Pansy Division Returning to NYC for Pride, 6/26

PANSY DIVISION - the trailblazing queer rock/punk band - will bring their bold, brash and witty songs back to New York for the first time in six years when they headline a special Pride concert at The Bowery Electric (327 Bowery) on Friday, June 26. For the group will preview new material from their upcoming album with the current lineup: Chris Freeman (bass, vocals), Jon Ginoli (rhythm guitar, vocals), Luis Illades (drums) and Joel Reader (lead guitar, vocals). PANSY DIVISION will be joined on the bill by the goth dance band Bottoms and power pop group Youthquake. The show is produced by Pansy Division and Dan Fortune.

PANSY DIVISION blew the closet doors open when they began performing in 1991 in San Francisco. There have been gay musicians hidden throughout rock music history, but Pansy Division were the first to be so boldly open about it. Founded by guitarist/singer Jon Ginoli and soon joined by bassist/vocalist Chris Freeman, with the intent of forming a gay rock band. Raised on a diet of 60s pop and 70s punk, their sound was suitably crunchy and catchy as hell. They wrote in-your-face lyrics, but did it with a sense of humor. Not only did their music and stance defy stereotypic norms of rock musicians being openly gay, they also broke gay cultural stereotypes that rock wouldn't interest gay people.

With album titles like Undressed and Deflowered, and song titles like "Bill & Ted's Homosexual Adventure," their bluntness and humor stood out amidst the '90s alterna-rock scene. Says Chris Freeman, "there was a lot of gay culture we couldn't relate to, so we tried to invent a place for ourselves in it, an alternative for other queer misfits." Having had the experience of being ostracized by other musicians for being gay and by other gays for being into rock, "we tried to turn our alienation into something positive," says Ginoli. "Instead of being depressed about it, we tried to make music that would make us-and our audience-happy. We could laugh about it, so we put that joy into the music."

Beginning in 1993, they put out an album a year for six years on Lookout Records. Their music caught the attention of former Lookout labelmates Green Day, who took Pansy Division on tour for a couple of months in 1994 at the height of the mania surrounding their breakthrough album Dookie. Pansy Division toured and recorded almost non-stop during the 1990s, along the way recruiting a permanent drummer (Luis Illades) and a lead guitarist (first Patrick Goodwin, now Joel Reader).

1998's Absurd Pop Song Romance was a departure from their earlier work, a more serious album both lyrically and sonically. The follow-up album Total Entertainment! (for a new label, Alternative Tentacles) found a happy medium between the broad humor of the early records and the more mature approach of the previous album. In 2006, they released a 30-song career overview titled The Essential Pansy Division, including a DVD of videos and concert footage.

Pansy Division's most recent album, That's So Gay, is raucous and raunchy as well as being serious-minded. With some of their catchiest and most rocking songs ever, they're still loads of fun without being ironic or cynical. That's So Gay was released in 2009, as was a 7" single of "Average Men" containing a new non-album track (a cover of a Green Day's "Coming Clean").

A documentary film about the band, Pansy Division: Life In A Gay Rock Band, played film festivals throughout 2008, and came out on DVD (with a bonus live DVD) at the same time. The band's stories and experiences came to life in Jon's 2009 memoir Deflowered: My Life In Pansy Division.

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