No band has waved the rainbow flag more proudly than Pansy Division. From its origins and involvement in early-’90s Bay Area punk to becoming de facto leaders of the “homocore” movement, Jon Ginoli, Chris Freeman and a rotating cast of straight and gay drummers (the band is now rounded out by drummer Luis Illades and guitarist Joel Reader) never shied away from graphic depictions of queer, bi and questioning dudes getting sweaty with each other and a variety of apparati. But as acceptance of queer culture and community has grown and the band’s members find themselves in their 40s and 50s, the topics on new album Quite Contrary have also progressed. Pansy Division will be guest editing magnetmagazine.com all week. Read our new feature on them.
Ginoli: The last few years I have been amazed how the smallest bands, even those self-released or on no-budget labels, have made music videos. In pondering how to promote our new album, we realized we had to have some videos to unleash upon the world.
Our new album, Quite Contrary, our first in seven years, comes 20 years after our album Wish I’d Taken Pictures. Wish I’d Taken Pictures had a sexy album cover, featuring two cute guys not much younger than us (but definitely cuter than us) taking Polaroids of each other in bed. It occurred to me to get the same two models together 20 years later for our new cover. As it happens, we were able to get the same photographer, go back to the same location (his house), and photograph the same models in that setting. We even used the same pair of pajamas from the earlier shoot, which had also featured on an even earlier album featuring one of the same models.
We videotaped the photo shoot, thinking it would come in handy later, but not sure how. The new album cover was more intimate than sexy, more cute than horny. Reviewing the footage, I thought it would make a good video for our song “Love Came Along,” a song our bassist Chris Freeman wrote on his gay honeymoon. San Francisco filmmaker Dolan Chorng took the color palette of the room and put frames around the shots accordingly. It’s sweet and kind of goofy. Enjoy, and if you’re on the West Coast (we have already been East), come see us play this month!
11/4 (Fri.) San Diego CA – Soda Bar
11/5 (Sat.) Long Beach CA – Alex’s Bar
11/6 (Sun.) Palm Springs CA – Pride Festival (we play early, 1:00 PM)
11/9 (Wed.) Seattle WA – Funhouse
11/10 (Thur.) Portland OR – Dante’s
11/11 (Fri.) San Francisco CA – Bottom of the Hill
11/12 (Sat.) Los Angeles CA – Viper Room
