{Read right to the end, kids. NB: Nardwuar is the greatest — I highly recommend this album)
January 24, 2004 Saturday Final Edition
It could have been better
The Leader-Post
RIPPLE ROCK
The Evaporators
Nardwuar Records/Mint Records
Rating three 1/2 (out of five)
Aside from his outrageous clips on MuchMusic and his long-running Vancouver radio show, Nardwuar the Human Serviette has assured himself a place in history for having prompted Jean Chretien’s infamous quote about putting pepper on his plate. But what Nardwuar would really like to be known for is his punk rock band the Evaporators.
On Ripple Rock, Nardwuar and friends (including David Carswell of the Smugglers and John Collins of the New Pornographers) set the jinx on high and the brow on low. It’s fast, silly, obnoxious and fun.
But for all the gleeful and worthwhile stupidity of songs like “Addicted to Cheese,” “I Say That on Purpose to Bug You,” and “(I’ve Got) Icicles on My Testicles,” there’s also an educational, if entirely irreverent, element to the record. The title track, for example, is about the explosive removal in 1958 of 700,000 tons of rock that had claimed over 100 lives in a waterway near Campbell River, B.C.
There’s also an ode to Gerda Munsinger, the German woman at the centre of Canada’s notorious sex-and-espionage scandal in the early ’60s.
The biggest treasure on the album (not counting the bonus clips of Nardwuar’s comical interviews) is “Barney Rubble Is My Double,” which manages to combine the moronic and the fascinating. The song was written and originally recorded by the late-’70s Calgary punk group the Hot Nasties. The kicker? The Hot Nasties were fronted by Warren Kinsella, who, as all punk fans know, went on to become an advisor to Chretien.
— Emmet Matheson