Pansy Division

That’s So Gay
Alternative Tentacles; March 31, 2009



America’s Original Queer Punks are Back,
With a New CD and a DVD documentary,
Pansy Division: Life In A Gay Rock Band!

Undeniably one of the most important and influential gay music acts in the last twenty years, Pansy Division pioneered the “queercore” genre long before other gay musicians had the confidence to come out of the closet. With album titles like Undressed (Lookout! Records, 1993) and Deflowered (Lookout! Records, 1994), and song titles like "Bill & Ted's Homosexual Adventure," their bluntness and humor stood out amidst the '90s alterna-rock scene.

Raised on 60s pop and 70s punk, Pansy Division wrote in-your-face lyrics with a sense of humor, defying stereotypes in both the rock scene and the gay community, and launching a queer punk movement that also included bands like Tribe 8, Team Dresch, God Is My Co-Pilot and Fifth Column. The band released six albums in six years in the 1990s and toured extensively, sharing stages with other queercore bands as well as other punk bands. In 1994 label mates Green Day took Pansy Division on tour at the height of their breakthrough album Dookie, giving Pansy Division a chance to blow the minds of, and in many cases inspire, tens of thousands of high-school kids across America.

Pansy Division‘s newest album, That’s So Gay -- the band’s eighth studio album (and their first new album in six years) -- is raucous and raunchy as well as being serious-minded. Featuring some of the band’s catchiest and most rocking songs ever, the album includes a duet with legendary punk icon Jello Biafra (Dead Kennedys) on “Average Men.” The band is also releasing a DVD documentary, Pansy Division: Life in a Gay Rock Band, a fast-paced, intimate and humorous account of one of rock’s most fearless acts. Using original and archive footage and covering over fifteen years as a group, from their first days in San Francisco’s underground music scene to a full-fledged stadium tour with Green Day and beyond, the DVD features interviews and appearances by Lookout Records founder Larry Livermore, Jessie “Luscious” Townley (The Criminals, Alternative Tentacles), Jello Biafra (Dead Kennedys, Alternative Tentacles), Rob Halford (Judas Priest) and Billie Joe Armstrong (Green Day). With a bonus disc containing live concert footage, Pansy Division: Life in a Gay Rock Band provides an essential history of a genre of alternative music that is only now beginning to be appreciated. Check out the trailer to Pansy Division: Life in a Gay Rock Band here.

Don’t miss Pansy Division live on tour this summer. Also check out Jon Ginoli's book, Deflowered: My Life In Pansy Division, on Cleus Press, as well as a new 7” single containing a cover of a Green Day's "Coming Clean" (not on the new album).

Copies of Pansy Division’s new CD, That’s So Gay, and their DVD, Pansy Division: Life in a Gay Rock Band, are available upon request. For a sneak preview, check out the MP3 for Twinkie, Twinkie Little Star.