The CINEMA CENTRIC meet up for an episode with musician, author, and notorious punk rock icon Blag Dahlia, frontman of The Dwarves a band that’s spent decades gleefully torching the boundaries of taste, decorum, and decency in the name of rock and roll. But behind the chaos and provocation lies one of punk’s sharpest minds, a writer and storyteller whose work stretches from raucous stage anthems to novels like Armed to the Teeth with Lipstick, Nina, and Highland Falls, and even the bluegrass sway of his alter ego Earl Lee Grace or the smoothness of his Ralph Champagne.
In this episode, we take a wild and thoughtful ride through Blag’s creative universe—talking about his books, his long history with the punk scene, and the many personas he’s inhabited along the way. Blag brings five Criterion titles that pulse with rebellion and rhythm: Monterey Pop, Gimme Shelter, The Harder They Come, Sid and Nancy, and The Beastie Boys Anthology. Each one opens a doorway into the history of music on film and how cinema captures the raw, ecstatic power of sound, self-destruction, and transcendence.
This conversation roams from the gutter to the gallery, punk mythmaking, the art of provocation, and the strange, spiritual link between noise and narrative. Blag Dahlia doesn’t just perform punk; he’s spent his life dissecting it, reframing it, and rewriting what it means to live as both menace and artist in the same body.
Blag Dahlia
Website:
Instagram: