It’s almost impossible to believe that the Dwarves began their perverted Punk march over 20 years ago in a Chicago garage as a psychedelic Paisley Underground band called Suburban Nightmare. Within three years, the Dwarves true colors bled through like head trauma through cheap gauze with their glorious 1989 Punk debut for Sub Pop, Blood Guts & Pussy. They never looked back. The Dwarves’ tenure with Sub Pop was productive — Thank Heaven for Little Girls in 1991, Sugarfix in 1993 — but the label was incensed at a 1993 prank where the band announced that guitarist HeWhoMustNotBeNamed had been stabbed to death and dropped them from the roster.
The Dwarves regrouped in 1997 and signed with Epitaph for The Dwarves Are Young and Good Looking and 2000’s frenetic and oddly melodic The Dwarves Come Clean (which featured the song “River City Rapist,” which the band offered to George Bush’s presidential campaign strategists on the basis of its chorus, “I want to rape the U.S.A.”), and 2004 saw a new contract with Sympathy for the Record Industry and a new album, The Dwarves Must Die.
The Dwarves play the Mad Hatter with The Uprising, Banderas, Angels of Meth and True Grit. 8 p.m. $15. Get Sound Advice here.
