It looks as though The Monkeywrench may have rivals for this blog’s coveted Best Side Project in a Peel Show Playlist award.
When he played this track from The Hanson Brothers’s Gross Misconduct LP, Peel mentioned that they appeared to be related to the Canadian art-punk group, Nomeansno. At any rate, he strongly suspected that the band names listed in the album sleeve notes of Tommy Hanson, Johnny Hanson, Robbie Hanson and Kenny Hanson were not genuine. By his own admission, Peel was no cinephile so he may not have seen the cult 1977 ice-hockey comedy, Slap Shot which features the characters of the Hanson brothers who help a struggling ice hockey team regain its edge by bringing in more violent play. Certainly, the various members of Nomeansno, D.O.A and Show Business Giants showed great commitment to the project by adopting the ice-hockey clothes and Buddy Holly specs of the original characters, though bassist Rob Wright adopted an ice-hockey goalkeeper with mask look.
When it comes to side-projects, it’s always worth taking the time to listen to something from the
members’source material so as to see how the diversion compares to the day job. So it was that I spent yesterday morning doing some work while listening Nomeansno’s 0 + 2 = 1 album, released a year before Gross Misconduct. Both albums share a mordant sense of humour and jaded, cynical view of the world, but the contrast comes in the intensity of the music. They both rock out, but I discovered, admittedly within a very narrow sample, that Nomeansno channel the bile of Henry Rollins and his brand of “The world’s a violent place. Get over it and go fuck yourself” nihilism, The Hanson Brothers channel The Ramones brand of “The world’s a fucked up place. Get on top of it before it gets on top of you” self-reliance. The Hanson Brothers used the Ramones as a form of release. They played gigs of Ramones covers for several years before deciding to go one better and write Ramones records themselves, albeit with a visual Canadian twist, hence the leather jackets over the ice hockey shirts. It was something that they would return to numerous times over the next 20 years, with 4 albums released up to 2008, and the band playing live into the mid 2010s.
My Girlfriend’s a Robot is a literal interpretation of how a relationship has to adapt in order to survive when you discover that your lover is wires and circuits rather than flesh and blood. As the lyrics show, whatever gets lost in terms of romantic feeling (I took her apart cause she broke my heart) is made up for in terms of the domestic benefits that can be gained. However, true love finds a way eventually, and by the end the happy couple are re-entwined and looking to settle down, especially given that She’s got her outlets and I’ve got mine. Don’t you just love a happy ending? Sublime stuff.
Video courtesy of gilpow
All lyrics are copyright of their authors.
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