By Tomas A. Palermo

'I THINK THE dirty house sound of San Francisco is a response to the superclean, smoothed-out deep house that was prevalent for so long," DJ Monty Luke says when I probe him about the city's hottest dance trend.

Change has come with a thud again to a city used to its earthquakes, only this time it's the music that's shaking instead of the building foundations. Call it electro-house, disco punk, or bleep funk; however you refer to the gritty dance groove taking over Fogtown's tastemaker watering holes, one thing's for sure: it's dirty.

With inspiration taken from New York's loft parties, Detroit electro, Chicago acid house, Italo-disco, early-'90s Strictly Rhythm singles, and rock bands playing around with pawnshop drum machines, dirty house is a combination of the best of old and new dance music, re-formed with a loose, sexy attitude.

In the same way that radio rap has strayed from strict syncopation in favor of slightly off-time hand-clap beats and dragging bass lines, house has moved away from polished music and toward slapdash sounds. And our early-adopter city has been right there in the forefront of dirty house labels, producers, and clubs. But if you really want to hear what this music is about, stroll down to any number of recently opened alcohol dens, especially those without signs in front.

San Francisco is a drunken city with a nonchalant dress sense. Dudes rock hoodies under vintage jean jackets over blue Dickies with low-top Chucks and sit back-to-the-bar chugging pint glasses of vodka-anything. Girls sashay in self-sewn stripped skirts, long-sleeve thermals, sheer tunics, and remade housecoats, looking casual-fabulous right down to their thrifted pointy shoes. It's in the bars where these kids meet – Arrow, Amnesia, the Rickshaw Stop, and Rx Gallery (not to mention a new proliferation of warehouse jams around the city) – that dirty house has taken hold.

Travis Kirschbaum, who appears as DJ TK Disko on Wednesdays at Arrow Bar, reckons the music is "a darker, edgier side of house – kind of a backlash to the whole late-'90s deep-and-jazzy thing, [which] all started sounding the same. I think the kids just want something new."

Although it's primarily an underground phenomenon, one of the refreshing things about the dirty house scene is how its proponents reject elitism in favor of a "one nation under a groove" attitude. Whereas electroclash music seemed pretentious and artificial, dirty house is populist, funky, and all-encompassing. "At the end of the day, it's all just house music," Kirschbaum says. "The last thing we need is for another subgenre to come along and segregate us even more. I mean, we're all in this together, right?"

The dirty house movement has come together globally, represented by labels like Germany's Get Physical and Gomma; Scotland's Soma; the U.K.'s Electric Avenue, Freerange, and Session; France's Tigersushi; and American imprints Modal, Environ, Gallery, and Grab. Each of them uniquely heralds this mishmash of Talking Heads bass loops and distorted Roland synths. Dirty house is a sloppy, anything-goes hodgepodge of music from diverse artists like Brooks, Chicken Lips, Booka Shade, !!!, Kid Creole, and Yazz.

S.F. has plenty to brag about too, with bands like the Invisibles, Paradise Boys, and Boyskout adding synthy house beats to their rock repertoires; labels like producer Ben Cook's Rong Records and Garth of Wicked's Greyhound; plus DJs including Solar, Jeniluv, Charlotte the Baroness, Anthony Garlic, and Philip Sherburne all blurring the boundaries between house, techno, and '80s-inspired dance music.

Other producers, like Layne Fox, Broker/Dealer, and Charles Spencer, have their own approaches to dirty grooves and have represented it well on local and international wax. But S.F.'s dirty house sound shouldn't be overly dissected – better to just toss back a stiff shot and get sweaty to it on a weeknight. This music is about music, not about obscure tracks or who you know in the scene. As Luke succinctly offers, "You can get real ill and dirty by simply mixing the right cuts together."