Paul Collins Carries Power-Pop Torch in New York

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Earning the title "The King of Power Pop," as Paul Collins has, is like being the dude that invented the electric car. Everyone agrees you're on to something, and some even think your ideas are good enough to save the world, but for some reason, you're never going to get your due. Thursday night at Union Hall in Brooklyn, N.Y., Collins made the case for why his beloved genre, a sound he's been playing since 1974, deserves a bigger audience.

"It's really good, solid f---ing rock 'n' roll," Collins said, just before leading the latest incarnation of the Beat, the band he founded in 1977, through the tune 'I Still Want You.'

Like the other 20 or so songs in his set, 'I Still Want You' was slightly twitchy and supremely tuneful: an early-Beatles-style rocker set against a Ramones beat. Collins, who also founded the Nerves, the band that wrote and originally recorded 'Hanging on the Telephone,' a 1975 hit for Blondie, played palm-muted chords on his Rickenbacker guitar, easily keeping pace with sidemen many years his junior.

Collins opened the show with 'You Tore Me Down,' a Flamin' Groovies cover included on his 'King of Power Pop' album, due out Tuesday. The record was among the many for sale at the merch booth, manned by Collins' son Noah.

"You don't think of these things when you're 18," Collins said, taking stock of what's become a family business.

Later in the evening, Collins reminisced about his pre-dad days, recalling the time he shared a bill with the pioneering synth-punk duo Suicide and packed New York City's Max's Kansas City. Collins estimated 300 people showed up -- a turnout that earned him and his band a whopping $80.

But that's how it goes with power-pop: You write great songs about loving girls or power-pop itself, and 20 years later, you wind up playing for genre fanatics who can't figure out why you never became a superstar. Collins has been aware of this phenomenon since at least 1979, when he recorded 'I Don't Fit In,' another of Thursday's highlights.

"I don't fit in," he sang, still proud to be a rock 'n' roll Rodney Dangerfield. "It doesn't matter what town I'm in/ I'm always on the outside looking in."

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