Pansy Division
More Lovin' From Our Oven
[Lookout!]
Rating: 6.5
I used to hate Valentine's Day. (Come to think of it, I still do.)
Boyfriendless throughout my adolescent years, I used to beg my mother to let
me stay home from school every February 14-- a holiday I perceived as a
well- orchestrated ploy to make me miserable. As I approached legal drinking
age, I devised a coping strategy and began cramming as many friends and
co-workers as possible into my tiny apartment for anti- Valentine's Day
parties. We'd stay up drinkin' and druggin' until 4:00 a.m., then wake up
for work four hours later. A jolly time was had by all.
Queercore band extraordinaire, Pansy Division, captures my sentiments about
Valentine's Day quite accurately in a song that appears on their fifth
full- length release, More Lovin' From Our Oven. But a Pillsbury Bake- Off,
it ain't: Say it loud, Pansy Division's gay and they're proud!
The 21- track punk extravaganza boasts demo tracks,
previously- released songs and covers galore: The Police's "On Any Other
Day" Judas Priest's "Breaking the Law" and Depeche Mode's "What's Your
Name?" are all reworked to reflect gay viewpoints. The boys explore
everything from attraction in "Fem in a Black Leather Jacket" and life in
"Manada," a land where ready, willing, and able young studs run wild and
free. And political and religious leaders who wax homophobic in the name of
morality are relentlessly assaulted in "Political Asshole."
As with most records, the music is only half the story. Loaded with
nods to boys the trio have laid, long to lay, or plan to lay in the near
future, the inner sleeve is the stuff that gay- boy (and straight- girl!)
dreams are made of. (The phallic references alone were enough to bring out
the insatiable pervert in me. I mean, there's dick everywhere!) While Pansy
Division's unabashedly pro-gay, pro-sex attitudes are joys to behold, the
prudish are unlikely to appreciate tracks like "I'm Gonna Be a Slut,"
"Bunnies," and "Two Way Ass."
-Susan Moll