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. All ages allowed!

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

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