APRIL 2008 NEWS
So much to tell you!
FILM UPDATE
First off, our documentary had two sold out screenings in London, and according to eyewitness reports was very well received. Great start!
it has been accepted in the Philadelphia International Gay & Lesbian Film Festival (screening dates TBA) and San Francisco's Frameline festival on June 26 at 7PM at the Victoria Theater (on 16th Street @ Mission, across from the BART station). Tickets for the SF screening go on sale May 23. (Philly's website still has last year's festival schedule still up at the moment, though it should be updated very soon.)
The filmakers have made a website for the film: http://www.pansydivisionfilm.com.
You can watch the trailer for the film, plus see an outtake--the band performing "Twinkie Twinkie Little Star" in the studio!
The first chance to hear a song from our upcoming album!
The process of getting our film into festivals has been interesting. So far we're doing much better with gay festivals than general film fests. Completing the film took months of free labor from a number of talented people; the whole thing was done on a shoestring budget, though it looks very good. What's frustrating is how much it costs to enter some festivals. Most film festivals are community-based organizations themselves on low budgets, so we're sympathetic, especially it's so much easier to make a film than it used to be, and they're flooded with entries. That said, San Diego's Outfest charges $85 just to look at your fuckin' film! (They turned us down, too.) I'm sorry, but that is outrageous; films in these festivals do not get any income from the screenings, no payment or cut of the gate. Other culprits: $100 to enter a film in the Swansea, Wales festival? $65 to enter the Erie, Pennsylvania festival? (It only costs $28 to enter the Paris Gay Film Festival!) Erie is the PA equivalent of Peoria (one of my best friends lived in both towns), and while I'd love it if people there (or anywhere!) could view our film, we don't have that kind of money to throw at the literally hundreds of festivals out there. Sheesh!
Here is the promo poster for the film.
LIVE SHOW IN SAN FRANCISCO
We're playing The Eagle in SF on Thursday, June 26, as an after party for our film screening! Also playing: The Winsome Griffles (featuring Larry-Bob and Stark Raving Brad) and from L.A., our favorite gay country punk Glen Meadmore! Glen's been doing this as long as we have, you should really check him out.
OTHER VISUALS
In the process of doing our film, we have collected a number of performances and clips that didn't make the cut. We've been remiss getting these up on the website, but there is now a Pansy Division You Tube page and some of them are posted there. One of the more interesting clips is "Pansy Division on TV and in Film," a short compilation of our music being played or us being mentioned on famous shows. There are also clips of two more songs from the upcoming album that you can get a sneak peek at now: "20 Years of Cock" and "You'll See Them Again." Other performances come from various times in the band's history, including clips of "Flower," "Expiration Date," "The Story So Far," "Fluffy City," "Hippy Dude," and more. Check them out!
Other fun PD You Tube stuff:
• Pandas sing Pansy Division! They do "Luv Luv Luv"!
• An appealing "Luv Luv Luv" lip sync! Live intro w/Luis intro.
• A French band with an appealingly odd take on, yes, "Luv Luv Luv"!
There will more to come soon on our website's video page, including some stuff too racy for You Tube.
SHOW REVIEW
A belated review of our January show at The Eagle. The author and Jon used to do a DJ night back in SF in the earliest days of Pansy Division called Rock & Roll Queer Bar...which is the reason we did the song--as a theme song for our club. From the San Francisco Bay Times, 1/24/08.
By Don Baird
"Speaking of inspiration, the other night at the Eagle Tavern I had the extreme pleasure of catching a set by a band who has been on a similar crusade for as long as I have, and that band is Pansy Division. Replete with a new guitarist, Joel, the band played a set that was one of the most rocking and finest I’ve ever seen from them. It was pure ecstatic joy to watch this combo of excellent musicians really pound out a fucking smutty hilarious unhinged set, the most unhinged and punk rock I’ve ever seen from them. The crowd was absolutely riveted, and one could see that these fans in the crowd had come to know Pansy Division at different times and different places throughout their lives, and they had made a considerable impact on many. I heard more than a few snippets of stories about when and where they were when they first heard the band and how very much it changed their lives, be it in a small town in Kansas or a queer radio show or whatever. It put it all in perspective for me just what a truly important groundbreaking band they are and what a local treasure we have in Pansy Division. What’s more is they rocked my fucking world that night, jumping up and down in unison, laughing at their own ribald and hilarious pervy lyrics, just having a great time onstage. I’ll not soon forget what a great show it was, nor will I miss other shows in the future. Pansy Division rules, and this world is a far better place with them in it."
WE'RE FAMOUS
The Pansy Division band bank account is through Wells Fargo. Had it since 1995. A few years ago when they first offered online banking, they charged $9.95 a month, so I said no. It's free nowadays, so last month I finally called them to get it going. I got a very nice, but corporate sounding young woman on the phone, and gave her my information. When she asked the name of the business, and I told her Pansy Division, she said, "The band?" I laughed and said I was very surprised that anyone at Wells Fargo knew of PD. She said she "saw them at Gilman years ago." She did not break corporate stride to get more casual or personal than that, but that made my day.
SAN FRANCISCO AGAIN LEADS THE NATION
A group of people in San Francisco are currently gathering signatures to place a measure on the local ballot for the fall election. Their website, The Presidential Memorial Commission of San Francisco, aims to put the following statement up for a vote: "Should the City and County of San Francisco rename the Oceanside Wastewater Treatment Facility the George W. Bush Sewage Plant?" To sign up, volunteer, or learn more about the name change, visit Presidentialmemorial.org for more information.
Please note: This is NOT a hoax. If they can get 8000 or so signatures by the July deadline, it'll be on the ballot for real!
NO ON PROP. 98 / YES ON PROP. 99
Attention Californians: On a more serious note, there's ANOTHER primary June 4th, and it includes one of the most onerous, dangerous propositions we've faced in a while. Prop 98, in the name of eminent domain property rights, is a right-wing power grab that would among other things eliminate all rent control ordinances throughout the state, preventing progressive cities and towns from passing such laws forever. Prop 99 deals more fairly with the same issue without all the ugly baggage. If both propositions pass, 99 will undo 98 if it gets more votes. You can find more info here. Don't forget to vote...it's not too late to register! Please spread the word!
THE GROOVY 70s BASEMENT
I recently made a myspace page for my parents' basement. This basement was decorated during 1970 and early 1971 in Peoria, Illinois, in the house I grew up in, and where my parents still live. It was that period where '60s hippie and countercultural concepts had filtered down to people like my open-minded Republican mom. She picked out everything--wallpaper, furniture, light fixtures. Her decorator had a field day, because it was so far out. As a kid, I thought it was really cool, and so did my friends. My parents used to entertain a lot, and I had parties there in grade school and high school. It's also where I did my homework! It became outdated rather quickly, but except for the fabulous red shag carpet (later damaged and replaced) it has remained intact for almost 40 years.
Now it's a period piece, and if this basement was in Sherman Oaks or Brentwood it would probably be used for authentic location filming. (I had made a webpage for it a couple of years ago called The Mod Basement, but later I took higher quality photos, and besides there's already an online furniture store on myspace with that name.)
Check out the loads of photos, and enjoy your trip through The Groovy 70s Basement! --JON
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MARCH 2008 NEWS
Pansy Division film debut!
The documentary film on Pansy Division is about to make its debut! Pansy Division: Life In A Gay Rock Band will make its world premier at the London Lesbian & Gay Film Festival on April 7th and 8th. Get tickets and find out more here. Hopefully this is the just first of many such screenings!
Recording update
Jon & Chris completed overdubs on the 7 tracks begun last month, and also did some fun extras as well. Except for a few minor changes, we've got 11 songs done and ready to mix! That will come later this year, whenever everybody can reconvene in the Bay Area. We've still got to do a few more songs to complete the album, but we're REALLY happy with the way everything is sounding.
Jon's book
Jon has found a home for his Pansy Division memoir! Entitled Deflowered: My Life In Pansy Division, it will be released by San Francisco queer publisher Cleis Press. It's currently being revised, and will appear sometime in early 2009. Woo hoo!
Next gig!
We're playing a Gay Pride gig in one of our favorite cities!
Saturday, June 14, 2008
Austin, TX - Pride Texas Festival
@ Auditorium Shores, 1st & Riverside
(Opening for Me'Shell N'dgeocello)
Admission is $10, all ages admitted.
