As someone who found indie music through Bay Area punk rock, I’ll always have a special place in my heart for the old Lookout bands like Pansy Division. The San Francisco queercore pioneers were the first all openly-gay rock band and wrote some uber-catchy, fun, and often funny, pop-punk over five albums between 1993 and 2003. Friday night at 8pm, ATA screens Pansy Division: Life in a Gay Rock Band, a documentary about the band’s influential career. As the film’s description says:

Using original and archive footage and covering over fifteen years as a group, Pansy Division: Life in a Gay Rock Band is a fast paced, intimate and humorous account of one of rock’s most fearless acts. From their first days in San Francisco’s underground music scene to a full-fledged stadium tour with Green Day and beyond, founding members Jon Ginoli and Chris Freeman overcome increasingly difficult line-up changes, prejudice and near-poverty to keep the band together and create music that has truly made a difference.

You can also purchase the film and the band’s new album–their first in six years–from Alternative Tentacles.

[audio:http://girlieaction.com/pansydivision/sounds/TwinkieTwinkieLittleStar.mp3] Pansy Division – “Twinkie, Twinkie Little Star” (from the new album, That’s So Gay)