Deflowered

My Life in Pansy Division

By: Jon Ginoli

Narrated by: Jon Ginoli

Length: 7 hrs and 49 mins

Publisher's summary

"We're the buttf--kers of rock-and-roll, We want to sock it to your hole!" With these words written in a notebook, Jon Ginoli sets off on a journey of self-discovery and musical passion to become the founding member of Pansy Division, the first out and proud queercore punk rock band to hit the semi-big time. Set against the changing decades of music, we follow the band from their inception in San Francisco, to their search for a music label and a permanent drummer to their current status as indie rock icons. We see the highs - touring with Green Day - and the lows - homophobic fans - of striving for acceptance and success in the world of rock. Replete with the requisite tales of sex, drugs, groupies, band fights and label battles, this rollicking memoir is also an impassioned account of staying true to the artistic vision of queer rock'n'roll.

©2009 Jon Ginoli (P)2013 Audible, Inc.

Interesting and personal

As a long time Pansy Divison fan, I loved this book! It's a very interesting and personal account about the beginning of so called Queercore. There's a few chapters where Jon lists all the songs in their albums, and it does show the story rhythm - which may be a bummer, specially for this who are less familiar with all PD's songs. Still, Jon Ginoli's performance as the narrator is amazing, I felt like I was having a conversation with him the whole time.

Did It His Way

A well written book with even better narration. Unlike many celebrities far more famous than he, Mr. Ginoli well-represents his own book with excellent vocal narration. The book is flush with the "everyday" goings-on of a musically very narrowly focused sub-genre punk band. Like all such titles, there is a fair amount of band name dropping of obscure punk bands over a number of decades. There is otherwise nothing flashy about Pansy Division or the book's details, how can there be? Their record sales are self-admittedly paltry or worse. This book has garnered little notice which is consistent.

Neither will we ever be seeing Pansy Division inducted into any music halls of fame, including gay versions if there are any. That is clearly not Ginoli's wish or goal. So one is left with admiring Ginoli's own hard fought self-pride in his accomplishments which are always uncompromisingly faithful to how he and his mates have always perceived themselves as the,oops, I can't print that self-characterization as well as music lyric here. You'd best just read it or listen to it for yourself because in the end, it well represents who they are and who they want to be and more power to them!