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Beat Street

By Todd S. Inoue

Photo by Marc Geller

Flower Power: Pansy Division

Glad to be Gay:
Pansy Division pays taxes, and dues

Two years ago, Pansy Division was just another local punk-rock band with a queer-positive platform. Then a band called Green Day needed an opening act for its world tour, and the self-proclaimed "buttfuckers of rock & roll" were hitting arena stages across America, changing stereotypes that gay folk only listen to Liza or Barbra. "The Green Day tour was a really good experience," says guitarist and vocalist Jon Ginoli, calling from his home in San Francisco. "It paid dividends for us that we couldn't really imagine--it got us on MTV News, even though we don't have a video to show. Clubs who saw that segment are willing to book us. It helped to develop a lot more fans."

Now, with the Green Day tour a distant memory, Pansy Division is plugging away on its own tour, which pulls into downtown San Jose's Cactus Club on Friday. The band's new album, Wish I'd Taken Pictures, shows off its lean punk-pop stylings and pro-queer topics--all adorned with actual production values. "The title came about," Ginoli explains, "thinking about guys in my past that I wish I had pictures of. I thought they'd be around long enough that I wouldn't have to bemoan the fact I don't have a record of them. It became a good visual concept. The CD cover is a guy on a bed with a Polaroid camera, taking a picture of an unseen guy, whose feet you can see. It's sexy and cute, but chaste."

Pansy Division is openly gay and promotes gay love on songs like "Horny in the Morning" and "Dick of Death." Two troubling incidents recently caught the band's attention. In Columbia, S.C., a college station fired some of the DJs for playing Pansy Division's music; in Orange County, Christian Coalition activists shut down a show at Cal-State Fullerton. "I guess tax dollars going to homosexuals to play music is too much to bear," comments Ginoli mockingly, "because as you know, gays don't pay taxes, so therefore we shouldn't be the recipients of any money. If that were true, Pat Buchanan would be queer."

Singing openly and hormonally about sex has resulted in the group being unfairly painted as a gay Warrant, a criticism that Ginoli takes exception to. "Part of what people miss when they make that comparison is that we're not singing about coercive sex. We don't sing about people as sex objects. We're inserting us in the picture as sex objects. We're singing about sex as something we're going to be doing, not something I'm going to do to you."

Pansy Division's members don't trip when they step on stage and see both gay and straight folk mouthing the words to "Touch My Joe Camel." "We've always had a mixed crowd," Ginoli says. "Since the Green Day tour, it's been younger and straighter than we expected, because we had access to younger ears. Even though we set out to play music that gay people can appreciate, it feels good to nip homophobia in the bud by playing to teenagers who've probably never met any gay people in their life."

Cool as Ice

I give Coolio props for throwing up a West Coast "W" while gathering his American Music Award for best rap performance. His show at the Catalyst did little to back up the accolade, but he did some things I'd like to see more of at rap shows. It was nice to hear a rap show without a prerecorded vocal track (a la Public Enemy and 2 Live Crew). A free-style session--"I hit the mic like a joint then I pass it around"--produced both male and female participants who did a solid eight bars each.

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