ending on "Smash My Guitar", the closing song on side one. As the song ended you could hear footsteps walking with Bill Bartolin sweeping up the smashed guitar pieces. They thought that listeners would think the record was defective and scratchy and buyers would return it to the stores. So, that was the Mercury executives sort of micro management approach so to speak. Don't get me wrong, we loved the Mercury A&R guys Paul Nelson and Bud Scoppa and we thought they were the coolest guys in the world and they had a lot of passion for our music, but the suits at Mercury ran it like the businessmen they were. Greg Shaw on the other hand gave us free reign to experiment with anything and we loved him for that. Greg was one of us, and we always had carte blanche with him and he was a friend and a fan. Greg had the greatest record collection I've ever seen. He took Stiv and I to see it once and he said "You guys can take anything you want except for the original Sun Records singles" of which he had all of them. He always let us raid the Bomp Records warehouse on numerous occasions as well. Both Greg and Paul Nelson were good friends and I miss them every day. They were always both so generous and supportive. I could never thank either one of them enough for the chance they gave me.
Frank, in Stiv's band David Quinton filled in on drums and was originally from the Toronto punk scene where he performed with the Mods, whereas in Club Wow Jeff West of New York City's Testors filled in on drums as well. Seems like a lot of '70s musicians from happening scenes were drawn to former Dead Boys and the Toronto - New York - Cleveland connection makes sense. Please fill us in.
When we started Stiv's solo recordings we had Rick Bremmer from Wisconsin on drums. After the first single, Stiv would always go on about what a hot shot drummer young David Quinton Steinberg from Toronto and the Mods was. So, for the next single "Not That Way Anymore" Greg Shaw flew him in from Toronto. David fit right in with me, Eddy Best and Stiv. So we went into Leon Russell's Paradise studio to record "Not That Way Anymore", "Circumstantial Evidence" and "I'll Be Alright". Also, during those sessions we did "LA LA" when Kim Fowley hijacked the session. In 1980, David joined the Stiv solo band/Dead Boys/travelling circus and we would tour North America practically non-stop until January of 1981. There is going to be a "live" album from those days and from our shows in San Francisco and Berkeley coming out for Record Store Day next year. David and I are great friends to this day and still keep in touch regularly and get together. He's my brother.
How did you as a Midwesterner experience Los Angeles and in particular the music scene in LA?
Stiv and I spent a good deal in 1979 and 1980 in Los Angeles as a base for us. It made good sense because Bomp Records was there and we recorded all of the Stiv solo records. In 1979 and 1980 there was a great scene going on in LA. Stiv and I hung out a lot with the Ramones, Smutty and Levi Dexter from Levi and the Rockats, Jonathan Paley, Kim Fowley or the Rubber City Rebels, who were friends from our neck of the woods in Ohio. The Runaways and Go Go's were always around at the infamous Tropicana Motel on Santa Monica Blvd while the Ramones were out there doing “Rock 'n' Roll High School" and recording with Phil Spector. The Powerpop Summer of 1979 was fun indeed. The Knack had their huge hit "My Sharona" and they helped the Rebels get signed to Capitol Records. Stiv and I were in LA a lot in 1979, and it certainly was a fun time. We went to see the Cars and the Records film their appearances on the Midnight Special at NBC Studios in Burbank. The Records were touring America that summer with their hit debut LP and they had also covered the Blue Ash song "Abracadabra (Have You Seen Her?)". It was great meeting them and hanging out.
We went to places like Madame Wongs to see the Go Go's who weren't signed yet, and Greg Shaw took us to see lots of cool bands like the Plimsouls, Flamin' Groovies and 20/20. We went to see the Clash at Santa Monica Civic Auditorium that February as well and hung out with Kim Fowley a lot as he was developing a great new girl band called the Orchids. Nick Lowe and Carlene Carter got married at the Tropicana while we were there. It was a wild scene at that time at the Tropicana Motel where all the young bands stayed. Whenever we'd go back home we'd bring our buddies the Rubber City Rebels Stroh's beer because you couldn't buy it in Los Angeles at the time. Also, we were frequent guests on Rodney Bingenheimer's KROQ Radio Show "Rodney On The Roq" and played the Whisky A Go Go when I started playing with the Dead Boys. So as you can see we were quite busy in LA.
