Greg Hoy was once the hardest-working man in local rock, a true Renaissance dabbler with push-pins all over the musical landscape. Improv backing for a crazy poet? Check. Garage-punk? Check. Math-indie-metal? Bring it on.

		Hoy With: Thee Shams, Hi Frequencies. Where: Club Cafe, South Side. When: 10:30 tonight. Tickets: $5; 412-431-4950

After moving to Brooklyn back in 1999, he turned up at the 31st Street Pub at the helm of an electronic lap-top band called Brainstorm Sheen and later helped Glenn Branca reach 100 when his "Symphony for 100 Guitars" played the World Trade Center.

These days, though, he's all about the power-pop, for which he's blessed with both the perfect voice and an unerring Knack for cranking out the killer pop hooks.

Retracing the steps that would lead to "Forever Endeavour," his second release as Hoy, the singer-guitarist says his latest project grew out of wanting to step outside the band scene and do it himself.

After launching a label, Dunket Records, so his friends back home in Pittsburgh could legitimately claim a New York City label had released their records, Hoy started making the rounds of the New York scene as a member of Last Town Chorus, Yearbook, Peg Simone and probably another band or two, which left him thinking, "I want to do something my way, on my terms -- one simple, solid thing."

That simple, solid thing was Hoy's debut.

"The first CD was all me," Hoy says, "in a room with instruments, a mixer and a laptop. You know, extreme turnaround from collaborating and stewing about. Stevie Wonder, Dave Grohl, Lenny Kravitz -- solo in the truest sense. Yes, I'm a blind black ex-drummer for Nirvana. I'd advanced my recording skills watching great people. J. Robbins did the Yearbook CD, Gene Paul and Eric Ambel had worked with LTC. So the confidence to do a record alone was there. Then people liked it, so I needed a band to play the stuff live."

As luck would have it, he'd already played with bassist Andy Rapoport in Peg Simone, and drummer Dave Sharma in Yearbook. Then, when Sharma was tapped to drum in "Bombay Dreams" on Broadway after cutting "Forever Endeavour," Hoy recruited Robin Fowler, formerly of Last Town Chorus.

As to how he went from Brainstorm sheen to hook-intensive power-pop, he says, "It was reactionary, and natural, too. Last Town Chorus and Yearbook were both more textural, and those crowds were always too polite. I wanted to play something that affected people more immediately, the way listening to David Lee Roth-Van Halen had, or seeing Guided By Voices. You know, movement: more kinetic and loud. Andy helped a lot. He's a rocker from the D.C./Discord scene of legend, and he would play me the Clash, The Kinks, The Jam, The Who. Basically any band with a 'The' before 1979 and I re-discovered that whole scene. 'Wow, you can be melodic and dangerous!' "

It may not be the trendiest of sounds, but, Hoy says, Brooklyn may be getting tired of that art-funk post-punk disco thing.

"Melodic pop punk is now the revolutionary music here," he says. "The whole clean guitar, disco hi-hat, it's just played to death .... A meaty beat and melody with heavy distortion makes you wanna get dirty. It's like, what's your taste, Betty Crocker or Betty Page? With the exception of Franz Ferdinand, I can't think of one decent band with a clean, single-coil Stratocaster sound out today .... I mean, look at that John Mayer guy! I rest my case!"

The harder-rocking hook explosion of his latest effort, Hoy says, "came out of having a great band pushing me to write better songs. You know, to cut the fat. 'Get to the point, people! We haven't got all day!' You get about 15 seconds to make a musical impression in this iPod/myspace world. The big scenester bands here ... I just don't get it. Boring. There's nothing to take away, you know?'"

The hit potential of the songs on "Forever Endeavour" led to one track being placed on "One Tree Hill."

As Hoy recalls the episode, "They used a good bit of it during a bedroom scene. The coolest part, though, was as our song was on her stereo, she pulls out a Ratt LP. An LP! 'Out of the Cellar.' As soon as that scene was over, we went back to watching AC/DC's then-new DVD, 'Live at Donnington.' "

And there's no reason to suspect he's kidding. "Walk a Mile" could be a great lost AC/DC classic if he'd thought to screech the vocals instead of just singing them.

On the eve of returning to Pittsburgh for a killer three-band bill at Club Cafe with Ohio garage-punk geniuses Thee Shams and Pittsburgh's premier old-school R&B band, the Hi-Frequencies, Hoy points out, 'You didn't ask if I miss Pittsburgh! And I will say, 'Yes, I miss Joel at the 31st Street Pub. To this day he is the best, most honest club owner on the East Coast.' "