When You’re Not Excited, You’re Not a Fan: An Interview with Nardwuar the Human Serviette

Nardwuar: Yeah, no holds barred. That’s my favorite; they’ve been a huge inspiration. Also, although they haven’t done an issue for like, twenty years, is Kicks Fanzine out of New York. Billy and Miriam are in the band the A Bones and they run Norton Records, who put out Rudy Ray Moore and stuff like that. They’ve been a huge inspiration to me. They’re kind of like Ugly Things in that they talk about tons of great bands that make you want to dig deep into their catalogue and buy everything.

There’s also Shindig Magazine from England which is kind of like Ugly Things. I still read Maximum Rock and Roll every month to find out about all types of new bands. And I’ve also been reading books by people who have put out fanzines, like Domenic Priore, who put out the Dumb Angel Magazine about the Beach Boys. He recently released a book called Riot on the Sunset Strip all about the sixties sunset strip scene. It reads like a total fanzine and it’s just an amazing, amazing book, all about that period, with bands like Love, The Seeds, The Byrds, and stuff like that. It was such an exhaustive, amazing book that I totally loved every little page of it.

Popshifter: Have you seen Mayor of the Sunset Strip?

Nardwuar: Yes, I saw that movie and I totally dug that as well.

Popshifter: It’s so great. It’s amazing that [Rodney Bingeneimer] has been so involved with so many things.

Nardwuar: And he’s still in the game. Even though he may not have a prime time spot, he’s still in the game, and that’s great.

Popshifter: I love that so many of the bands that he championed that went onto fame still support him. I think that’s really admirable that they still give him all the credit he really deserves. Do you think there has been a change in mainstream media or mainstream music media in that it’s now controlled by a lot of private corporations and government? Do you find that concerning?

Nardwuar: There’s probably more independent stuff now than ever because these corporations and major labels are laying people off and consolidating. So there aren’t that many different magazines or records labels; they’re all connected. So most people have just gone independent. I haven’t really been affected by that in the sense that there’s less of anything; I think there’s actually more stuff.

Popshifter: I agree. I think that fanzine culture is really thriving now.

Nardwuar: Some of it’s moved to the web. One of my favorites is Garage Hangover.com. It’s an MP3 blog, but they talk about all those garage bands. It’s kinda like the WFMU blog—I kinda like that one, too—but it’s basically the web equivalent of the Pebbles or Nuggets box sets on the web. You can read about the band, look at pictures of the band, and then download the songs for your iPod. I love that; it’s like buying a new LP every day!

So that’s one of the fanzines I really love. Also, when you read Ugly Things you think, “I wanna hear this band!” but it’s hard to find it. With Garage Hangover it’s right there at your fingertips. That being said, I still love print fanzines.

I contribute to Roctober fanzine, too, and they do the same stuff, too.

Click to read more from Nardwuar on. . .

Inspirations and approaches to interviews
Music journalists and the early days
Can Rock and Chris Murphy of Sloan
Beck (Hansen) and Bach (Sebastian)
Digging into history and school dances
Redd Kross and Bill Bartell
Nardwuar’s fave fanzines, part one
Nardwuar’s fave fanzines, part two

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