REFLECTIONS OF DIRK
by Peter Bilt, Pearl Harbor & the Explosions

excerpt #1 late 1977:

We went almost directly to the Mabuhay Gardens on Broadway, the former Filipino supper club which was, by all accounts, the hotbed of the new punk rock/new wave activity.  It was a weeknight and the place had about four people in it, not to mention a truly awful band on stage. Not very impressive.
On the one hand it didn’t seem like the scene which existed in New York and London was taking in the Bay Area and on the other hand, if this were just an off night and this was the quality of the bands on the scene,  it was going to be a cakewalk.
I felt both disappointed and cocky, and decided to talk to the club manager, who I thought could hardly be occupied. As it turned out, he was. I entered the office and was treated to the time honored spectacle of a young guy, who had a band called the Skidmarks, begging an older guy, presumably the manager, to give him a gig. And without much success. I could see that the kid had the proverbial snowball’s chance in hell, so I tried to barge in and buttonhole the manager myself. But he waved me off.
He was clearly enjoying the exchange and his position of superiority in it. And once they had an audience, namely me, it became theater. Eventually they played out the scene and the young musician went away empty handed. I was no rookie in the world of rock and roll and let the guy know it immediately, but he was unimpressed. He was a prickly individual, acutely observant, and he seemed to have more than just the club management agenda, not so far beneath the surface of his conversation. He told me his name was Dirk Dirksen, and that his background was in television production.
        “What did you produce?” I asked.
        “Well, for one thing, a show called ‘Never Too Young’, which was a teenage soap which had rock bands featured on each episode.”
        Now I was impressed.
“I used to watch that show every day just to see the bands,” said I.
        He went on to tell me how the punk scene was burgeoning, how film crews came to the club on a regular basis and how the whole thing was going to explode. He was obviously a promoter, not merely someone who ran a club, and his manner, which had almost deliberately insulting elements, was still somehow seductive, even encouraging. He was the prototypical punk promoter and his post Lenny Brucian intelligently rude humor was the perfect match for the object of his promotion.
        I left his office and went back into the club. There was still nobody there and the band was still caterwauling away. This tempered the impression made by Dirk Dirksen, but he was creating the vessel, it was up to others to fill it.
        I immediately resolved to cut my hair.


excerpt # 2, late 1978:

The Mabuhay Gardens had become quite the scene. We headlined there one weekend night a month around this time and it was always total pandemonium. Dirk Dirksen was at the height of his Lenny Brucian punk glory and his club was the center of all that was new wave in late seventies San Francisco. It was Felliniesque.
There were drag queens, transvestites and strippers, Bambi, Tammy New Wave, Blondine and Heather, the fabulous Doris Fish, Miss Kitty and Madame X, of course, Ginger Coyote and her Punk Globe entourage, proto punks Rabbit and Dave Vacant, drug dealers and obscene numbers of photographers and videographers.
To the left of the stage, every time we played, was a gang of guys in wheelchairs, guys whose motor functions were impaired and had pencils strapped to their foreheads. They loved us.
The more popular we got, the later we’d go on and the shorter our set became. It got to the point where we’d start at 1:25 and be off by 1:45.
When we arrived at the stage, which was only a couple of feet off the floor, waves of people would be washing over it, pressed forward by the crowd behind trying to get closer for a better look. The side of the stage by which we entered would be packed too, and photographers would try to cut across the corner of the stage to get from the side to the front to get different shots. During the set. It was great fun to give them the boot from behind and send them sprawling into the crowd. It was punk and it served the impetuous bastards right. That was our stage and the crowd loved it.
We performed only the fastest and shortest songs in our repertoire with as much adrenaline as we could muster. It was pure energy. We broke Blondie’s house record (which was subsequently broken by the Dead Kennedys, although I can’t imagine how they fit any more people in there than we had) and the Mab gigs, which we had once approached with some trepidation, became highlights of our monthly schedule.
        And Dirk took care of us. He was renowned for his insulting behavior to bands in general. It was part Don Rickles and I suspect partly truly disdainful but he went out of his way to maintain good relations with us. He never paid anywhere near as well as even the smaller clubs we played around town but we didn’t care. He was good for the scene. He published a punk top forty (which we sat on top of for quite some time following the release of Drivin’) and allowed rags like the Punk Globe to hold benefits at the Mab to stay afloat. He was a brilliant, colorful entrepeneur.
        One afternoon before a gig we were loading into the club early to avoid the traffic chaos that overcomes Broadway on weekend nights. We were parked along the driveway tha runs alongside the building and bringing equipment in piece by piece from our cars. As I was returning from the stage to my car I saw a guy whom I didn’t recognize pick up Hilary’s bass guitar and head toward the exit. I stopped him.
        “What do you think you’re doing?”
        “This is mine,” the thief lied. “I left it here last night.”
        “No soap, man, that’s my bassist’s guitar. Somebody call security.” I blocked the door.
        Security was usually one big guy, but this time Dirk responded personally. With the big guy.
        “What’s going on here?”
        “This guy is stealing Hilary’s bass.”
        Dirk, without a moment’s hesitation, walked over to the guy and punched him smack in the mouth. Full force. The guy crumpled, bleeding, as they say, profusely. Dirk began kicking the guy, literally, out the door. Excessive use of force? Undoubtedly. Vigilante justice? Unquestionably? Appropriate? Effective? You got it.