Luis' new business
Luis, now a Brooklyn resident, is co-owner of a new grocery/cafe next to McCarren Park, Urban Rustic. Its goal is to provide local and sustainably raised food, and since opening in December it's going gangbusters! Good review in theNew York Times and everything. If you're a New Yorker, check it out.
FEB. 2008 NEWS
With Luis and Joel in from the East Coast, we had four non-stop days of activity. We had great shows the 17th & 18th of January at The Eagle in SF and Gilman in Berkeley, plus rehearsals the same days, then two days of recording in the East Bay. We learned two songs well enough to play in public--Joel's song "Some Of My Best Friends" and Chris' song "That's So Gay."
In the studio, we recorded basic tracks for 7 songs, but none are complete--overdubs and vocals are to be done in March. We got a hell of a lot done in 4 exhausting days. Luis got sick the final day. But living so far apart, our time together is spent very efficiently once we convene. We'll need another session to do a couple more songs before the next album will be complete, but we're making excellent progress.
JON
ON THE BATCAST
Our label, Alternative Tentacles,
has a podcast they call the Batcast (because the label logo
features a bat).
Jon did one prior to the tour, which is now posted here. You can stream it or download it.
In this podcast, Jon plays and discusses his 10 favorite tracks
(of other bands' songs) from the history of the label, which
dates back to 1979.
Check out some great overlooked songs!
OCT 2007 TOUR BLOG
Jon's
Pansy Division tour blog!
We did a podcast. Now we're doing a tour blog for our myspace
page. Oh we are oh so 2007!
LOS ANGELES (10/11/07)
Last night was the first show of our tour opening for The
Avengers, at Spaceland, in the Silverlake section of Los Angeles.
We convened without much sleep. Luis & Joel, who play
in both The Avengers and PD, had a gig in SF the night before.
PD did not play that show because Chris couldn't make it up
from LA. So the joint tour began in LA, but the only time
we
were able to rehearse was today--the afternoon of the day
the tour started.
To mark the beginning of the tour, Luis got food poisoning
(he thinks from a blueberry muffin). To squeeze in our rehearsal,
The Avengers made a miserable overnight drive down to LA,
arriving 9 AM (during morning rush hour, ugh).
I'd rented a carin
San Francisco, getting up at 6:30, so I got 5 hours sleep.
They got about 3 hours of sleep. We
went to practice about 2, and through the songs fine, but
it was clearly a drag for Luis.
However, let's not underestimate the curative power of music.
Feeling slightly better by show time, Luis played both
sets with his two bands and did a great job. He said that
by the last 4 Avengers songs, he felt like he was in a dream,
floating above the stage, but did just fine.
We love Spaceland and played great. It helped that we knew
half the audience personally (or so it seemed!) —
a night of friends, ex-roommates, ex-lovers, and some of our
brand new close personal friends from myspace.
Despite lack of sleep, illness, and minimal rehearsal, we
pulled it off.
There are 7 people on the tour—Penelope & Greg (The
Avengers), me & Chris (PD), and Luis and Joel (both bands),
plus The Avengers have a friend of ours, Luke, as their driver
and merchandise guy. The five of them are in Joel's van;
Chris & I are in a rental car. This is the first PD tour
without a van; facing the prospect of no touring, three years
ago
we sold the one we'd had for a decade (it was rundown anyway).
It's good not having two vans in the days of record oil
prices; the cost of 30 miles per gallon versus 10-12 is immediately
apparent. But it makes things feel a lot different—more
comfy, actually! It's the nicest tour vehicle we've ever had.
It's possible only 'cause the bands are sharing equipment.
SAN DIEGO (9/12/07)
Alex showed up tonight. He was a go-go dancer for PD in our
first couple years of existence, was on the cover of our
first single, and posed nude for the cover of our first album.
He and I looked sort of alike back then—skinny and
long-haired—but he was cuter, and more of an exhibitionist,
so when he volunteered his nudity, he was in! Those of us
in the know (several of whom were present) agreed what a shame
it was that Alex's dick looked so small on the cover,
as it was a somewhat inaccurate depiction. It was great hanging
out with him. Check out some then and now Alex pix!
We've been playing the Casbah for over
a decade. Luis is from the San Diego area. Still, we've never
had more than an OK
draw here, and tonight was no exception. The Casbah has more
of a booze & tattoos clientele than we do, but as often
happens, we win people over. I noticed tonight that when Chris
did his costume change, before "James Bondage,"
that
more people paid closer attention. Since this is the first
tour we've done since '97 where we weren't the headliner,
a
smaller than usual percentage of the crowd is here to see
us.
After we played, a guy approached me at our merch booth, buying
a copy of Wish I'd Taken Pictures on LP. He's 25 now,
and wanted to replace a copy his mother had taken away from
him when he was 14. Seeing our album made her inquire
as to whether he was gay (he isn't), and she threw out nearly
entire his record collection (which she deemed incompatible
with their church-going lifestyle). He was excited to finally
see us and reclaim his LP.
We stayed at our long time friend Glenn's beautiful house
and had a big brunch (see attached pix).
CORONA, CA(9/13/07)
If you're looking for sex & drugs to go along with the
rock & roll on this blog, you should give up now. Example:
we got to town earlier than necessary, and what did we do?
We went to the library! It was across the street from the
venue, so we went to read and relax. Didn't get to do so for
long (they were closing), but with extra time, that was our
instinct.
It's Day 3 of the tour. Luis is feeling better, but Chris
has a sinus infection. He'd slept poorly, and was babying
himself to
make it through the show. On the plus side today: the club
had free wireless internet.
We played this venue 12 years ago, an old theater in the inland
empire, the sprawling, unhip, smoggy area to the east of
Los Angeles. Corona hugs the Riverside/Orange county lines;
of all the venues we've played, this is one we thought
wouldn't last, but it has survived, catering to underground
metal and a lot of kinda boneheaded hardcore punk. Not our
crowd. So we had some trepidation about the show.
The crowd was a little small—there was another bigger
punk show in the area. But the moshing mohawked kids got into
it.
Some were even fans there for us (as opposed for The Avengers),
and requested songs. A pleasant surprise. One of the
guys who seemed a bit too aggro bounded up onstage at one
point to kiss Chris on the cheek. Phew! There was one
skinhead type, but he lurked at the back without incident.
It was a night where you could play "spot the Pansy Division
fan"
with a fair degree of accuracy.
More pix:
Luke's cute shoes
Luis will sleep whenever and wherever he gets the chance.
So
do we!
TEMPE, AZ (10-14-07)
We didn't have high hopes for Phoenix on a Sunday night. We
were not surprised. Our club was in a strip mall,
one portion of a sports bar. This is what it looked like there
as the sun set over the parking lot.
But the club was nice, the promoters were nice. Were there
30 people there?
We were determined to show the people who bucked the stereotype
of Phoenix
--as an apathetic, culturally soulless place--the best time
we could. We laughed our way through the set,
and got an excellent response. We're about having a good time,
and we had one, dammit!
ALBUQUERQUE (10-15-07)
OK, Pansy Division is a punk band (among other things). But
we're music fans,
and like all kinds of stuff. However, we've noticed that more
of the crowd this
tour seems to be into punk as a lifestyle. This is kind of
weird to us--
it's not our lifestyle, just some music we like. People dress
up in punk band t-shirts
and accessorize in a way that is obviously "punk."
I'm glad they show up tho.
Bigger crowd tonight, pretty good for a Monday night in Albu.
A cool club
(here are myself and Luis posing in front).
FORT STOCKTON, TEXAS (10-16-07)
Day off! Long drive! Cheap-ish motel! Wireless internet access
so I could upload this blog!
$81.47 for four people, including tax. (Should have used Priceline).
AUSTIN TX 10-17
Best show
of the tour so far. We have always had great shows in Austin,
and this year was no exception!
It was a large, enthusiastic crowd, really getting into the
spirit of the show. We played well, and the response
was wonderful.
When in Corona the other day, Chris had bought a Bible (Southern
pronunciation: bobble)
at a 99¢ store, and had been waving it around on the
second verse of "I'm Gonna Be A Slut."
(Sample lyric: I used to be a Christian/I was shy and insecure/Then
I spread my legs and dumped the Lord/
And I know for sure." It's Chris' true story, too.) And
he tossed the bobble into the crowd, and they tore it to bits.
After the show had ended, there were still bits of bobble
pages strewn about the floor in front of the stage.
The club used the posters sent to promote the show to promote
certain PD songs.
OKLAHOMA
CITY 10-18
After Austin, OKC was bound to be a letdown. We arrived at
the club.
