Nardwuar is Canada's leading exponent of Ambush Journalism, though with a typically zany Canadian slant (more Monty Python than Jenny Jones). Nardwuar also moonlights as lead singer for the bar-none, hands-down best band to emerge from the Northland since, dare I say it, BTO.

They're called The Evaporators, and this is their first-ever album. Besides a full-color, two-foot-square fold-out poster of the lads in action, along with a bunch of stickers and postcards, it contains wicked covers of some of the finest nuggets of circa-Sixties garage-rock ever - Canuck or otherwise (ie: a pre-BS&T David Clayton Thomas' "Brainwashed" and a pre-sappy Guess Who classic called "It's My Pride"), plus the theme from Nardwuar's very own television series "Welcome To My Castle" and several other Evap-originals (their "I'm Going To France" sounds muddier than the River Wishkah EVER will).

And, as a "bonus", there's some snippets of Nardwuar, uhh, "interviewing" Dan Quayle and an equally-square Alice Cooper. All-in-all then, a fun-filled, something-for-everyone package the likes of which I for one haven't encountered since the long-gone glory daze of K-Tel's "20 Explosive Hits" extravaganzas. Your home should NOT be without one.

Evaporators, The: Ripple Rock

Evaporators/Thee Goblins, The: I Gotta Rash b/w We Are Thee Goblins From Canada

[Issue Thirty-Two // July-August 2000]