Dirk Dirksen (August 25, 1937 – November 20, 2006) was a music promoter and emcee of the San Francisco punk rock clubs Mabuhay Gardens and On Broadway in the late 1970s and early 1980s.
[1] He served in the Army, briefly attended San Jose State University, and entered the entertainment business in the late 1950s, hosting a live television show called Rocket to Stardom.
along with soon-to-be-famous national and international talent, such as Blondie, The Ramones, Devo, Black Flag, and The Dead Kennedys.
Dirksen gained some negative notoriety for allegedly ripping off SoCal punk rock bands Youth Brigade and Social Distortion while on their independent summer 1982 tour, and further taunting them by giving them rolls of pennies, as documented in the documentary Another State of Mind.
In April 2006, he hosted a Mabuhay reunion event at the Fillmore Auditorium, featuring members of the Dead Kennedys, The Mutants, Flipper, and The Contractions.