Nardwuar vs. The Outlook

rock around the ‘hawk - Nardwuar the Human Serviette has been bringing bands and musicians to the legendary Tomahawk Restaurant for 25 years. Now it’s his turn.

Outlook photo

He’s interviewed every pop music icon since pop ‘went the world’ in 1987, many of them at North Vancouver’s legendary Tomahawk Restaurant.

Sometimes for national television, sometimes campus radio, and sometimes just for fun, Nardwuar the Human Serviette has bellied up to the tables at the T-hawk alongside music industry heavies for more than 100 interviews and as many Skookum Chief burgers.

But today, the lifetime West Vancouver resident and national treasure trove of pop music trivia has come to talk up his own band, The Evaporators.

Formed at West Vancouver’s Hillside secondary back in the mid-1980s, the band has always collaborated with its friends and punk rock contemporaries.

But as the group’s star rose alongside the extracurricular notoriety of its founder and singer, those contemporaries have increasingly come from the brighter and broader reaches of the pop music constellation.

That’s not to say, though, that Nardwuar and the band have lost their way in the light of all that star power.

On the eve of his first full-length release since 2007, Nardwuar — whom American filmmaker Michael Moore (Roger & Me, Bowling for Columbine) once famously accused of being “on crack” for his over-the-top interview antics — is sipping Numi herbal tea and talking quietly about his music and his mother.

Nardwuar the Human Serviette and The Evaporators Present... Busy Doing Nothing! is the name of the new disc — in stores March 6 — and it features the likes of Franz Ferdinand, Kate Nash, Jill Barber and Andrew W.K., to name but a few.

It’s classic Evaporators sound and fury, but the singer insists that this record above all others — including 2004’s Ripple Rock and 2007’s Gassy Jack and Other Tales — is his truest tribute to the former GVRD.

“I’d go anywhere if the opportunity came,” Nardwuar says from under his customary Scotch tartan cap and a maple-leaf crested jacket. “But I always come back to Vancouver because there’s always a Vancouver connection to everything.”

As a man who admittedly enjoys an album’s liner notes almost as much as he does its music, Nardwuar goes above and beyond to lay down those connections on Busy Doing Nothing. In fact, the album includes not only Nardwuar’s trademark six degrees of separation explaining how each artist landed on the record, but interview transcripts as well and a full-size photo calendar of monumental Vancouver concerts, all  inside the record sleeve.

It’s a meticulous duty to detail that apparently runs in the Human Serviette family.

“I remember my mom dragging me to North Shore Historical Society meetings,” Nardwuar says, adding that he’s still a member today. “I was pretty much inspired by my mom who did this TV show, Our Pioneers and Neighbours, and she would interview our neighbours, people from the North Shore.” [The show was on Shaw Cable Access Channel 10 and Nardwuar would use it as inspiration for his first Vancouver punk rock compilation, 1989’s Oh God My Mom’s on Channel 10!]

“These people, they weren’t celebrities,” he continues, “but their stories were just as interesting as anybody else’s. All the little tidbits of information she could get out of people were just fascinating — as fascinating as if you were interviewing some big celebrity-type person.”

Nardwuar the Human Serviette and The Evaporators will host a free all-ages record release party at 2 p.m. on March 3 at Neptoon Records (3561 Main St., Vancouver), followed by a 19+ show that evening at Venue Nightclub (881 Granville St., Vancouver).

For more information, visit nardwuar.com.

tcoyne@northshoreoutlook.com
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