Deadbeat Poets
Notes From the Underground (Pop Detective)Rare is the power-pop act that doesn’t allow veneration to sap vitality. Led by former Blue Ash/Stiv Bators bassist/guitarist Frank Secich and ex-Backdoor Men guitarist Terry Hartman, Youngstown, Ohio’s Deadbeat Poets intertwine Byrds/Tom Petty jangle with strategic swatches of Dead Boys mayhem to create a whole new balloon animal. Whisking fellow travelers from the back roads of Ohio to the streets of Paris, Secich and Hartman create a palpable, Ray Davies-style sense of place both strange and wonderful. “The Truth About Flying Saucers” recasts space aliens as restless miscreants on the prowl for Coca-Cola, drive-in movies, and girls, while “No Island Like the Mind, No Ship Like Beer” celebrates the sweet release of introspective carousal with a bumper-sticker-ready refrain. Secich’s “The Stiv Bators Ghost Tour” is a ringing, acoustic journey through Bators’ life and death that achieves poignancy without having to cloy. With no filler in earshot, Underground is a living, breathing exemplar of power-pop’s most endearing qualities. (Thursday, March 13, Lamberts Patio, 9pm.)
This article appears in March 14 • 2008.