It looked as if they had begun renovating the club,
and then given up halfway through. What a wreck! The bathrooms,
we were told, had been
rated (by a blogger following some bands around to SXSW) the
worst in any club they'd seen. I've seen worse
(but I've seen a lot of clubs); at least the urinals worked.
Another sign
of trouble was the opening band's gear. Called Jucifer, they
are a male/female guitar/
drums duo with a HUGE set up—7000 watts of amplification,
about 7 feet high and 12 feel wide. It took up half the stage.
Luis saw
it and thought it wasn't real, like a stage set. So we weren't
terribly hopeful.
How wrong
we were. There was a fairly large turnout, and people expressed
a lot of gratitude
that we'd shown up in their town. We had played a couple of
shows in '95 and '96 at a Vets Hall in nearby Edmond
(infamously known for the first Postal Worker massacre back
in the '80s), and they seem to have made a mark;
the guy who promoted those shows was here tonight. We also
met a guy in pink camouflage who had been kicked
out of the Navy for being gay; we autographed a very skinny
guy's chest (see below). There was a record store next
door, and the straight guy who ran it was extremely knowledgeable
about queer '90s hardcore punk.
We played OK, but there was a group of slam dancers right
up front.
We appreciated their enthusiasm, they were harmless, but we
had to keep one eye on them
to make sure they didn't slam into us—so instead of
giving our all to the crowd, we had to hold back
a bit for our self-protection. I refuse to give up my front
teeth because someone likes to slam to our music.
It was heartening
to have a good response because I really didn't have a very
good impression of Oklahoma.
Year after year Oklahoma sends the most extreme right wing
nutjobs to Congress. I don't think the people at our show
were the ones to blame.
Penelope
of The Avengers is a vegetarian, and the Vietnamese restaurant
we went
to for dinner had great difficulty understanding this concept.
After asking if they had any vegetarian soups, they
recommended the beef soup. When another soup was recommended
as being veg, she asked if it contained chicken stock,
and they said yes. Good thing she wasn't vegan, that could
have been a bigger cultural barrier.
ST. LOUIS
10-19
So-so turnout,
OK show. Most notable: our opening act, Say Uncle, including
two pre-teen boys (and their uncle on bass).
They rocked, and the 11-year-old's voice was piercingly high.
They did "Sonic Reducer." Really pretty good!
Thanks to Priceline, we stayed in two $300 rooms at the downtown
Hilton for $45 each! Great view of the arch!
Our friend Boone showed up wearing a vintage 1996 PD shirt:
CHICAGO 10-20
Chicago has
been our consistently best city since our first tour in '93.
The place we played for years,
the Fireside Bowl, no longer has shows, so this tour we were
at a new venue, Reggie's Live, which opened just last month.
Very cool place, but it's South of the Loop, in an area not
known for nightlife. So although attendance was good, it wasn't
the home run past shows have been. What was cool about the
Fireside shows was the mixture of ages—each year we'd
get
40 and 50 year olds, plus a new crop of teens from the burbs.
This year, no kids, despite it being an all ages show. The
promoter said it's hard to get teens to go to anything besides
emo these days, so it might be that times have just changed—despite
the preponderance of young 'uns on our myspace page.
Chris and
I have been suffering from raw throats this week, but we sang
better tonight and performed well.
The venue had been converted from an old industrial building
(the basement was full of neat obsolete junk),
and in the middle of the stage was a manhole! I managed to
get a joke out of this. At the last 3 shows, the clubs sold
beer in
cans. I'm not used to this. Most music venues stopped doing
this years ago—too easy for them to be thrown.
CLEVELAND
10-21
Our first real bust of the tour. Cleveland's usually good
for us, but tonight's show coincided with Game 7 of the American
League Championship, Indians vs. Red Sox. Cleveland hadn't
had a winning team recently, so the whole city was watching
the game (it was on the TV in the club too). This killed our
draw. We had less than 40 paid. This was actually more then
Tempe, but the crowd was pretty dead. Kind of a drag.
The venue
was beautiful, a dancehall & tavern built in 1949, and
the club folks were really nice.
But we had circumstances we couldn't control. The Indians
ended up losing 11-2, and they turned the
game off before it was over. Bummer….
PHILADELPHIA 10-23
Tonight's good sized audience (especially for a Tuesday) seemed
to like PD and The Avengers equally well.
Some nights fewer folks are here for us, and some nights it
thins out during The Avengers' set.
Tonight, the crowd danced more than any other night so far,
and beamed smiles throughout the set. A very friendly crowd,
a wonderful vibe. The venue was the basement of the First
Unitarian Church, which was like playing in a high school
gym; people seemed at ease, moreso than a show in a rock club.
Very groovy. This ranks with Chicago and Austin
as one of our favorite nights of the tour.
BALTIMORE 10-24
The first week of the tour was good. The 2nd week was very
good. The 3rd week was fantastic!
Nothing but excellent shows, in Philly, Baltimore, Hoboken,
Boston, and two shows in NYC.
Baltimore
was next. It's pretty hit or miss here, but this was the best
response we've ever
had here. Not sure how big the crowd was, but the room was
pretty full, and the
response was tremendous. Lotsa gratitude that we even came
there, a number of
people telling us they'd been waiting years.
The club was new. It has two rooms--
one with a stage and bar, the other with sofas and art on
the walls (the art all
revolved around hamburgers, huh?).
The crowd in the gallery room:
The crowd later in the next room:
HOBOKEN, NJ 10-25
Maxwell's is a prestigious club, I'm always glad to play there.
However, Maxwell's audiences--
going back to 1985, when I first played there with my old
band--have always
been somewhat reserved, afraid to let go. We played great,
but got a somewhat
tepid response. But afterwards, we sold tons of merch and
received rather lavish
praise. I'm puzzled when people ask, "why didn't you
play an encore?" when they
didn't clap for one. What you give us in applause and cheering
definitely gets
reflected back in our performance. So that was a bit odd,
but it still felt like a
good night.
CAMBRIDGE, MA 10-26
Onwards to Boston (er, Cambridge). Within our band, we agree
that the best show we ever played—
or at least our favorite show ever—was here at the Middle
East in 1997, opening for our then-labelmates
The Donnas and The Mr. T Experience. The Middle East has two
levels, and since that show
we've played the smaller room upstairs. With The Avengers
along, we were back
in the bigger room, and whaddya know, this was probably the
best show of the
tour. There's nothing like a slew of crazed, screaming fans
right up front who
know all the words, egging us on to get the best performance
out of us. The
sound on stage, and out in the crowd, was PERFECT. Hearing
ourselves well on
stage is paramount, and tonight the monitors were flawless.
That little factor
really can give us extra confidence that is evident in our
playing.
Despite my best efforts to baby it, my voice kinda crapped
out last week,
so I've been avoiding high notes on some songs, and had been
skipping
the one song that really does my voice in, "Alpine Skiing,"
even though
it's one of our favorites. We hadn't played it since Austin,
but finally it was back tonight.
NEW YORK CITY 10-27
Our tours usually go in a circle. We start in SF, go around
the
country, and have our final show within somewhat reasonable
driving distance of
home. However, this tour began in LA and ended in New York.
Since NYC is
usually a peak of any tour, ending it here means an unusually
festive conclusion.
Since the clubs we played in the 90s in NYC, mainly Brownie's,
Squeezebox and
Coney Island High, are now closed, the Knitting Factory has
become our comfy
place to play. Despite being unable to soundcheck (The Avengers
arrived late),
sound was as excellent as it had been in Boston, top notch.
Playing the big room, where we first played ten years ago
(with Tribe 8, those were the days!),
we killed 'em. So many people we know showed up, and we made
so many new friends.
It's great being in New York, despite traffic difficulties.
It's so hard
to get around. We got lucky with parking this time, a big
relief. But tonight we
had two shows. We had a secret show, an after party gig at
The Cake Shop on
Ludlow Street. We couldn't advertise it as a gig (just a party),
as it conflicted with
the deal for our regular gig, but still had a wonderful, wild
crowd. The afterparty
was thrown by a floating club called QBR—Queers Beers
& Rears—and was
significantly gayer than the regular gig. It was the pre-Halloween
weekend, so
costumes abounded and made the night even more unhinged. (The
crush of
weekend revelers on the Lower East Side is already pretty
crazed, but add
Halloween to it, and it made New York feel all the more overpopulated
and
wonderfully out of control.)
By the second show my voice was raw—I felt like I was
singing in the voice of a
neighbor telling you to get the hell out of their yard—but
I induced some guys to get
undressed (the club's go-go boys had a head start in that
department),
and tossed my shirt and my fake feather boa into the crowd,
where they got snatched up.
