DWARVES
RIVERBOAT GAMBLERS, and WE ARE THE ASTROID
The Dwarves are an American punk rock band, formed in Chicago, Illinois in the mid-1980s. They are currently based in San Francisco, California.
The original members of the Dwarves began making music together in the mid 80’s as teenagers in the Chicago garage rock outfit Suburban Nightmare. The group’s original Paisley underground sound was evident on the band’s 1986 Voxx Records debut Horror Stories, an album which, like many of its Paisley underground contemporaries, contained a number of mid 60’s Pebbles-inspired garage rock covers, including The Avengers‘ “Be a Cave man”, and Shag‘s “Stop and Listen”.
They are known for their nuanced punk repertoire, and controversial lyrics.
Their album covers are unusual – naked women, and a naked dwarf sodomizing a rabbit covered in blood, for their 1990 album “Blood Guts & Pussy” – followed up a decade later, with a similar theme, this time covered in soap suds, for “Come Clean”. The band was sacked from their previous label, Sub Pop over pranks such as the long-lasting hoax contending that guitarist “He Who Cannot Be Named” had died. Sub Pop was not amused when they learned the facts and dropped the band, which soon went on hiatus. But the Dwarves re-formed for 1997’s The Dwarves Are Young and Good Looking, and Epitaph Records signed the band in time for 2000’s The Dwarves Come Clean. Four years later, the band returned with The Dwarves Must Die, which included guests Dexter Holland from the Offspring, Nick Oliveri from Queens of the Stone Age, Nash Kato from Urge Overkill, and voice actor Gary Owens. In 2009 the band began to work on a new album, this time recruiting past members of the band like Salt Peter and Vadge Moore to play on the album instead of an all-star celebrity cast, and released The Dwarves Are Born Again in 2010. The year 2011 brought the EP Fake ID, and in 2014 the troublemakers returned with the album The Dwarves Invented Rock & Roll. The band moved to Burger Records for the release of their tenth full-length effort, 2018’s Take Back the Night.
They have recorded on several labels and recently joined Sympathy for the Record Industry. They also have a track listed on the Punk you compilation album.
RIVERBOAT GAMBLERS:
In 1997, former Blanks member Pat Lillard (“Spider”) (Bass), formed The Riverboat Gamblers with Fadi el-Assad (“Freddy Castro”) (Lead Guitar), and Mike Wiebe (“Teko Buller” or “Rookie Sensation”) (Vocals). Lillard’s original intention was to emulate Virginia punk-rockers The Candy Snatchers. In direct contrast to the popular emo music at the time, The Riverboat Gamblers’ premiere show featured over-the-top songs relating to drinking and of course, gambling. Tongue planted firmly in cheek, The Riverboat Gamblers continued to play house parties and shows throughout Denton and the Dallas/Fort Worth area. The Gamblers burst out of the Denton college scene in September of 2001 on the back of their self-released 7″ single “Jenna Is A No Show.” Both 2001’s self-titled release and 2003’s “Something to Crow About” were produced by Texas punk rocker Tim Kerr (Big Boys, Lord High Fixers).
After the warm reception of “Something to Crow About”, the band soon relocated from Denton, Texas to Austin, Texas. The band first received attention from major record labels after their energetic and rowdy showcase at the 2003 South by Southwest (SXSW) music festival in Austin, Texas, but the band ultimately signed with indie label Gearhead Records. In 2005 they were signed to Volcom Entertainment and performed a stint on the 2005 Warped Tour, where the band was often noticed for its deranged live shows. The silliness of some of the earlier material has given way to a more complex breadth of material about America’s maligned.
They have also appeared on the soundtracks to the videogames “Tony Hawk’s American Wasteland”, “Madden NFL 07” and “FlatOut: Ultimate Carnage,” and “Sega GT Online 2”.
WE Are The Astroid:
WE Are The Asteroid is a three piece “freak rock” band based in Austin Texas. Formed in 2015 by former members of Ed Hall, Pain Teens and Butthole Surfers they have released three albums, the most recent being 2020s “WATA Wonderful World”. They have toured the US with The Melvins, Europe with Flipper, and Japan with Tsushimamire twice as well as other tours in the US and Canada.
“With all of it’s membership drawn from veteran -hell, legendary- Texas noise, psych and power rock bands, there’s no way WE Are The Asteroid isn’t the ultimate power trio”- The Austin Chronicle