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• Former CU resident Jon Ginoli spreads powerful message through Pansy Division

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“We’re the butt-fuckers of rock and roll, we want to sock it to your hole!”

Jon Ginoli is not an apologetic man, and he has no reason to be. As the founding member of queercore standout Pansy Division, Ginoli is familiar with the preconceived notions and social stigmas that surround his music. At the Friday, May 22 Aroma Café book reading and performance, prior to an acoustic rendition of “Pat Me on the Ass,” a clever take on the veiled homosexual tendencies in all levels of sport, Ginoli exclaims, “Use humor! Use humor!” Lyrically witty and undeniably catchy yet still provocative in nature, the track is a perfect example of the attitude of Ginoli and Pansy Division.

Peoria native Ginoli spent 10 years in CU, attending the University and choosing to stay in the area for an extended five years.

“It’s a good place to have a band,” said Ginoli when asked why he chose to stay after school. “[CU]’s a nice area. I always liked it here.” His stop back in town for a book tour for his March 2009 release Deflowered: My Life in Pansy Division was also perfectly timed for Sunday, May 24’s Play or Pose Reunion at the Highdive. Across the country, Ginoli is best known as guitarist and singer for the openly gay Pansy Division. In CU, his name may recall the Outnumbered, the successful “feminist garage rock” band Ginoli sang for in the ’80s. Reuniting for the first time in 22 years for Play or Pose, the Outnumbered represents the roots of Ginoli’s first experience with playing live music, recording and touring.

“We haven’t practiced together yet, but I don’t have any expectations [about the show]. We’re going to have fun doing it. I’m not worried about how many people will be there,” Ginoli said.

It seems this bit of history with CU is what led a number of audience members to Ginoli’s Aroma Café reading and performance, where he was greeted with familiar smiles and questions about his life in a San Francisco-based gay rock band. On the outside a seemingly unassuming man, Ginoli came alive as he read from Deflowered, recaling his first experience connecting punk music with sexuality. Spouting a list of rock stars from David Bowie to the Sex Pistols, Ginoli explained the unavoidable ambiguity of appearance, attraction and gender in rock. As he shared, until the early ’90s, little had been made of openly gay musicians singing about their issues concerning sexuality, and that’s what drove Ginoli to form Pansy Division.

In proper book reading form, Ginoli selected several passages relating an early tour with pop-punk superstars Green Day (both prior to and in the midst of the act’s eventual stardom). His tales were humorous and heartwarming and seemed shockingly positive for a topic that tends to incite heated debate. It was when he picked up the acoustic guitar to play several tracks from Pansy Division’s first new release in six years, That’s So Gay, that Ginoli was able to truly express what he does. In a decade when sexuality is still an issue that can divide the country, songs like “Twinkie Twinkie Little Star” and “20 Years of Cock (And I’m Never Gonna Stop!)” serve as an example of how music can not only bring people together but allow them to have fun in the process.