Their name says 'no,' but their output says...

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"Only so many songs can be sung with two lips, two lungs and one tongue."

Vancouver-based punk trio Nomeansno sang those words 20 years ago, but fortunately for fans, the band still hasn't run out of things to say.

Thirty years after the Wright brothers formed Nomeansno in Victoria, B.C., the group is as busy as ever, or even more so since the members of Nomeansno do double duty in the hockey-loving Ramones-aping hellraisers the Hanson Brothers.

"We play music because we want to be in a band and play music, rather than we want to get laid by some mentally challenged bimbo, not to say a lot of people are like that. We don't really give [our longevity] much thought. I'm really happy Marc Chagall kept painting and Arthur Rubinstein was doing piano recitals past 90. Whatever you do and you enjoy doing it, why stop?" says guitarist Tom Holliston, who joined bassist-vocalist Rob Wright and drummer-vocalist John Wright in Nomeansno in 1993.

The band has released 10 studio albums and numerous EPs over the years, combining punk, jazz and thrash into a bizarre, highly original musical stew that has won them fans around the world. Both Nomeansno and the Hanson Brothers are extremely popular in Europe and the six-year span between the last two Nomeansno albums was because of the success of their side project overseas and the re-release of the Nomeansno catalogue in England, Holliston says.

"Much to our surprise, the Hanson Brothers go over very well in Europe to the point where there are Hanson Brothers cover bands there," he says.

Their absence was much noted in Winnipeg. Nomeansno played the West End Cultural Centre in 2001 in support of their then-new album One, but it took until this past April for the band to return. They are making up for lost time with two shows at the Royal Albert Friday and Saturday. Saturday's Halloween show -- which Holliston hopes will include a costume contest judged by John Wright -- with Fanny and Velodrome is sold out, but there are still tickets remaining for Friday's show with Ditchpig and Electro Quarterstaff. Tickets are $17.50 at ticketworkshop.com, Into the Music and Music Trader.

Holliston says the band will play five or six new songs the group has started recording for a forthcoming series of 12-inch records. Nomeansno plans to release three or four EPs next year on its own label, Wrong Records.

"We're going to incorporate little themes into each one. It's a lot easier to record and stay focused (doing EPs). We all prefer to play live shows and playing new songs at live shows means the songs are pretty much in shape when you record them, rather than after they've been recorded going out and touring them for five months and the songs getting better because the tempos change or whatever," Holliston says.

"I think music in some respects has come back to the era of the single and 45, so few people are buying CDs, so we thought we'll just put out vinyl and have it at shows or distribute ourselves," Holliston says.

The band has also enlisted some electronic producers, including Winnipeg artist Venetian Snares (Aaron Funk), for a Nomeansno remix project.

"Rob is the most interested in electronic music. I think he was going to call it Butchering the Cash Cow," Holliston says.

Republished from the Winnipeg Free Press print edition October 29, 2009 E9