Chris Murphy Joins Nardwuar And Evaporators' Love-in

The Norm Theatre

Vancouver, BC

on Mar 7 2006

Trevor Hargreaves (CHARTattack)

03/08/2006 3:00pm

Any frequent Chart reader knows that Nardwuar The Human Serviette and Sloan's Chris Murphy are popular subject matter. If you had to boil it down to the two most featured personalities in Chart history, I'd wager these two would take the trophy. As such, it was particularly odd to witness them rocking out on stage together.

With Evaporators bassist John Collins currently MIA (he's touring with his other group, The New Pornographers), the affable Murph was kind enough to hop on a plane and join Nard for one hell of a party — celebrating the double-disc DVD release of Nardwuar's greatest interviews, appropriately titled Doot Doola Doot Doot.

The evening was an entertaining mix of projected interview segments, live music and even some storytelling. CBC Radio 3 frontman Grant Lawrence took to the stage early on and delighted everyone with tales of concerts that he and Nard promoted long ago. He explained Nard's love of using his home phone number as the information line for these gigs, and how he even invited the bands to stay at Lawrence's house. Although these were simple tales of youthful hijinks, it's notable that the shows they promoted featured the likes of Nirvana, Mudhoney and Fugazi, to name just a few.

Thee Goblins (Photo by Angela Blattmann)

On the musical front, the evening was top notch all the way. The buttery rhythms of Thee Goblins got things heated up. Attired in their standard Washington Husky cheerleader uniforms with pillows over their heads and music in their hearts, the band delivered a number of standards, including "Two-By-Four-And-A-Half" and "Mario Cuomo Works At Domo." There was also an epic on stage laser gun battle that kept everyone on the edge of their seats.

Chris Murphy and Nardwuar during The Evaporators set (Photo by Angela Blattmann)

After several more interview segments, the legendary Evaporators took the stage. I gotta tell you, Chris Murphy has the chops. Although he apparently only ran through the songs once or twice in rehearsal, he kept up quite well. As the band bashed into full effect, there were some truly surreal moments. Watching Murph mumbling the chorus for "I Gotta Rash," you'd think he had just spent an evening with Nickelback groupies. But nay. He was in fact rocking out Nardwuar style.

The Evaporators (Photo by Sprout)

The set bridged the full Evaps discography but relied heavily on songs from their latest album, Ripple Rock. Featured tunes included "Mercury Outboards Have Plastic Propellers," "I'm Going To France," "Your Instrument Does Not Affect Me," "Addicted To Cheese," "I Feel Like A Fat Frustrated Fuck," "Ripple Rock," "Barney Rubble Is My Double" and a spirited version of that sultry Canuck love ballad, "Gerda Munsinger."

Little Hamm, Chris Murphy and Nardwuar (Photo by Angela Blattmann)

Immediately after the performance, Murph filmed a lengthy Going Coastal segment with MuchMusic's Chris Nelson and just about anyone who would speak into the camera. Suddenly, Little Hamm of Canned Hamm got in the mix and began telling his own crazy Nardwuar stories as everyone filtered out. As local indie-rock love-ins go, this was solid gold.