Sunday, June 27, 1999 | 4:30 a.m.
First published September 9, 1998.
Think you know Pansy Division? If you know the name and vaguely associate it with a gay punk rock band, you've barely scratched the surface. The group's latest CD on Lookout Records, "Absurd Pop Song Romance" commands a second listen.
Who's On First
The band's lineup has changed dramatically. Lead-singer/guitarist Jon Ginoli and bassist Chris Freeman have been the core of the band since 1992. Ginoli proves to be an eloquent spokesperson, as he describes their ordeal: "The drummer hunt took five years, and in the meantime we used whomever we could."
The quest for a permanent drummer ended when they met Luis Illades, who interviewed them for an article.
"I noticed he had a drum kit," says Ginoli. "At the time we weren't getting along with our drummer, and I made a mental note in case we ever needed a drummer. Gay drummers were hard to come by."
Ginoli's commitment to remaining an all-gay band lengthened the band's search for the right drummer. "We found Luis, and that made us complete as a three piece. It was Luis who said 'you know, I think we should get a second guitar player.'"
Luckily, Ginoli made a point of remembering other gay musicians. "I made those mental notes because it was so hard finding gay band members who were into rock that I thought we are a finite number; we had better stay in touch with each other." Guitarist Patrick Goodwin was the product of just such a mental note.
The new four-piece Pansy Division is such a departure that Ginoli can't help but brag a little. "I've played things for a few people and said 'listen to this, what do you think?' And they had no idea it was us, you know, friends of mine. "It's great to put on a song like 'Vicious Beauty,' and it's like, 'That's not Pansy Division; it sounds like Helmet or something.'"
It's not just a question of depth of sound; the new album reveals more depth lyrically as well. "I think the evolution of the band has made it so that it's our second career. It has a connection to the old band; we do some of those old songs. We're not going to be as constantly direct anymore, and I think it's improved the lyrics. We've changed in a way that is more subtle."
That's right, more subtle than "Nine Inch Males" and "Jack U Off."
"We're actually fairly romantic people anyway, and singing about sex all the time was really not our personalities to the degree that people might think." With a permanent drummer, Pansy Division could make a more ambitious album. The material is crafted to fit together as a whole, rather than as a loose collection of songs.
"When we had this stuff ready that's when we thought we could take it to Steve Albini," says Ginoli.
The CD was engineered by the notoriously particular Albini at his studio in Chicago. But Albini is only one small factor in the new sound.
"When the band began, the words were very blunt, very direct, and the music was also that way," says Ginoli. "The music was very simple. We didn't want clutter in the way. Basic direct music and basic direct lyrics. Now it's a little more mysterious. As the band evolved musically, it opened up more doors."
Gay Luv
And as the times have changed, what the band has to say about being gay has evolved. Back in the pre-Ellen days, when Pansy Division released their first single, "Smells Like Queer Spirit," in 1992, an openly gay band singing about gay sex was original and daring. Now they can take a more subtle approach. A sample of the lyrics from "Luv Luv Luv" may best illustrate the change. "People talk about luv luv luv luv luv, and it sounds like blah blah blah blah blah, 'cause they really mean sex sex sex sex; people just want to connect."
It's classic Pansy Division, funny and playful, but with a welcome new complexity.
"The new album is darker in some places; it's heavier," Ginoli explains. "It's less happy in some ways. That one ("Luv Luv Luv") has a real nice shiny sweet covering, but you bite off the outside and it's a bitter inside. It's such a fun song to play. That's the song that a number of people have been waiting for us to record. We've been playing that for a year and a half. It was the first song that we came up with after Luis joined the band. So we were playing on the first tour with him. It's so catchy that people were requesting it, and we never recorded it. So that's when you know you have a good song."
And it's a good band that can build a strong fan base on live shows. Part of their appeal is that they seem to enjoy themselves.
"We do have a lot of fun on stage. I think it's one of the things that's carried our band; that we've always done good live shows. A band can go out and tour, but it won't really help that much if people aren't impressed with your live show. But we've always done well that way."
As a result, they claim Pansy Division fans run the spectrum of orientations. "That's one of the surprising things about our band, from what I expected to get out of it. I figured that a lot of our crowd would be disaffected gay men, tired of the disco scene. It turns out that a lot of our audience is female and a lot of our audience is straight, and straight female.
"What I found is that the fact that we're open and frank about sexuality is appealing to a lot of people, and as far as girls go, we're sexual beings without being threatening boys, creepy boys. When we toured with Green Day, this is back four years ago, when we were doing this, they had such a young following, predominantly female, you know the girls loved us, and the boys hated us. The boys were like, 'God, I don't want to hear about that.'"
Of course, lots of boys do want to hear about that. Which leads to the question of groupies.
Ginoli laughs and answers without hesitation, "Oh, groupies. There aren't enough of them." But then he elaborates: "It's weird. It's not like one of our goals was to find groupies, but on the other hand, as a group of queer guys liking rock music and feeling alienated by certain aspects of gay culture, to meet people whom you can relate to in a certain way is really cool. And the fact that they come out of the woodwork in certain cities can be very nice. But the experience of touring is also very tiring, so it's not like we're just jumping into bed all the time."
Not-So-Funny Men
They're fun, and certainly funny, but that image has limitations, as Ginoli explains, "I think one of the reasons we changed is 'cause we were tired of the perception that 'Okay, Pansy Division, they're funny.' And even though I think that humor is a really effective way of communicating ideas, people tend not to take you seriously if you're funny.
"I think we wanted to be taken more seriously because we think that what we do has more importance than just some laughs. The new record has some serious songs. The band has evolved so that we write good enough songs so that we can get by without needing to fall back on humor."
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