Frankly speaking: Veteran musician shares stories from ’60s to present
For someone with such an extensive rock ‘n’ roll résumé, Frank Secich is about as approachable and communicative as it gets.
The Sharon native will tell you about his travels with the fondly remembered band Blue Ash, which often visited the South Hills to entertain fans in the early ’70s. He’ll share stories of Stiv Bators, the late punk-rock legend with whom he frequently collaborated.
And he likes to talk about his current musical projects, whether solo, with his collaborators in the Youngstown, Ohio-based Deadbeat Poets, or as part of the 21st-century incarnation of Blue Ash.
The roots of the latter go back to 1969, when bass guitarist Secich and vocalist Jim Kendzor formed the group, playing their first show in Youngstown and branching out from there.
“We had a regular circuit we’d go on: upstate New York, all over Ohio, all over Pennsylvania and West Virginia,” Secich said. “And Pittsburgh, a lot.
He mentioned some local venues that booked the band for dances, including the Lebanon Lodge in Mt. Lebanon, now the site of a Primanti Bros. restaurant, and Bower Hill Community Church. “We were regulars there.”
Blue Ash’s own songs, primarily co-written by Secich and lead guitarist Bill Bartolin, featured heavy guitar with strong melodies and clear vocals in an emerging musical style dubbed power pop. When the Raspberries, fronted by Eric Carmen, scored a genre-defining hit with “Go All the Way” in 1972, the time was right for Blue Ash to land a deal with a major label.
“A lot of them wanted us,” Secich said, including Mercury Records, which had respected music journalist and Bob Dylan buddy Paul Nelson working in the artists-and-repertoire division. “He loved us. He said, ‘I’m signing you. I’m not letting any other label take you.”
The following year, Mercury released Blue Ash’s debut LP, “No More, No Less,” to rave reviews. But that wasn’t quite enough.
“We had to sell 25,000 albums to get a second album,” Secich explained. “We sold 19,500. So they dropped us, under the heated protest of all the A&R guys.”
Playboy Records, a subsidiary of the magazine, signed Blue Ash and released its second album, “Front Page News,” in 1977. The label promptly went out of business, and that was it for the band.
Secich then switched his style from power pop to punk, joining forces with Bators, who had gained national notoriety for his anti-authoritarian antics as lead singer of the Dead Boys.
“Stiv and I grew up together. I knew him when I was a teenager,” Secich said. “He would come home for Christmas, and we started writing songs together.”
Those became the basis for Bators scoring a solo contract with Bomp! Records, and Secich figured prominently on the 1980 debut album, “Disconnected,” playing bass and co-composing several tunes. Meanwhile, he toured with the Dead Boys.
“It was fun, because you could just get drunk and play crazy, and jump around wildly and play as loud as you could for 40 minutes, and have a blast,” he recalled.
A decade later, after Bators and another of Secich’s friends died within the span of a few days, Secich decided he’d had enough of making music.
“I quit for 13 years, 1990 through 2003,” he said. “I never picked up a guitar. I quit the business.”
Eventually, he joined forces with guitarist Pete Drivere to form the Deadbeat Poets, releasing eight albums to date.
And Secich now is an author, with the autobiographical “Circumstantial Evidence.” George Matskov, owner of High Voltage Publishing in Perth, Australia, happens to be a big Frank fan.
“He wanted me to write a book,” Secich said, “and I told him, ‘My story wouldn’t be that interesting. I don’t want to do it. I don’t have time.'”
Then Secich suffered a back injury and learned he’d be sidelined for several months.
“As soon as I came home from the hospital, he says, ‘Now you have time to write that book.'”
Another recent development is his relationship with North Side-based Get Hip! Recordings, owned by Mt. Lebanon resident Gregg Kostelich. The label has re-released Blue Ash’s 1973 single “Abracadabra (Have You Seen Her?)” on vinyl, with a new B-side, a cover of Chan Romero’s “Hippy Hippy Shake.”
Going into 2017, Secich plans to continue making music for as long as he can.
“I’m 65 years old,” he said. “I still enjoy it and have fun with it.”