Photo by Donna Santisi
How did Club Wow with Jimmy Zero form, Frank?
On New Year's day 1982, Jimmy Zero called me and asked me if I wanted to join his new group Club Wow. I was thrilled because I knew what great players and singers they were so I accepted on the spot. I would drive to our practice loft on St. Clair in downtown Cleveland three times a week and it was exactly 100 miles each way from my house in Sharon, PA. I also worked a full-time job at National Record Mart and managed and produced the Infidels. Still, I loved every minute of it. Club Wow was me, Jimmy Zero from the Dead Boys, Jeff West from the Testors and Billy Sullivan who is currently in Herman's Hermits! Our whole goal was to get a major label deal. We only played about once a month, usually at the Phantasy or the Agora in Cleveland, Cedars in Youngstown or JB's in Kent. So we rehearsed and recorded a lot of demos and only played live once a month and ended up putting out one single "Prettiest Girl" and that had been Club Wow's only release. We recorded at Paul Pope's studio in Elyria, Ohio and at Britain Square. Club Wow also recorded a few songs at Kirk Yano's After Dark Studio in Cleveland before I was in the band and we were together from 1982 until 1985. We did one last show for a label showcase at Trax in NYC in early 1985 but couldn't get signed and then we split up. Club Wow was one of the best bands I was ever in but this is a tough business. In 2015, Zero Hour Records from Australia put out a Club Wow CD/DVD called "Nowhere Fast" which has sixteen of our studio recordings plus two live recordings and a DVD of one of our live shows and two promo videos. It is a cool set and still in print. In 2025 Club Wow will be released on vinyl for the first time.
Club Wow at the Phantasy in Cleveland in 1983 - Frank Secich, Billy Sullivan and Jimmy Zero and Jeff West ( partially blocked) on the drums. (Photo by Lisa Secich)
Tell us about forming Deadbeat Poets?
In 1990, after Stiv and another close friend of mine, Mark "Beaver" Warner died, I quit the music business. I just walked away. I had a three year old son and I got a job at an insurance company and decided to spend my time with Jake as he was growing up. It was one of my best decisions and I didn’t touch a guitar for thirteen long years. Then one day in 2003 I picked up my 1966 Gibson guitar with thirteen year old strings. I started playing this really cool guitar riff and I thought to myself "Shit, now I am going to have to write this thing.” In just fifteen minutes I had finished "The Stiv Bators Ghost Tour". Right after that the songs just came pouring out of me. I started making acoustic demos at Pete Drivere's Ampreon Recorder and also at my friend Tom Sailor's home studio. In 2006, Pete Drivere, John Koury and I started making full band recordings and we asked Terry Hartman, an old friend of mine and great songwriter from Cleveland, to join the band. We did some more demos and I sent them out to Bomp and Alive Records to Suzy Shaw and Patrick Boissel. Patrick recommended I send demos to Vivid Sound in Japan which I did and twelve hours later Vivid offered us a contract. So, we made our first album "Notes From The Underground" in 2007 and Mark Hershberger released it in America on his Pop Detective Records.
The Deadbeat Poets have released eight albums in total since then "Circustown" (2010), "Youngstown Vortex Sutra" (2011), "American Stroboscope" (2012), "A Deadbeat Christmas" (2013), "Hallelujah Anyway" (2014), "Strange Tales From The Hussmann Building" (2015) all on Pop Detective and "El Camino Real 101" (2016) on the You Are The Cosmos Records out of Spain. The Deadbeat Poets also toured the UK in 2008, Czech Republic, Germany, Denmark and Sweden in 2012 and Spain in 2016. We have had three Coolest Songs In The The World on Little Steven's Underground Garage with "The Staircase Stomp!", "The Man With The X-Ray Eyes" and "Johnny Sincere" and we're still played regularly on the Underground Garage on Sirius XM. Terry Hartman passed away on August 21, 2021.
At Get Hip in Pittsburgh, PA 12/08/2018 Deadbeat Poets/Blue Ash John Hlumyk, John Koury, Frank Secich, Jim Kendzor and Pete Drivere. (Photo by Terry Clark)
Any future plans and projects?
Yes, I am glad you asked. Peppermint Productions will soon be releasing a vinyl Blue Ash album of rarities called "Dinner At Mr.Billy's" which will feature ultra-rare Blue Ash songs like "She's A Pleaser", "Moving Right Along", "It's Alright By Me" "Dinner At Mr.Billy's, "Stay", We'll Live Tomorrow" and more like "Jazel Jane" which appears in the Amazon Prime Hit Series "Daisy Jones and the Six". "Dinner At Mr. Billy's" will be the first in a series of Blue Ash rarity releases from Peppermint Records
What are you currently working on?
I am writing a new book about the rock bands from North East Ohio in the ‘60s and '70s. Its tentative title is "Rubber, Steel, Cars and Guitars". Furthermore I have two very interesting ideas and outlines for novels to write, that is if I live long enough. The titles are "Under The Rose" which is an historical and romantic novel spanning the First World War into the 1970's and "The Grand Howl" which is a coming of age story set in the mid ‘60s in the Mid-West. There will also be a brand new Blue Ash album coming soon.The line-up on it is me, Jim Kendzor, Pete Drivere, John Hlumyk and John Koury. It will feature new songs like "The Black Light Room", "Cousin Dickie's Shirt", "Never Surrender", "For No One Else" and a cover of Badfinger's "Baby Blue" and more.
Frank, when you look back to your young years when you decided school was not for you and you saw yourself as a musician, is there anything you would do differently, and do you think such a "dream" is achievable for young kids these days?
Once I saw the Beatles on the Ed Sullivan Show on February 9th of 1964, all I wanted to do was to be in a band. I don't think I would have done anything much differently. I always went with the flow. I had a great career travelling arond the world with some really great and talented characters and musicians and some of the funniest guys in the world. I have had more laughs and good times than anyone has the right to have. I think it's very hard for kids these days. Guys like me and Stiv got to play at teen dances and clubs and there was a vibrant scene where you could learn your craft and experiment and go where that led you. Radio was very cool then as well. There were also crazy guys at labels like Greg Shaw and Paul Nelson to give you a chance. None of that exists nowadays and it seems like game shows and national talent contests are how musicians get discovered now. However, there is a bright side for young musicians and artists. There are way better recording tools and quality records can be done rather inexpensively and via the internet you can get your music out there and find an audience or niche, albeit a small one. So there is hope. It's just a different kind of hope now.
*Frank, with you having played hundreds of shows across the United States during your time(s) with any of the bands you were involved with did you often hit Buffalo, New York? Since I am a somewhat recent resident of this city I'd like to learn more about the regional connection(s). *Joe Barstool question
It's funny but in all those years of touring with all those groups, I drove through Buffalo a couple dozen times to play in Canada but I only played Buffalo once. That was with Club Wow in 1983. We played at Cougars on Transit Road with Teenage Head from Canada on October 4, 1983. I remember it was a fun gig. Blue Ash did play quite a bit in Jamestown, Olean, Port Allegheny, Busti and Westfield, NY in 1971/72.
Well, thanks a lot Frank for a lengthy and fascinating interview and for all the great music!
Frank in 2021 (Photo by Lisa Secich)
Books & Records
Both of Frank’s books "Circumstantial Evidence" (2015) and "Not That Way Anymore" (2023) published by High Voltage Publishing out of Australia are available at Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Bomp, Get Hip Records and books stores around the world and directly through High Voltage as well
Blue Ash records are available from Get Hip Records, You Are The Cosmos and Amazon
Deadbeat Poets LP's and CD's are available on Amazon and from Get Hip Records and You Are The Cosmos
Stiv Bators LP's and Cd's are availble at Bomp! Records and Munster Records
Club Wow CD/DVD is avalable through Zero Hour Records
Blue Ash's "Dinner At Mr. Billy's" album will be issued by Peppermint Records soon and will be available everywhere
