When you think of an NPR fan, what do you imagine? A glasses and beret wearing, latte guzzling, bleeding-heart neo-liberal with a penchant for pronouns, right? Exactly. So the fact that GWAR not only showed up at NPR’s offices, but managed to perform as part of the media outlet’s “Tiny Desk Concert” series was kind of a shock. I mean, this is the same band that decapitates people on stage to cover their fans in fake blood and sings songs about fucking animals and shit. How did they invade the land of “All Things Considered,” Nina Totenberg, and “national treasure” Terry Gross.
But perform for NPR they did. As you can check out from the video below, they squeezed their bloated forms behind the tiny, tiny desk, they cracked jokes and performed four raunchy rock tunes to get the crowd going. Even the person writing the YouTube video’s description got in on it.
“As the band of intergalactic monsters strapped guitars to their battle-worn bodies, thunder and rain pounded the NPR building outside. As if the late Oderus Urungus was pissing his blessing from Valhalla, the prophecy had finally been fulfilled: GWAR came to destroy the Tiny Desk once and for all.
“On Feb. 15, 2020, a parody news site ran the headline: “GWAR asks NPR’s Tiny Desk Staff if They’re Ready to Get Their A* Ripped Open.” My text messages suddenly blew up. Is this real? No, it’s literally fake. Can this be real? Little did they know I’d already been talking to one of the group’s underlings since 2019 to bring the Scumdogs of the Universe to the office of seltzer and sensibility.
“For nearly four decades, GWAR has terrorized planet Earth with its gratuitously blood-soaked stage shows and grotesque satire. The interplanetary warriors have made comic books, beer, BBQ sauce and, um, adult toys. But, most importantly, GWAR has written some of the raunchiest, silliest and hookiest heavy metal songs, four of which were performed at the Tiny Desk to a giddy audience. No heads were decapitated, but Blöthar the Berserker and Pustulus Maximus did invade All Things Considered afterward to part from NPR with these immortal words: “CDeez nutz.”
Sounds like we got ourselves a fan (or Bohab) in the halls of NPR…
As they’re wont to do, the band called themselves “low brow” but sought to change that by boosting their “cultural profile” by bringing out the animated corpse of conductor “Wilhelm Fartwrangler.” It was a dude in a costume that only served to be choked to death during the first song. Of course.
But yeah. I never thought this day could come. Check it out below.