Joel, our hetero guitarist, sang the lead vocal on "Dick
Of Death" (which he'd done
once before, ages ago, for laughs). His girlfriend was there,
and pretended to look confused.
People danced, the space was small and intimate, and it felt
very, very groovy.
One other thing. When we first put together Pansy Division,
we figured not many people would like us.
Back then, our ambition was to possibly make an album, and
if we were lucky,
maybe we could use our two-week vacations every year to tour
the handful of
big cities where the queers would "get it." It turned
out much better than that.
But tonight was the kind of show we hoped for back then—
16 years later. A club
where the usual gay norms don't apply. The DJ played The Wipers,
T. Rex, X-Ray
Spex, The Adverts, Bowie, and lots of other good stuff I can't
recall at the
moment. But it was truly an alternative, of people like us
self-selected out of the
mainstream. We didn't invent this scene, but hoped for it,
encouraged it, made it
more evident, fulfilled it (I hope). Not since we ended our
big tour with Green
Day—which incidentally, also ended in New York City,
at Madison Square Garden
—has the end of a tour felt so wonderful and satisfying.
Luis went home across the river to Brooklyn. Joel drove his
van back to Boston.
Chris flew home to LA. I'm driving the rental car back across
the country,
visiting a few people along the way. We started this thing
in 1991! We're not stars, we're
not wealthy, we just make a little bit of money from it every
once in a while.
Success is relative, but it all feels pretty darn great today.
UNRELATED:
If you want to waste some good time on the internet, try the
Wikipedia parody site Encyclopedia
Dramatica.
Some good things to look up would include, say, Larry Craig,
pedobear, and retards. This where you want to go for a healthy
dose of BAD TASTE! Lulz
July 23,
2007
There will be a Pansy
Division tour this fall! Omigod!
The Avengers have asked Pansy Division to open their fall
U.S. tour (Pansy Division members Luis Illades & Joel
Reader are also in The Avengers), from October 11 through
October 28, going from Southern California to the Northeast.
Dates are being lined up now...exact dates, cities, and venues
coming soon!
June 2007
News
News flash! Pansy
Division are playing San Francisco's Gay Pride event this
year!
It's Sunday, June 24, at 3:30 PM, on the main stage, on the
Civic Center Plaza by SF City Hall. Admission is free, but
at the entrances they ask for a optional donation (I think
it was $3 last time I went). A bargain in any case! Once we
find out about the full lineup, we'll post more info here.
ALSO:
We're on a
new CD comp that came out recently, a benefit punk CD called
Plea For Peace Volume 2, on Asian Man Records. Our
track is "Musclehead," a B-side from the Absurd
Pop Song Romance sessions. It's not a brand new song,
but an obscurity that we still love. Other bands on the comp
include Alkaline Trio, The Dwarves, Anti-Flag, The Queers,
Jawbreaker, NOFX, and Samiam, 52 songs total on 2 CDs. More
info at www.pleaforpeace.com, and you can order the CD from
www.asianmanrecords.com. It's only $6.00!
May
2007 News
In April we played
our first show in almost a year, and had our first recording
session in (gasp!) five years. We recorded four new songs!
These will be the starting point for our next album. I guess
that's news--there actually will BE another album! (Eventually.)
For the full story, read what Chris Freeman has written this
about it:
At the end of 2006,
PD had a band meeting where Luis announced that he was moving
to NYC. Now, I moved to LA, but have shown that I can easily
drive the 6 hours whenever necessary. Over the six years that
I've lived here, we've managed to do everything we set out
to accomplish. But NYC is not driving distance. Any kind of
future activity will require a flight. We got together for
a dinner to bid him farewell, and Jon mentioned that there
was some cash in the band account. We all voted to use the
money to record and have some fun in the studio.
Jon had a few songs and I didn't, so I wrote one quickly.
I came up to SF to work out initial arrangements with Jon
and we had one of the best times we'd had in years. We recorded
some stuff onto cassette and I took it home where I put down
drum loops, bass and rudimentary guitar parts. I came back
up again and we put down vocals and mixed it. The songs were:
"Twinkie Twinkie Little Star," "You'll See
Them Again," "What's In It For Me" (my contribution)
and "20 Years of Cock." I made CDs and mailed them
to Luis and Joel, both of whom were on tour at the time with
the Avengers and El Vez.
On April 7th, we got together at Secret Studios for a rehearsal.
We finished the arrangements in record time. I don't think
we've ever played together this effortlessly! The songs came
together so easily and we had a great time. We also played
through a proposed set list for an upcoming show with the
Avengers at the Cafe Du Nord. Four hours total.
On April 14th, we entered NuTone Studios (www.nu-tone-studios.com)
with engineer Willie Samuels. Luis and Joel's other band,
the Plus Ones, had already been recording there for a week,
so for the next two days we hijacked their time to record.
Also, a film crew came up to film us, so after we had settled
in, the crew set up and captured us tracking basics. After
that, Luis was interviewed by the crew as we set up to record
overdubs. The crew left in the afternoon and we finished at
about midnight.
At noon the next day, we went in to do vocals, keys, percussion
and finally mix. I got my parts completed just in time--I
had to drive back to LA by 4 to make it back in time to unpack,
unwind and get ready for the next week. The mixes were finished
and emailed to me that night and I am *so* happy with the
results. They came out far better than I expected due to the
nature of how quickly everything came together. Usually we
labor over things a bit more, but this had a real spontaneity
to it. Total time: 2 days @ 12 hours per day.
I believe that having Joel in the band has made a *huge* difference.
His guitar playing is a perfect fit for us.
We've now decided to record the rest of an album's worth of
material with Willie. His contribution needs to be acknowledged
here as well. He was so easygoing, got *amazing* sounds and
worked quickly. The combination was excellent.
Don't know when we'll be getting together again. Joel has
also announced that he's leaving SF behind for Boston to be
with his girlfriend, Ashley Moody. Everyone seems to be committed
to this though, so I better get busy and write more songs!
--Chris
March 2007
News
Coming up in April:
our first San Francisco show in over a year! We are playing
Saturday, April 21, at Cafe du Nord, 2170 Market Street. We
are opening for The Avengers; it's a 21+ show, $12; doors
at 8:30, first band at 9. The opening band will be Southern
Girls, a Cheap Trick cover band in drag featuring ex-Pansy
Patrick Goodwin. Luis & Joel, of course, will be doing
double duty playing that night with The Avengers as well as
PD. The opening band will be Southern Girls, a Cheap Trick
cover band in drag featuring ex-Pansy Patrick Goodwin...as
well as Joel & Luis! Three bands one bill, and they're
in all three! To buy advance tickets, go to www.cafedunord.com.
Also in April: our first recording session in almost five
years! We are going to record a handful of new songs, though
there's no clear plan for a future release. We hope to play
some of the new ones at the du Nord show.
The world premiere of the film 924 Gilman Street,
about the legendary Berkeley club, was Saturday, March 3.
We're listed as performing in the movie, but we're not sure
just what's in there! It showed as part of the Noise Pop festival,
which despite our noisy pop, we've never played, so I guess
this is the only way we'll ever sneak into their festival!
October 2006
News
We have just posted 3 mp3s on our our audio
page! One is totally unreleased, our cover of The Donnas'
"You Make Me Hot." Also posted is "I Can Make
You A Man," from the Rocky Horror Picture Show, which
had appeared on a Rocky Horror punk tribute album but has
not been available elsewhere. Lastly, "I Know Your Type"
had been on vinyl 45 but not available in the digital format.
Until now! Click on the AUDIO link on the right hand side
of this page to hear them.
These are the last of our unreleased
songs lingering in the archives, but we are hoping to record
some new material sometime in the new year.
ALSO: We would like to invite
our American fans to make sure to vote
in the November elections! The
prospects are looking good that Democrats can take over the
House, possibly the Senate, and push back Bush's dominance
over our Congress. But Republicans have a better get-out-the-vote
effort than the Dems, so we have to use more word of mouth
efforts...like this! Don't take victory for granted! Spread
the word, help make history November 7!
September 2006 News
Since our June show in Minneapolis
(a great time was had by all!), things have been pretty quiet
on the Pansy front. As Chris Freeman goes for his film degree,
working full time while a full time student, our activity
has been limited. However, half of our band. Luis Illades
and Joel Reader. are currently pulling double duty on tour:
as members of their band The Plus ones, and as the rhythm
section for original 70s punkers The Avengers. On tour now!
