Tall Dwarfs


The Tall Dwarfs are Chris Knox and Alec Bathgate. It’s a partnership and a friendship that formed and was honed in The Enemy and Toy Love, and has endured for more than three decades.

As Tall Dwarfs they redefined both their approach to making music, and their careers from the ground up – and across seven EPs and seven albums of “fuzzy, noisy songs” they have created a body of work entirely on their own terms.  

Tall Dwarfs, early 1980s
Photo credit: Murray Cammick Collection
The Auckland launch for Chris Knox's Jesus On A Stick comic - Tall Dwarfs, Headless Chickens and Goblin Mix, June 19, 1986
Photo credit: Graeme Hill collection
The Brain That Wouldn't Die
Nothing's Going To Happen
Tall Dwarf's 1985 album That's The Short And The Long Of It. Side one plays at 45rpm, side two at 33 1/3rpm.
Unravelled: 1981–2002, Tall Dwarfs' 2022 retrospective collection on the US Merge label.
Tall Dwarfs at Wellington's Carpark, June 1990
Alec Bathgate and Chris Knox
A 1998 Tall Dwarfs publicity shot.
Photo credit: Photo by Jono Rotman
Fork Songs
Tall Dwarfs, 1981
Photo credit: Photo by Barbara Ward
Insert from That's The Short And The Long Of It, 1985
The Slide
Tall Dwarfs and Snapper at the Oriental, July 1987
Tall Dwarfs, 1983
Photo credit: Murray Cammick Collection
Turning Brown And Torn In Two
A wry hand drawn Chris Knox comment on Strawpeople's cover of the duo's The Slide, 1992
Photo credit: Revor Reekie collection
An interesting publicity shot, 1997
Crush - Live at the Gluepot, Auckland, 26 January 1991 (Bob Sutton Collection)
Advert for Louis Likes His Daily Dip, 1982
Photo credit: Photo by Barbara Boodle
Phil's Disease Day Four
Phil's Disease Day One
Tall Dwarfs around 1981, venue unknown but likely Auckland's Windsor Castle
Photo credit: Photo by Murray Cammick
Gluey Gluey
The origins of Tall Dwarfs as told in the insert to the 1981 debut EP
95 bFM Extended Play: Tall Dwarfs - Alec Bathgate
Crush - Live at the Windsor Castle, Auckland, 9 April 1985 (GreenEyedOwl Collection)
Fragile
Members:

Chris Knox - vocals, clavinet, guitar, percussion, keyboards, bass

Alec Bathgate - guitar, organ, bass

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