For more than twenty years, The Hanson Brothers (the long-running alter-ego of NoMeansNo) have been keeping the spirit of The Ramones alive.

The band's latest release, It's A Living, is a live album that was recorded in Coaldale, Alberta (which, according to the band, is "home to Canada's french fry cartel and a notable stop on the arm-rasslin' circuit"). The band blasts through 27 songs in just over an hour with guitarist Tommy Hanson keeping the pace with his Dee Dee-ish calls of "1-2-3-4". Like past Hanson Brothers releases, the songs are predominately about girls, hockey and beer. There is the continual stage dialogue throughout the show about "putting the cabbage in the bag" (and I have no idea of what that means) and there are some bits of a funny radio show interview with Tommy.

The live arena is where the Hanson Brothers wit really shows and fans of past releases (along with fans of The Ramones, The Queers and many of the Asian Man Records bands) would do well to pick up this release.

The CD is a dual-disc and comes with a DVD of Johnny Hanson's guide to home brewing. While the Hansons are pretty funny to watch in everyday life (go find a copy of Slap Shot or Strange Brew for similar points of comparison), the brewers guide is pretty informative. After watching this video (and the price of beer going up over this past year), I started looking at the prices of home brew kits.

The Hanson Brothers just completed a brief U.S. tour (though there were no East Coast dates) which finished last night in Victoria, BC. There are some great pictures from the tour posted to the Alienated in Vancouver blog.

Links:
The Official NoMeanNo Forum
The Hanson Brothers MySpace Profile