The my space
page for The Plus Ones is here.
The my space
page forThe Avengers is here.
(On their page you can hear their best song, "The American
In Me," written in 1978 but absolutely up to the minute
today. We're so glad they're back, they were so far ahead
of their time!)
While we're
on the subject, Pansy Division's my space page is here.
April 2006
News
Chris Freeman sometimes writes
for Frontiers, a gay magazine in Los Angeles. He
recently interviewed Chuck Panozzo, the bass player from 70s
band Styx, who just came out. It's a great article: read it
here.
March 2006
News
It took years,
but we've finally got our video page up and running! We've
posted three clips for your viewing pleasure: our classic
clip of Bill & Ted's Homosexual Adventure; live footage
of our cover of Judas Priest's "Breaking The law,"
joined on stage by Rob Halford; and an excerpt of "Groovy
Underwear" from our most recent show. You can either
download the clips or just click to watch them.
REVIEWS: For a bunch of reivews of the
new CD, go to our PRESS
page and follow the links.
News from February 2006
As many of you have heard, Willie Nelson has done a version
of the song "Cowboys Are Frequently Secretly Fond of
Each Other,"which appears on our third album, Pile
Up. We didn't write the song (it just seemed like it
was meant for us!); it was written in the early 80s by Texas-via-New
York singer-songwriter Ned Sublette, and it appeared only
on a compilation released in the mid 80s by Giorno Poetry
Systems (which I first heard when I checked out the LP from
the public library in Champaign, Illinois). We yanked it out
of obscurity when we recorded it in 1994.
I bought
Willie's version through iTunes, and it's pretty good. He
made a bunch of changes: he left out the whole second verse,
at the end of the third verse he says "Don't fuck
with the lady that's inside of each cowboy's head" (our
version says "mess" instead). And in the final chorus,
he does NOT sing the line "that's why they take speed,
and drive pickups and shoot their big guns." Instead,
he repeats the line about "what those saddles and boots
are about." Oh, near the end he adds the "inside
every lady there's a cowboy who wants to come out." Unfortunately,
he leaves out the final line of the song: "There's many
a cowboy who keeps quiet about things he's done." All
in all though, quite good. Go Willie!
We've
added our version of the song to our AUDIO page (click on
the menu on the right), so you can listen and download
if you like. We've also added our song "Your Loss,"
which until now had been available only on a vinyl single
(the Dirty Queers Don't Come Cheap split 45 with
Skinjobs, from 2004). It's an outtake from TOTAL ENTERTAINMENT!
________________________________
The CD compilation & DVD is here! It hit the stores January
24. Ordering instructions can be found on our
Merchandise page.
________________________________
Also, our friend Heather Whinna made a film about the Christian
rock scene called Why Should The Devil Have All The Good
Music? It's an interesting, well-made film, very fair
to its subject and not at all condescending. There are tons
of interviews with the musicians, as well as a few non-Christian
interviewees, including Pansy Division. We saw the film when
it played
a film festival in SF in 2005, and we loved it. It's being
released on DVD, and having a few screenings as well. Here's
the
info they sent us:
Hey friends, after all these years,
our movie is finally out on DVD!
Why Should The Devil Have All The Good Music? was
released January
10th, 2006. You'll be able to purchase it at all of your favorite
places to
spend money including websites like amazon.com or directly
from "us" at
www.blankstarefilms.com. We are always updating our web site
with more info at www.rightrightright.com.
News from
January 2006
New page on My Space
Some time last year Luis put up a band profile on My Space.
We have over 500 friends now! However, he put up a
personal page, so we couldn't upload our songs onto it. We've
now established a band page, and it's at http://www.myspace.com/47269675.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
For Your Information:
There is a now a band around called Panic Division. We've
gotten a few emails from people thinking it was us, but it's
some new emo/indie band. I listened to their CD (it was released
in the fall), it's kinda unmemorable; not awful, just forgettable.
I guess they haven't heard of us. (Maybe someone will let
them know!) They titled their album Versus, which was the
name of another indie band who put out a bunch of records
throughout the 90s. I'm guessing they're kind of young and
not too clued in on non-mainstream bands.
Larry-bob
sent this update (from a San Antonio weekly paper):
Naming your band is a perilous endeavor:
you want to moniker it with something memorable, catchy, that
speaks of what type of music it is without too fully giving
away your hand, whether giving birth to a heavy metal power
trio or small jazz combo. Wordplay and punnery have favorites
in the musical arena at least since the Beatles misspelled
an insect and gave it the kick step Ringo couldn't quite manage.
Thus San Antonio's Panic Division brings to mind the renowned
queercore unit Pansy Division, who conversely played off the
title of Hitler's brutal armored squads. Are the Panics punk
enough to bear the comparison? The "panic" might
just be over whether they aren't just too generic sounding
to handle a handle that might get the Pansies picked up instead
of them by listeners searching record store "pre-cutout"
bins for their debut Versus on Militia Records.
News from
November 2005
PANSY
DIVISION SHOWS & COMP RELEASE DATE!
The
compilation will be released January 24, 2006. Also, the DVD
will be all-region,
so it will play in any DVD player anywhere!
News from
September 2005
PANSY
DIVISION COMP NEARS COMPLETION!
Work
has picked up pace on The Essential Pansy Division, which
is now set for a January 2006
release date on Alternative Tentacles Records. It took a while
to get the DVD bonus disc
together, as we've never done one before, but it's now done,
and the CD has been mastered.
We're finishing up artwork, and it should be out at the beginning
of the new year. It includes songs
from all 6 of our Lookout Records albums, plus songs from
our most recent album for A.T.
Here's the track listing:
1 Who Treats You Right
2 Fem In A Black Leather jacket
3 Anthem
4 I'm Gonna Be A Slut
5 Horny In The Morning
6 Dick Of Death
7 Bad Boyfriend
8 The Summer You Let Your Hair Grow Out
9 Spiral
10 Denny (Naked)
11 Boyfriend Wanted
12 Luv Luv Luv
13 James Bondage
14 Vanilla
15 Alpine Skiing
16 Bunnies
17 Groovy Underwear
18 No Protection
19 Sweet Insecurity
20 Deep Water
21 You're Gonna Need Your Friends
22 The Best Revenge
23 Negative Queen (Stripped Bare)
24 Headbanger
25 Political Asshole
26 I Can't Sleep
27 I Really Wanted You
28 Cocksucker Club
29 Homo Christmas
30 He Whipped My Ass In Tennis (Then I Fucked His Ass In Bed)
The DVD track
listing:
Video Clips
1 Hippy Dude
2 Homo Christmas
3 Touch My Joe Camel
4 I Really Wanted You
5 Manada
6 Bad Boyfriend
7 Vicious Beauty
Live in Chicago
8 Fem In A Black Leather Jacket
9 The Cocksucker Club
10 Fuck Buddy
11 Versatile
Live on Italian TV
12 Bad Boyfriend
13 interview
14 You’re Gonna Need Your Friends
15 The Best Revenge
There were a couple
clips left off the video for various reasons that will be
available on the
website around the time of the release. We realize not everybody
will agree with our choices,
but it's a balanced selection of songs that have proven to
be popular live favorties over the last
decade plus. Even for us it was difficult to have personal
favorites not make the cut, but since we never actually had
any "hits," we
thought a 2-CD set would be excessive.
The booklet comes
with an essay and song-by-song, blow-by-blow comments for
each track.
GREAT ARTICLE ON LOOKOUT RECORDS
A fair and lengthy overview of the rise and fall of Lookout
Records was the cover story of the
East Bay Express on September 14, 2005. Jon is quoted quite
a bit. Here's the link:
http://www.eastbayexpress.com/news/kerplunk/Content?oid=289816
LUIS ON TOUR!
Pansy drummer Luis will be touring the USA (as of September
28) with The Plus Ones, who recently
released their second full-length CD (and the first with Luis
on drums). Those
of you who saw our
fall 2002 tour got to see them as our opening act (with Luis
doing double duty drumming for both
bands). Check their tour dates at plusones.com.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
News from
July 2005
Thanks to
everyone who came out to see us play live last month, all
of the shows (Flagstaff, San Jose, San Francisco, Houston)
were good for us. Playing the outdoor festival in Flagstaff,
it was raining lightly at the beginning of our set, but we
had to stop when it began to pour. I wished we could have
kept playing for the people who stayed dry crowding under
a huge pine tree, but we didn't want to get electrocuted.
