Dwarves: The Dwarves Are Younger and Even Better Looking

Oh yea...Another NSFW cover...It being Dwarves week and all, I should probably just advise everyone to avoid this blog until it's all over...Every single aspect of the Dwarves existence is NSFW...Plus I'm running out of SFW pictures...

Here's one...

...and I don't think this one would raise too many eyebrows...

Here...This seems like a pretty reasonable picture to look at while working...

But below you'll see a little red photo with a topless woman skateboarding...This is not alright to look at while you work since it might make you and everyone around you suddenly bust out your shlongs and start jerking them uncontrollably...So get ready to scroll real fast in 1...



2.....



3...!!!!

 Dwarves: The Dwarves Are Younger and Even Better Looking


Disc One: 1.Unrepentant  2. We Must Have Blood 3. I Will Deny  4. Demonica  5. Everybody's Girl
6. Throw That World Away  7. Hits  8.The Ballad Of Vadge Moore  9. One Time Only  
10. Pimp  11. The Crucifixion Is Now  12. You Gotta Burn  13. The Dwarves Are Young and Good Looking


Disc Two:  1. Let's Take A Ride (Bonus studio track)  2. The Wicked (Bonus studio track)  3. Haunt Me (Bonus studio track)  4. Theme From The Vicelords (Bonus studio track)  5. Star 69- A Million Miles (Bonus studio track)  6. Ask Me Why (Bonus studio track)  7. Come Gunnin (Bonus studio track)  8. Lord of the Road (Bonus studio track)  9. One Time Only (Alt Version)(Bonus studio track)
10. Throw That Girl Away(Bonus studio track)  11. Unrepentant (live radio broadcast bonus track)
12. We Must Have Blood (live radio broadcast bonus track)  13. Everybody's Girl (live radio broadcast bonus track)  14. Demonica (live radio broadcast bonus track)  15. Smack City (live radio broadcast bonus track)  16. You Gotta Burn (live radio broadcast bonus track)   17. Back Seat of My Car (live radio broadcast bonus track)  18. Dairy Queen (live radio broadcast bonus track)  19. Drug Store (live radio broadcast bonus track)  20. Fuck 'em All (live radio broadcast bonus track)
21. I Will Deny (live radio broadcast bonus track)  22. Surfing the Intercourse Barn (Spoken word track)


This thing is pretty fucking swank...A gate-fold, two-disc reissue of the Dwarves' 1997 album "The Dwarves Are Young and Good Looking." Mine is on translucent green vinyl that I picked up last year at the very packed Dwarves/Queers/Masked Intruder show...

I love this damn album...I can remember hearing "Everybody's Girl" back in the 90's on some Epitaph sampler and was very surprised to find out it was the Dwarves...It's perfectly presentable, lovable Ramones-ish pop-punk which might not even raise a single gray hair at Grandma's  85th birthday party (as long as no one pays too close attention to the lyrics)...But the whole album is similarly fleshed out and devoted to pop-hookiness without wholly abandoning their trademark leer...No 30 second hardcore blasts about wanting to get AIDS here...Just surfy pop hooks with the occasional metal chug thrown in for good  measure... It wouldn't be too big a stretch to imagine some of this playing on the radio back in the 90's...

This leads to a very large handful of the band's best songs..."There Must Be Blood" is an instant classic... A thoroughly amazing punk/metal anthem that kicks an absurd amount of ass with a chorus so potent that once you hear it, it permanently warps your brain..."Everybody's Girl" still holds up as one of the highlights of the 90's pop-punk movement...To me, this album represents the ultimate refinement of what they hinted at on the earlier "Thank Heaven for Little Girls" and "Sugarfix" albums...Where the band 100% gets over the whole "ha ha, we're saying 'fuck' over happy music" thing that you heard on "Fuck Around"...An album full of "Saturday Night"'s...And it's often glorious...

The only tracks I'm not too nuts about are the spaghetti-western chomo epic "Demonica," the incredibly slight "Hits,"  and the blasphemous blues of "You Gotta Burn"...And they're not bad songs at all...It's just that the rest of it is so damn strong...

The bonus disc is over twice the length of the original album and one of the best (and most thoroughly listenable) bonus-discs I've ever encountered in a reissue...It's packed with solo Blag material, Dwarves B-Sides, and Outtakes from the "Young and Good Looking" era that are just as good as the main album..."Let's Take a Ride"? "Wicked"? This is essential stuff for Dwarves fans...

Then there's also a very cool 11-song live radio show from 1997...The band plays "Young and Good Looking" almost in its entirety while throwing in roughly one song each from their previous albums...It's all a bit fried from overload but overall the sound quality is much better than you'd expect from a Dwarves live performance...The album ends with a 5 minute spoken word piece by Blag played over some surf-rock...Probably not for everybody but pretty entertaining... Considering their go-to subject matter (sex and violence) there's this impulse to view Blag as some sort of knuckle-dragging caveman but every once in awhile they'll do something like this that puts their art into sharp relief...Sometimes when I hear the Dwarves, I kinda get this surreal, Burroughs-esque cosmic/comic bacchanalia vibe that (when paired with sharp hooks)  probably explains why I was drawn to the band in the first place...I think they're more interesting than they initially appear to be...

I'm tired of hearing the tickety-tack of my keyboard...Let's listen to some Dwarves...Here's "One Time Only"...Enjoy...