The Dwarves celebrate 25 years of naked women with naked midgets

By Derek Evers » And a tour for all you little people.

My favorite punk rock story of all time is the legend of The Dwarves' HeWhoCanNotBeNamed. As it has been told to me, in a PR stunt back in 1993, the band convinced their label at the time, Sub-Pop, that HeWhoCanNotBeNamed had died, prompting a press release to explain the sad news. Although a hoax, it was widely reported in "reputable" outlets like Spin and Alt Press. Of course, when it was found out not to be true, Sub-Pop—left red-faced from being the bearer of grim, false news—immediately dropped the band. Or so the legend goes.

This is only one of the great American stories of one of the greatest American bands to ever sing about raping, pillaging and plundering. And little people. But they have always been punk rock pioneers. The Dwarves have appeared on upwards of near 20 independent labels, remaining diy to this day. They once toured 6,000 miles to play four shows. They've been stabbed, tazed, bludgeoned, arrested, banned from CBGBs, banned from Berkeley college, and banned from Switzerland. They once ate a horse on Japanese television. They played with the Minutemen weeks before D. Boon died and visited GG Allin in a maximum security prison. They've played as members of other bands, including: KMFDM, Gnarls Barkley, Mondo Generator, Motochrist, Juliette and the Licks, The Queers, and Kyuss among others. Singer Blag the Ripper (formerly Blag Dahlia) wrote the song "Do the Sponge" for Spongebob Squarepants, and fellow Dwarf Sgt. Slatpeter has written and performed over 20 songs for the show. They were featured in the movie Kurt and Courtney as one of the "more violent bands of the time," and of course, their infamous record covers featuring nude women and dwarfs not only gained the band notoriety (and banned from many stores), it launched photographer Michael Lavine to worldwide fame for the (real) rabbit blood spattered trio above.

In case you're wondering where I got all of this information, it came in the press release that accompanied the news of their 25 year anniversary tour, I highly recommend you take the chance to see them, at the rate their going, someone in the band is sure to die (for real this time).

Oh, and one last bit of info; they've actually been around for 27 years, but they needed a good gimmick to get you to care about this tour.

The Dwarves 25th anniversary tour:

7-13: Baltimore, MD - Ottobar
7-14: Pittsburgh, PA - Altar Bar 
7-15: Brooklyn, NY - Knitting Factory Brooklyn
7-16: New York, NY - Studio at Webster Hall   
7-17: Cambridge, MA - Middle East 
7-18: Newport, RI - Newport Blues Cafe   
8-9: San Antonio, TX - White Rabbit
8-13: Kansas City, MO - The Riot Room  
9-23: Denver, CO - Bluebird Theater

Posted on June 14, 2011. More on: the dwarves, kmfdm, gnarls barkley, mondo generator, motochrist, juliette and the licks, the queers, kyuss, gg alin, minutemen