Work on The Essential Pansy Division is coming along
slowly; we are preparing a DVD bonus disc of our video clips.
Hopefully we'll get it together before the end of the year.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
News from
April 2005
P.D. ON THE
O.C.
Well, they aired our song "At The Mall"on the March
10 episode. Did you hear it? It was on for a fair bit but
I almost missed it--they talked over most of it. Didn't expect
them to feature it, but it kinda slid right by...
PANSY
DIVISION BEST OF TO BE RELEASED in 2005!
For
years people have asked us which PD CD to buy, if they had
to buy just one. We have always had trouble
answering that one (how bout the new one? is usually our answer).
Now it'll be easy (or at least easier)--we're putting out
a 30-song retrospective CD later this year on Alternative
Tentacles. It will include songs from all 7 of our albums
and clock in at 79 minutes! More info as the year unfolds.
Oh yeah, it's called The Essential Pansy Division.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
News from
October 2004
SEATTLE
TRIP
On September 25th we traveled to Seattle to play a benefit
for No Vote Left Behind, a group investigating electronic
voting systems and how easily they may be hacked. A very important
issue! They’ve done great research, and have discovered
that having a paper copy of the ballot is imperative to prevent
voter fraud. An under reported issue, we’re glad to
help give it some publicity. www.novoteleftbehind.net
We played first out of 5 bands, the others being Kinski, The
Avengers (featuring our own Luis on drums--we shared), comedian
David Cross, and Mudhoney! It was a great night.
But there was some drama leading up to it. Patrick had been
slated to play the show, but had to drop out the week before
the show because of work obligations. When Patrick can’t
do shows, we have used our friend Bernard Yin, but this was
too last minute for him. So what to do? At Patrick’s
suggestion, Joel Reader (who plays bass in the Plus Ones and
The Avengers with Luis) stepped in with minimal practice and
learned half our set and did a super job!
But that was only half the show. We started with just Jon
and built up to the full band. Here’s how the set went:
1. TWINKIE TWINKIE LITTLE STAR (a new song Jon did solo).
Jon & Chris did the next 4 together:
2. COCKSUCKER CLUB
3. THE SUMMER YOU LET YOUR HAIR GROW OUT
4. POLITICAL ASSHOLE
5. SIDEWALK SALE
Luis joined us on bass for 6. LUV LUV LUV.
Then Luis moved to drums and Joel played lead guitar for the
rest of the set:
7. DICK OF DEATH 8. WHO TREATS YA RIGHT
9. HE WHIPPED MY ASS IN TENNIS 10. FEM IN A BLACK LEATHER
JACKET
11. ALPINE SKIING 12. I’M GONNA BE A SLUT
It was a short set cause we played first, but it was well-received.
Later in the evening, we gave a PD "For Those About To
Suck Cock" t-shirt to David Cross, who graciously accepted
the gift. Thanks David, you're great!
Alas, Patrick (who quit PD full time last year) can no longer
do shows, so Bernard is now officially the Pansy lead guitarist.
Alright Bernard! Patrick is still quite busy with his band
Dirty Power, and well as other local SF projects (including
the Cinnamon Girls, who play Neil Young songs in drag). He
also fills in for the Plus Ones, where he plays with Luis.
Complicated, isn’t it? Anyway, we wish Patrick good
luck with all of his projects.
And now a word from Bernard:
EL VEZ FOR PREZ NEWS FLASH - BERNARD
IS ON TOUR WITH EL VEZ
The man who helped with lead guitar duties in Pansy Division
over the last
year: Bernard continues to be the man in demand. He's now
out on the road
nationwide with El Vez on the politically charged El Vez for
Prez tour. We caught
the show recently in SF and recommend it for its entertainment
value and its
message. Some of you may recall that Chris Freeman did a Europe
tour with El Vez
some years back. Go to the official site for tour dates and
other goodies: http://www.elvez.net/
ADIOS LOOKOUT RECORDS
After 12 years of having records out on Lookout Records, we
recently severed our ties with the label. We did this for
a variety of reasons: unpaid royalty payments, letting titles
go out of print without telling us, and the aggravation of
having to pay for copies to resell at shows (though we weren’t
getting royalty money from them for the sales), among other
things led us to take our product and run. We had hoped it
would not have come to this, but time changes relationships,
and in this case it was not for the better. All of our albums,
CDs, and singles that had been in the Lookout catalog are
now out of print. The only way to get new copies now is to
order them through our website, though they may be available
more widely again at a later date.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
News
from July 2004
THE NEW PANSY
DIVISION 45 IS FINALLY HERE!
A new 7” 45, a vinyl-only release with 2 new Pansy Division
songs not available elsewhere! Our first single in 6 years!
We hoped it would be out by spring, but here it is, a summer
release.
The songs are “Your Loss,” a serio-comic tale
of frustration sung by Jon and featuring great guitar work
by Patrick, and “I Know Your Type,” a bouncy power
pop song sung by Chris. The 45 is a split single with queer
Vancouver band Skinjobs, with 2 of their songs (“Weird”
and “Recruiting (death disco mix)”) on the other
side. Both of the PD songs were recorded during the sessions
for Total Entertainment CD, but for various reasons did not
end up on the album. Here they are now for you!
The cover is a parody of AC/DC’s “Dirty Deeds”
put together by Kim Kinakin of Skinjobs, who in real life
is a graphic artist! This is the second time we’ve parodied
an AC/DC sleeve, but we couldn’t resist. Released on
Mint Records in Vancouver BC, Canada, it’s limited to
1000 copies, which are individually numbered.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
TEN YEARS AGO! OUR TOUR WITH GREEN DAY!
(Part 2: The Arena Tour)
It was 10 years ago, 1994, that Pansy Division got the biggest
break of our career when we opened a tour for Green Day. We
made 3 trips with them during the second half of ’94
(we had 3 different drummers, one for each leg of the tour!).
To commemorate this anniversary, we bring you a rather lengthy
excerpt from Jon’s 1994 tour diary. It was our first
brush with mainstream audiences, and was a major turning point
in our personal and professional lives. Check it out!
JON'S TOUR DIARY from NOVEMBER/DECEMBER
1994-- GREEN DAY/PANSY DIVISION FALL TOUR
(Band lineup at that time: Chris, Jon, and with David Ward
on drums for the California shows [the 2nd tour leg], Danny
Sullivan [aka Danny Panic] for the rest)
We pulled
our van off I-5, Rosecrans Avenue exit. We headed to the right,
towards the ocean. There it was, looming ahead. A huge expanse
of pavement, and in the center, a large, tall, round cement
structure. On it was a large sign in flashing lights--SAN
DIEGO SPORTS ARENA PRESENTS GREEN DAY! PANSY DIVISION! TONIGHT!
SOLD OUT!
How the fuck did this happen to us??? A mere year before,
in October 1993, we undertook our first tentative steps into
the world of touring. Now, a year later, on Halloween, we
were about to play for over 11,000 people in a huge arena,
a sports arena fer chrissakes, a temple to the kinds of activities
I'd spent my youth trying to avoid. A bunch of fags singing
about cocksucking. Were we about to be fed to the lions?
We greeted Green Day, our first chance to see them since the
show with them in Philly nearly three months earlier. Things
had changed for them. The Dookie album had gone through the
roof--it had now sold 3 or 4 million. A year before they were
a word of mouth cult band on a small label, and by fortunate
timing and a great album, here they were at the top of the
mainstream music scene. And they hadn't changed their sound
or lyrics! They had quite suddenly catapulted to the top,
and they were dragging us along with them. Every venue we
had played with them on the summer tour was too small and
sold out. Now they'd made the leap to the big time, but even
an arena couldn't hold all the people wanting to see them.
They'd gone from traveling in their modest Bookmobile to a
big ass tour bus with bathrooms and 12 sleeping berths. They'd
been to Europe in the meantime, but this was the first big
arena show they'd played.
Before the show, I asked Tre if he was nervous. "Fuck
yeah!" he exclaimed. I wasn't nervous in the sense of
being scared. I was nervous in the sense of being agitated
and excited. We now had our own dressing room. It had food
and drinks in it. We had to park our van inside the building
to avoid the massing Green Day fans.
We did a sound check. The place was so big, could enough people
possibly show up to fill it? The stage was enormous, more
room than we'd ever had before to move around. Barriers created
space between the stage and the crowd; that distance was where
the crowd usually was at our gigs. Our friend Matt, of Outpunk
Records, travelled with us for the SoCal shows; before we
went on, we played his label sampler, Outpunk Dance Party,
over the PA system, and it was strange and thrilling knowing
that thousands of kids were waiting for Green Day listening
to this. Finally, it was time for us to play.
