“My Favorite Album” is a weekly column in which we ask a musician exactly what the title suggests — to name their favorite album of all time. This week it’s Blag Dahlia of Chicago punks the Dwarves, who play Alex’s Bar this week…

Phil Austin

Roller Maidens From Outer Space (Epic)

The Firesign Theater were a surreal comedy group from Los Angeles that made incredibly confusing esoteric records throughout the 1970s and ’80s.  This one is my favorite, but for some reason is only credited to one of the guys from the group, maybe for contractual reasons.

It jumps between the adventures of a hard boiled detective named Dick Private-Private Dick who has to transverse the channels of a primitive television set to solve a mystery posed by hapless sitcom heroes Regular and Ethyl, next door neighbors to Tricky Retardo and his wife “Love That” Juicy.  If it sounds ridiculous and incomprehensible, well it is.  Featuring a half dozen perfectly executed country songs, an evangelical telethon, Our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, drug abuse, Richard Nixon and some trenchant commentary on the 1970s’ gasoline crises this record will have you scratching your head and wondering — “why does the guy from the Dwarves give a fuck about this record anyway?”  The world, as always, just ain’t ready for the answer yet!

Dwarves play with The Crowd, Decent Criminal, The Meow Twins and Richard Scary at 2 p.m. on Sunday, July 7 at Alex’s Bar.

Roller Maidens from Outer Space Phil Austin album

(Epic)

Advertising disclosure: We may receive compensation for some of the links in our stories. Thank you for supporting LA Weekly and our advertisers.