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By John O'Neill

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Get back

By John O'Neill

THE LAST THING I ever expected to happen was to find myself falling head over heels for a band like Dirty Power. I've made a few excuses and engaged in a fair amount of self-denial since I first heard them, but here it is a couple of weeks later, and all I seem to be able to talk about is Dirty Power. This sort of obsession is nothing new, because like all big music fans of taste and distinction, I'm the first guy to go into a low-grade orbit over a band. Consequently, I'm the first clown to pop off and weigh in on why your favorite band sucks in comparison, but what can a person do? Passion will make an ass act like a superass every time, and boy, have Dirty Power really made an ass of me. I don't know how it happened, but I, the rock critic with the impeccable record collection, have fallen in love with a metal band.

I was caught with my pants down. The Dirty Power album (which isn't slated for release until the winter) came in a plain, unmarked package sent by a fellow named Sluggo. And while good things have been known to come in brown paper wrapping, parcels from this particular individual (a.k.a. Hockey Pants, and the Granialator, as well as, in certain circles, Sludge-O) were historically foolish. His teenie little record label, Dead Teenager, had an unblemished record of releasing what could best be described as the most puerile (and sonically dense) punk rock. Not that this was a bad thing. In fact, any Dead Teenager release was something to look forward to with delight – in a whoopee-cushion sort of way. And it was with this in mind that I ripped the Dirty Power package open and plopped it into the carousel. What came out of the speakers was not some silly three-chord ode to mad cow disease but buzzing guitar riffs and macho pounding the likes of which haven't been heard since Phil Lynott slumped his way off this mortal coil nearly 20 years ago.

It was bursting with carefully constructed duel guitars, vocal shredding, chugging riffs, bombastic rhythms, male-posturing, and wailing everything – like some lost artifact from 1978 come back to reclaim the hard rock crown. The only thing missing was a guest vocal from Rob Halford. And while I have spent the better part of my life decrying anything and everything that was wrong with '70s and '80s rock (with metal as the culprit in most cases), I still couldn't wipe the grin off my face for reasons I can't explain. I went straight to the phone to get the lowdown from the horse's mouth.

It turns out D.P. (Patrick Goodwin, Steve Perrone, Nick Ulman, and Jeff Potts) are in fact four crusty old scene veterans intent on grave robbing hard rock's storied and somewhat sordid past. They're driven by love: an unabashed if sorely unhip need to spray heavy metal thunder and testosterone around the room like so much cheap aftershave – despite the fact that it's as unpopular as an STD on the club scene. These guys are as serious as heart attacks about the whole deal – and that makes them all the cooler.

And I finally figured out why the band struck a chord with me. Bands that are more popular and buzzed about, like the Hellacopters, Damn Personals, Rye Coalition, and Midnight Thunder Express, may take direction from AC/DC and Motörhead, but Dirty Power are the only band that aren't under the illusion that they're improving on the original recipe. There is something almost noble about that.

On a recent, mild Thursday night, Dirty Power got ready to take the stage at the Bottom of the Hill. Headliners the Catheters hadn't drawn for shit, despite their supposed buzz, and beyond some hipsters circling up their wagons out on the floor, friends of the band shooting pool in the back, and a handful of drinkers lying back against the bar, the relatively meager contingency consisted of a bunch of leather bears. Their heavily bearded, slightly pudgy, and somewhat vocal presence was a perfect contrast to the under-30 patrons and the kind of music they were there to see.

There was no doubt whose corner the bears were in the moment Dirty Power counted off and launched into their first number. They focused on the stage like something important was going down. Meanwhile, D.P. charged out of the gate fast and hard with a huge and filthy guitar riff that got right down to the Thin Lizzy of the matter. The instrumental ramp-up was complete, with matching guitar harmonies. Just when it was almost safe to tap your foot, the band channeled Motörhead and exploded with full-fledged rock and roll menace. When they finally skidded to a stop, the crowd – beyond the bear squad – stood in stunned silence, staring at the stage. The energy was pure and slightly manic, and even if what the band threw down seemed beyond the grasp of a good portion of the room – who couldn't decide if what they were seeing and hearing was for real – it still resonated.

By midset D.P. was ripping hard and tight, and the acceptance level was inching up slowly but surely. By the time they put the final strokes on their 35-minute masterpiece, the booze had sunk in just enough – or perhaps the remains of hipness had been blasted from the site – that the audience was enthusiastically cheering as D.P. left the stage.

After the pummeling was over, my pal Jason and I made for the door and swung a left down 17th Street in an attempt to catch the end of the set of some other band that at one time seemed important. Jason is from mid Florida, perhaps the last bastion for devil horn-tossing nitwits. And he, too, was suffering the aftereffects of having his musical past unearthed and spilled out on the stage, and he was gassed extrahard. Which was OK with me, because I was grinning like a fool and feeling suddenly extralight on my feet.

We cut down the street all laughs and giggles and as close to saying something like "Dude, that so fucking rocked!" as either of us have been since sophomore year of high school. We ducked into a bar to catch What's-Their-Name, the insignificant punk rock fleas we had once accorded some type of relevance or another. We spent the entire time staring down at our beer and occasionally reiterating to one another that what we just saw was off-the-hook great, wasn't it? and continued in the same vein in the car ride home. Because neither of us could believe what had happened; the ramifications were just too weighty for a pair of self-avowed musicologists.

All of the boorish scholastic posturing of the Ramones-were-better-when-Marky-handled-the-drumming and the sure-the-Sonics-were-vital-to-the-initial-Northwest-scene-but-the-Wailers-were-the-linchpins bullshit went right out the window. Our worlds were reeling because we had just had our asses handed to us by a stupid little metal band. Except they weren't stupid at all. They were beautiful: hard and dirty and clean and melodic and heavy and vital and, well, fuckin' rockin' dude.

If not exactly a spiritual rebirth, this was a very rude awakening, and after a weekend of brooding on the weight of the issue I came to the conclusion that, man, did I have a blast! What Dirty Power delivered was flat-out, simple joy, the type of which I haven't felt in a long time – maybe even since summer nights spent sleeping out in the tent in the backyard with Norm Heusser, where eating Peanut Butter cookies and loosing our seventh grade shit to KISS Alive II was all that mattered.

So that was what I learned from this fabulous band that play an unfashionable style of music, just because it feels right. I love Dirty Power because they're pure and they make you pure, too. You can travel the four corners of the earth trying to put distance on where and how you grew up, but no matter how far you try to get away from a place, you can't get away from yourself. Once upon a time – before the Cramps and the Ramones and clique coolness made me turn my back on it – I was a metalhead growing up east of nowhere and west of nothing, connected to the world by a radio and two stations that came in on it.

Dirty Power took me home again for an evening. And home felt pretty good. Dirty Power play Aug. 31, 10 p.m., Bottom of the Hill, 1233 17th St., S.F. $7. (415) 621-4455.