The lights went down. Huge cheers from the audience. We walked
on the stage, the lights came on. "Hi, we're Pansy Division
from San Francisco." Quieter, some cheers, a few boos.
We began our set. Mobs of young guys right down front were
flipping us off. We hammed it up right away. Chris was shaking
his ass, saying "We're big fags from San Francisco!"
Pandemonium. There was WAY much too much going on at one time
to see it all from the stage. I wished I could be floating
above it all taking everything in, but I had to concentrate
on performing. People were giving us the finger and throwing
objects at us from the left. Up right and center was a group
of girls slamming together, getting into it. A small number
of fans were cheering us on up over there, surrounded by a
mob of middle fingers down over here. Activity was happening
whether songs were going on or not. Some people were moshing,
but they were moshing before the band even started. Mostly,
we were just IN THE WAY, an inconvenience before Green Day
came on. Being perched at the mic a majority of the time,
I couldn't see most of what was taking place on the huge stage;
I had no idea what was happening to David and Chris at any
given moment.
But hey, we did it! We made them sit through us, made them
have to deal with us. Maybe it made some people think, and
maybe that's what kids would be talking about the next day
at school. It's cool to ponder that kind of impact. I felt
like it took a lot of guts to walk out there, but I couldn't
decide if it was a failure or a triumph. But even though the
crowd was ten times as large as any we'd played to on the
summer Green Day tour, we sold a mere $164 of merchandise,
and that's at inflated prices (the arenas usually take 15-20%
of the proceeds, so bands have to jack up the prices). That's
about what we'd sold at a GD show with 800 people, not 11,000.
So the crowd was not digging us. It meant also we weren't
getting through; you have to learn to work a crowd when you
are playing in front of people that far away from you, and
we didn't do it. Green Day, who already had cartoonish, larger
than life stage personas, made the adjustment well. It could
have gone much worse, so that was some consolation, and it
was a rush, a real thrill to play in one night to more people
than we'd played to on our own just-completed month-long Canadian/U.S.
tour. We walked around the arena during Green Day's set, but
just a little, cause we were afraid we'd get beaten up. (One
odd note: the concert promoter was gay, and he sought us out
afterwards to buy $80 of merchandise for himself.)
The next show was in Los Angeles at The Palladium, a much
smaller (3000+) venue. The audience tension during our set
was more palpable. In the middle of one song, I got hit in
the chest with a full Big Gulp size cup of ice water. Pelted
with coins, at one point I turned to David Ward mid-song to
see a trickle of blood dripping down from the middle of his
forehead. He'd been hit with a quarter square on, but didn't
know he was bleeding. Coins made big dents on my guitar. But
we were defiant, Chris even more in-your-face than before,
and it was exhilarating. After watching Green Day's set from
the side of the stage, I walked out to where the T-shirts
were being sold, and as the crowd dwindled, I saw a father
buying his 15 or 16-year-old son a Pansy Division shirt. It
was satisfying, after all that grief from the crowd, to see
we'd gotten through to that one in a hundred.
After a couple of shows on our own, we returned to San Francisco,
where we were joined by drummer Danny Panic, who would play
the next leg of the tour with us. The drummer for Ramones-inspired
(that's being kind) Chicago band Screeching Weasel, Danny
was a big fan of ours, and we'd talked to him about touring
with us. He'd agreed, but had commitments that prevented him
from doing the San Diego/LA shows. He flew out to SF, and
began rehearsals with us as soon as we got home; we had a
week before meeting up with Green Day again to teach him our
set and get him integrated into our band.
Two days before we left, Hole played at The Fillmore in SF,
and we went. Chris brought a Deflowered CD with him, and was
able to give it to Courtney as she walked off stage. She saw
it, grabbed it, and when she recognized it, held it to her
chest and said, "Kurt really loved your band, thank you
so much." WOW! I was very happy and very sad at the same
time. Though you never know whether to totally believe Courtney
Love, a year later I saw an interview Kurt had done with gay
British journalist Jon Savage where he said nice things about
us.
The Denver show was a great start. This time, working in a
drummer on short notice paid off--Danny was great. The first
real rocker drummer we'd had, Danny was a pro, and we soared.
We were finally getting up the sound we'd been working towards.
It was great fun, and well received. I recall a few homophobic
guys lurking around our merchandise table that night, trying
to cause trouble, but there were a lot of girls around to
defend us, telling them to fuck off. Chris was now introducing
"Reciprocate" every night with the same spiel, which
always won the girls over to our side. "This next song
is about how all guys can be assholes!" Deafening high-pitched
roar. "Yeah, we know, cause we have to date them too.
So you're having sex with them, and you're in bed with them,
all they want is to get off, and they do, and then they're
TOO TIRED. And you're sitting there going, ahem, what about
ME?" Huge roar! "To all those selfish guys we say:
GO DOWN OR GO HOME! And learn how to RECIPROCATE!"
Our second show was in Wichita, but before we could get there,
disaster struck. This was the first day our van, which we
had bought in April, had been in cold weather (it had snowed
in Denver). About an hour east of Denver, I noticed white
smoke from our tailpipe. I checked the temp gauge, but it
was normal. I figured it was condensation from the cold temperatures.
But it got worse. Gauge was the same. I was getting concerned,
then suddenly a cloud of smoke burst from our engine. We were
9 miles from the previous city, Limon, so we tried slowly
crawling back there. Bad move. The van died, we got towed
in, and were told our engine block was cracked and melted.
We couldn't go on, and we couldn't get it fixed quickly. We
missed the show. So the next morning, we rented a U-Haul truck,
crowded the 3 of us into the front bench seat, and drove to
Kansas City, getting there right at show time. We left our
van to be repaired, and would pick it up on the way home.
So there we were, second day of the tour, in a crowded vehicle,
no padlocks, no loft bed, all comforts and conveniences gone.
Gulp! Welcome to Pansy Division, Danny!
Next was Chicago. We had to drive overnight after the KC show
to get there. Now that Green Day had a tour bus, their driver
would whisk them overnight to the next city as they slept.
We had no such luxury, and we were uncomfortable and exhausted.
Without being able to sleep in our vehicle, we'd be miserable
for the next three weeks. So when we got to Chicago about
11AM, I called around, rented a minivan, and Green Day agreed
to help cart some of our gear around. It was still cramped,
but more civilized.
The Chicago show at the Aragon Ballroom was a landmark show
for me personally. Being from Illinois, I'd seen many concerts
there, including The Jam, Patti Smith, and The Clash (with
The Undertones!). It was a dream during The Outnumbered days
to play such a big place, but we never came close. But now
here I was! Danny being from the Chicago burbs, his friends
and relatives turned out. Being able to get a bunch of my
friends backstage helped make it a magical night.
MTV was on hand to film Green Day. Thanks to them, there was
abundant food and drink, which we were ravenous for after
hardly eating the day before and driving all night. Because
they were filming, the lights were kept on during the show,
so we could see the entire crowd (4500 people). They filmed
a few songs of ours, as a test run. It was hard to read the
audience, to tell if they liked it or not, or if they could
hear the words. They just kept moshing. Perhaps the lights
prevented a more negative reaction; there was a big cheer
when we announced that it was our last song. But we hung out
by the merchandise table, sold lots of stuff (it had picked
up considerably since the first night in San Diego, a good
barometer of our adapting to the situation) and signed lots
of autographs, and were thanked profusely for just being there.
Yeah!
Now that some fans had heard of us and recognized us, we got
approached by teenage girls desperate to meet Green Day. Typical
was the girl who pleaded, "I know Billie Joe would like
me if he could only meet me." We were venturing out into
the venues more often; there isn't much to do backstage, and
hanging around isn't too thrilling after you've done it a
few times. At our own shows we can interact with fans, and
we were missing that. Also, because we were so far away from
a lot of the crowd, they couldn't make out our faces to recognize
us anyway! In St. Paul, we got spotted in a hallway, asked
for our autographs, which then drew a swarm of people. It's
a bit scary. One kid, who looked to be 8 or 9, meekly asked,
"Are you really gay?" I replied in the affirmative.
"Wow!" he said, "That's so cool!"
Danny's mild case of bronchitis had worsened, and the 7-hour
drive from Chicago in his chain-smoking, soon to be ex-girlfriend's
car (how thoughtful) contributed heavily. But Green Day are
major potheads (well, so is Chris), and they tried to make
Danny feel better by giving him pot cookies a fan had brought.
