Teenage angst monger Impresario Nardwuar the Human Serviette takes Manhattan and all burgs in between ce Michael Becker RECORD REVIEW HILE IT’S business as usual in the mega-corp, heavy-hype, product-with- a-capital!-P department of the music biz, West Van ali-ages gigster and CITR radio host Nardwuar the Human Serviette has found that the best of unfettered teeny-pop fun sticks like gum to vinyl. The kid has elevated the do-it- yourself approach to re- cord-making (yes record, remember those large round flat things our forefathers once spilled drinks upon?) to a fine art. The follow-up to the 1989 Nardwuar Records release Oh God My Mom's On Channel 10! is a technicolor blockbuster: Clam Chowder and Ice Versus Big Macs and Bombers. This international incident will surely wet the pants of record- collecting vinylphiles. First, spend a solid hour obsess- ing over the detailed packaging. There are fan clubs to write to. There is a wacky poll to enter (listeners cast ballots for the Ca- nadian or American side of the re- cord). There is a fat, trivia-thick booklet included, The Nardwuar Book for Life and Nardventure. The disc sides themselves are chock-a-block with spiffiness. Weighing in on the The Cana- dian Team are groups such as Nomeansno with Ya Little Creep, a nasty yet curiously cathartic cou- ple of minutes; Shadow; Menon a Shadowy Planet with Early One Morning — the Friendly Giant will snap a couple of those little chairs over this one; Superconductor, The Sherlacks, The Smugglers (West Van guys make good), The Evaporators (more West Van guys make good), Me, Mom & Morgen- thaler and The Gruesomes add mucho Canuck oomph. The Serviette’s famed ambush interviews pepper the lot with oddity. Fortress America bristles with weirdness from A-Bones; Seattle’s most excellent and funny fuzzies, The Squirrels; the soon-to-be-the- next-big-indi-gone-major-thing, Mudhoney; The Mummies, Hoods, The Muffs, Devil Dogs and Beat Happening. Nard’s interview encounters here include verbal interplay with golden boy Tom Vu and aged goofball Gilligan. And then there is the glorious vinylosity of the project. A thou- sand copies come basic black, 800 splash red white and blue, and 206 tive as blazes of orange, green, red and mixed shades thereof. Music Now listened to Nard- wuar capidly spill his life story recently. Here are the bits about the record, sort of: Music Now: The concept for this, you’ve been working on it for two years? Nardwuar: ‘Yeah, a two-year NEWS photo Mike Vakofield NARDWUAR (left) and Scott Livingstone (responsibfe for the album’s illustrations) met in grade eight while pricking for blood in a biology cless. The rest is history. battle, a Canada versus USA battle of the bands record.” Music Now: Are people actual- ly going to decide who wins? Nardwuar: ‘‘Yeah, I'll keep track, and if you actually write in you'll become a member of the Ameri- can boosters or the Canadian boosters, and you'll get a some- what giant package of stickers. You are the judge and the jury in this Canada-U.S.A. battle of the bands.” Music Now: Are you going to ' back this with a gig? Nardwuar: ‘‘I wanted to but a lot of the bands are on tour now. Nomeansno are sort of in limbo and Mudhoney are on tour, and they might be going on David Let- terman. But maybe in the sum- mertime | might be able to get something together. As of right now we have nothing exactly planned for this. “The next Nardwuar gig | want to have is the Jason Priestly Celeh- rity Roast, featuring Mudhoney. Think of all the kids that will come, and we'll ask all these peo- ple to talk about him. So Jason Priestly’s parents, if you are listen- ing, ‘I Nardwuar the Human Ser- viette want to do a gig, the Jason Priestly Celebrity Roast, starring, Mudhoney, a good, fun rock ‘n’ roll band. “It won’t cost you anything, and all we want is for Jason Priest- ly to show up there, and it wili be fun, and it will be a wild display of teenage zit angst rock and go for it. Don’t be afraid-support your community, the North Shore, home of Karen Magnussen, Jim Pattison, Bryan Adams — Tomahawk Barbecue, Skookum Chief Hamburgers. “Please, please Mrs. Priestly, Jason Priest'y is from Argyle school, and we want to join together and have this gig.” Music Now: Who distributes for you in the U.S.A? Nardwuar: “Scooby Doo based out of San Francisco. They're do- ing a good job; somebody said the records are in New York. I don’t know if we'll get paid — they took out 1,200 directly from the plant. People can buy it at all the cool records shops and maybe in Europe and Australia. Music Now: How did you pick who went on record? Nardwuar: “All the bands on there are spread out. You might say, ‘Why didn’t you get Gas Huf- fer from Seattie, they’re a good band.’ But we wanted to spread it out from across the country.” Music Now: How did the col- ors happen? Nardwuar: "| wanted to have red white and blue like the flag. So we finally got all the parts all ready to go, and they (Alberti Records Manufacturing in Monterey, California) said, ‘We're waiting for white vinyl.’ We waited for about two or three months because there’s only one place in the world where you can get white vinyl. “We waited and waited and waited until finally 1 got mad and said, ‘Listen, where’s the white vinyl, | need it!’ He said, ‘Just hold on. Oh, it just came in the door right now. But we've got a problem, we're out of the red vinyl.’ “Ohbhh! | said, ‘OK, | don’t care what you do, just go crazy on the couple of hundred.’ We've got 1,000 black, 1,090 colored, so for the last 200 we got puke. “So I’m mad at the Beatles, because they probably used it all up for that White Album. Thanks a lot for buying it!’ See Stand page 29 Wednesday, April 22, 1992 - North Shore News — 25 day draw for your choice of our Rocking Chairs. > Largest selection of unpainted furniture SS in Weetern Canada. All fully asserrsied and seady 10 go Our 3 Drawer cheat, Birch $ 144+ Tax . O.C.ALY. Furnrrure 12542 BRIDGEPORT RD, RICHMOND 278-4779 Live Crab ~" $199 Bean 4 Ib. fj Saturdays only on 10 selected items on our 29 item Dim Sum menu Bring this coupon to Public Storage and get } Off your first month’s rent. NORTH VANCOUVER 1775 Main St. 929-7166 rant HE coooree SSubject te availability an selected sizes only. 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