Except they didn't tell him they were pot cookies. Then Tre
offered him some rocky road ice cream. With hash in it. Immobile
to the point of paralysis, Danny slept on the Green Day bus,
riding with them to Milwaukee. After a fitful sleep, he looked
in the mirror to find he had been garishly made up overnight.
At least the lipstick was an appealing shade.
After another good time in Milwaukee--we were getting the
hang of the arena thing, and Danny, despite his illness, was
in top form--Green Day took six days off for Thanksgiving,
and we headed out for 3 club shows of our own. In between,
Danny visited his folks for the holiday, and Chris and I drove
160 miles to Peoria to stay with my parents.
To play our own shows, we had to cram all our stuff into our
minivan, cause Green Day weren't there for the overflow. The
contrast between 100 fans and 10,000 was almost surreal. We
played in Cincinnati at Sudsy's, a bar/laundromat. We didn't
have much laundry to do, we'd just done it two days before,
so we brought just a few things in to wash while we did our
sound check. After sound check, I went out to the minivan,
parked behind the club, and found the door open--and the passenger
window smashed. Stolen were all our personal belongings--our
bags and suitcases--and all our extra merchandise, boxes of
CDs and T-shirts. Oh, if we'd only had our padlocked van here!
At a time when things were going so right for us as a whole,
so many things on a day to day level were going badly. Then,
we had to play a show. It wasn't the most fun we've ever had.
It was such a what the fuck mood we even played "Smells
Like Queer Spirit," the last time to date we've performed
it. We hadn't even rehearsed it with Danny. We each had a
day or two's clothes; I had one pair of underwear. Then we
got back to the Green Day tour, and had no time to shop for
clothes. Green Day gave us some clothing (people were showering
them with all kinds of gifts), but I wasn't able to buy underwear
till we got to Toronto, where a Much Music TV crew interviewed
us while I made my purchase. But that's skipping ahead a bit.
First up was our show at Cobo Hall in Detroit, another huge
arena, 12,500+ sold out seats. I walked around the upper reaches
of the arena prior to our set, and talked to some kids holding
up a big Pansy Division banner--cool! As a Kiss fanatic, Chris
was especially stoked to play the place where Kiss Alive had
been recorded. However, we were not accorded the same rapturous
reception as Kiss. We wondered if and when we would encounter
a hostile crowd, and it finally happened. It was bad from
the first song; the audience rained shoes, lighters, and coins
on us. They were negative and loud. A larger percentage of
the audience hated it more than anywhere we'd been; there
was constant booing and chanting. I could see very few people
applauding, and those people were getting hell from those
around them. Our usual tactics, which included enlisting the
girls, weren't enough that night. Why that night? Why that
city? All I could think of was this was the state whose homegrown
legends like Iggy Pop and the MC5 were obscure and overlooked
whilst Ted Nugent and Bob Seger were stars. Was Michigan really
more redneck than elsewhere? The three of us scooped $40 in
coins off the stage. Though the crowd was unrelentingly negative,
we didn't cut our set. If they chose to make us suffer, we'd
have to return the favor. Oddly enough, we sold over $1000
in merchandise, a tour high, but we couldn't see the support
from the stage.
Green Day's tour manager had warned us of trouble looming
at an upcoming show in Fairfax, Virginia, a conservative Republican
suburb outside Washington, D.C. The gig was at the Patriot
Center at George Mason University. George Mason refused to
sign the Declaration of Independence because it didn't guarantee
enough rights and freedoms. (Were he still alive he'd be cast
out of today's Virginia; although its state slogan is "Virginia
Is For Lovers," at that time Virginia had a sodomy law.)
The promoter told Green Day in advance that they wouldn't
allow us to play, that we weren't appropriate; Green Day's
response to the promoter was that if we didn't play, they
wouldn't play. Now that's what friends are for.
The promoter backed down, but when we arrived, he pulled me
aside for a lecture. In a friendly but stern way, he said
our material was too mature for Green Day's young audiences.
He said that there would be 8 to12 year olds in the crowd.
I asked why he was worried about our lyrics and not Green
Day's, which also have some references that might not be suitable.
And who were these kids anyway? What parents were letting
their kids go to concerts so young? I told him, if they're
that young, much of what we sing about is going to go right
over their heads, they won't get it. But they'll know they
saw a gay band, and it will get them talking, one way or the
other. To us that would be a victory, meaning we've infiltrated
Pat Robertson country. This guy kept saying things like he
had a lesbian sister, that he was for gay rights, but not
in these circumstances. He said he was dreading the day-after
phone calls from parents. I told him I had the right to sing
about it, kids had the right not to be censored, and what
we sang about was part of the world we live in. Virginia was
a sodomy law state, the discrimination was written into state
law. To counter years of hetero propaganda these kids had
heard and would continue to hear, a few bad words and risque
songs wouldn't do them any harm. This discussion went in circles
for fifteen minutes, until I finally told him it was a waste
of my time. When we played, the reception was mixed but more
supportive than I'd feared; it was the only show we played
with Green Day in the South.
We were adjusting to the big stages, and in the week following
Detroit we went over better. I remember Chris admonishing
some hecklers in front of the stage at length in Philly, and
telling him not to bother, that 98% of the 9000+ people there
couldn't see what the hell was going on up front anyway. We
received a friendly reception in Canada (our fourth trip there
in one year, with four different drummers!), playing in Toronto
and Verdun, outside Montreal, in a hockey arena where they
put rubber mats over the ice and the crowd and stage on top
of it. Afterwards, we picked Canadian coins out of the ice
in holes of the rubber mats!
On Friday, December 2, we got to New York. We played Nassau
Coliseum, in the burbs on Long Island, 14,500 seats, sold
out, our biggest arena yet. Walking around backstage, some
of which was dimly lit, we thought we saw Joey Ramone, and
went up to say hello, but it turned out to be Howard Stern.
Which wasn't as exciting, but he was nice and mentioned us
favorably on his next show. What really blew us away with
show was the thrilling reception. When they announced our
name as we walked on stage, there was a huge cheer! We looked
at each other in amazement. We then proceeded to play one
of the best shows of the tour, with loud applause after each
song. Though we had hecklers, the whole thing was enthusiastically
received. Afterwards we were glowing, the best reception yet.
Later that night, we had an after hours gig at Squeezebox
in Manhattan, our second this year, and were interviewed on
the way there by a writer from the Village Voice. At the club,
I announced that we had just come from playing in front of
our 10,000 teenagers (which caused someone to yell, "Did
you bring any of them with you?") and now we're here
to play for the fags. By the end of the night we were exhausted
but about as satisfied as we'd ever been. We conquered the
mainstream audience and underground too. We were having it
both ways. This was as good as it gets.
The next day was Saturday, and Green Day played on Saturday
Night Live. We accompanied them, and got to hang out and witness
all sorts of luminaries. Record company folks backstage included
Ahmet Ertegun from WEA, and Tim Armstrong from Rancid, accompanied
by a spiky green haired rep from Epic Records who was attempting
to sign him. Roseanne was the host, and she had some of the
strongest pot any of us had ever had; even veteran pot smokers
like Green Day and Mr. Chris Freeman agreed this was lethal
shit. After smoking up a storm, she went out there without
any trace of redness around her eyes, and did the show. Mike
asked me for a Pansy Division shirt to wear on stage. We just
sat in the Green Room and watched most of it on monitors;
we weren't allowed into the audience area, though we could
wander around backstage (which was surprisingly small and
cramped).
Afterwards, we were invited to the post-SNL dinner/hangout.
Green Day were taken there in a limo (which they seemed a
bit amazed at), which we also tried cramming into, but there
were other people along and there wasn't enough room. We thought
we'd missed our chance to hang out with the stars, but then
another limo glided up, we got in, and were driven about 10
blocks to Planet Hollywood. We sat there with Roseanne and
Chris Elliott and Rancid and Green Day thinking we'd better
enjoy this cause it wasn't gonna last! The stroke of midnight
meant it was December 4, my birthday, and Chris & some
of the Green Dayers got me a birthday cake. It took a while
to arrive, they told me later, which was a shame, because
they had arranged to have Roseanne sing me Happy Birthday!
But she didn't stick around long enough, the cake arriving
after she'd left. Damn! But it was a great birthday, maybe
my greatest birthday ever. It was my 35th, and if you'd asked
me eight months before if I saw it coming, I'd have said No
Fucking Way! It made me feel SOOOO good that I had stuck to
my own ways and followed my own impulses to get to this point. |
