MuchMusic put together a list of the “The Field Guide To 10 Common Frontman Styles”. Guess who was the Poster Boy for Style #2 was? Gerard, of course. He’s “The Spaz” alongside Dave Grohl. I’m actually kind of surprised at how well they summed him up! Thanks April!
Thank goodness a drummer like Dave Grohl stepped out from behind the drum kit after his tenure in Nirvana, because the dude’s got an incredible amount of energy that was begging to be unleashed. We’re talking nuclear fusion energy on a cosmic spaz level that Foo Fighters fans get to enjoy at every single show and interview appearance. Like Dave, “The Spaz” is known for having boundless energy on stage, bouncing around like an ADD sufferer on a Ritalin withdrawal and thrashing about like the gender bender from ‘Silence of the Lambs’ (‘it rubs the lotion on its skin’) with his genitals clamped between his thighs, which, by the way, is not an easy thing to do. It’s exhausting just watching them, and you wonder how the f**k they do it night after night without collapsing mid-set.
Read more: The Field Guide to 10 Common Frontman Styles
Apparently when James announced his level of debt in Orlando, he wasn’t kidding. If you have a few spare dollars, stick them in his shorts. He’ll appreciate it, I promise. Don’t believe me? Read this interview with Reggie and the Full Effect on Lawrence.
Want some photos from the shows? Of course you do! (thanks Brandi!)
- out_of_rhythm on Flickr
- Rich Gaccione (My Chemical Freak)
- katilara on livejournal
Gabriel Bá strikes again! Dude, you are amazing.
P.S. The comments are now open for everyone to post. Your first comment has to be approved, but if you keep using the same name and email address, it won’t have to be approved again. Hope to see more comments coming in!
The amazing photo above is lovely exclusive photo from
Ryan Russell on Buzznet. Yes, the same Ryan Russell that did all those amazing photos that were put out of Projekt Revolution last year. And, yes, the same Ryan Russell whose photo of My Chemical Romance backstage at The Sloss back in spring that was featured in Alternative Press magazine with an article. Thank you very much to Mr. Russell for sharing those. I, as well as a few fansites, were given permission to repost ONE photo. These photos are property of Ryan Russell and Buzznet. Please do not repost them without permission from Mr. Russell or Buzznet.
Sorry it’s been awhile. I finally was able to get into my email account and so I’ve replied to whatever I’ve gotten. If you didn’t receive a reply to anything then I didn’t get it 
No real news is happening, sorry. Here’s a couple of tidbits that were interesting, though…
This is a review of The Black Parade is Dead! that I thought was really awesome. Yeah, yeah, it was released awhile ago, but this review made me all warm and fuzzy.
My Chemical Romance – The Black Parade Is Dead
Review by Mike Bax (Fazer)
There’s this cool new band called My Chemical Romance. Have you heard of them? It was only a few short years ago when that statement wouldn’t get a laugh. Now, considered by many to be way too big for their own good, I feel I have to stress that this live My Chemical Romance CD DVD is totally worth the money. Not for the live CD (which is great) or even for the live DVD of their last performance of The Black Parade (equally great) with a full line-up in Mexico City. No, it’s worth the money for the little club show that was filmed at Maxwell’s in Hoboken, New Jersey. It’s a gritty small-club performance that was a charity benefit for 200 fans, with the proceeds going out to a charity MCR wanted to support. It’s the band on a small stage, filmed under some basic stage lights, with a lot of video artifacting noticeable in the footage. For me, this is how any fan would like to see the band. Intimately, in a sweat filled club where the band is bleeding as much on stage as the crowd is trying to get close to them. I got to see a small show like this a few years ago in Hamilton, and the footage at the end of the DVD is as close to that performance as I’ll ever get again – and I got totally engrossed by it when it came on after the big budget concert was played through. And, while The Black Parade may indeed be dead, MCR certainly are not. All that remains now is the daunting task of topping yet another great recording with their next studio release.
[source: Fazer -- Review of The Black Parade is Dead! by My Chemical Romance]
This was another funny I found related to Comic-Con San Diego 2008. It’s by a guy named Jason Badower who was sitting in on the Grant Morrison/Gerard Way panel. This is what he wrote:
I only made it to one panel that con. I enjoyed the Umbrella Academy and I love Grant Morrison’s work. So Gerard Way, the writer of the Umbrella Academy is also the lead singer of My Chemical Romance. He’s an international rock star. His name gets announced and he comes in and there are huge cheers and applause. Next up, they announce Grant Morrison and the room erupts into a deafening reception. I leaned across to my friend and whispered, “Only at Comic Con would Grant Morrison outdo Gerard Way.”
[source: Jason Badower on Blogspot -- Gerard Way, Grant Morrison Panel at Comic Con San Diego 2008]
And that is all. I think.
I’m doing this really fast before class, so excuse the brievity. Here’s a really quick recap of what happened at the show Wednesday night.
I got there late (about 8:15pm) because of a string of setbacks, and managed to get in about three songs into Leathermouth’s set. It worked in my and Jenny’s advantage because we were right at the side of the stage with a more than perfect view. The videos I have make it look like I was backstage. Leathermouth was the first on. Frank spent most of the set that I saw on the floor. The whole band was dressed in white with black belts. I was rather amused. They performed several new songs such as “Monster”. I can’t remember all they played, but they played a few new ones, and “Murder”, “Sunsets”, and “Fifth Period” at least.
MC Chris is a nerdcore rapper. He does voices for Cartoon Network. He ran his entire set from a MacBook Pro laptop (which is important because it’s the same one I have!). I didn’t plan on taping him but he was so hilarious I’d be kicking myself later if I didn’t. He’s absolutely hilarious and is a huge Reggie fan which makes him cool with me. Even if you don’t like rap, if you like Reggie’s old stuff, you’ll like MC Chris. A lot of his songs are just downright silly but he’s really good.
Reggie and the Full Effect went on and Frank was playing as I reported in the last post. He was on bass and he’s really effing good. James was decked out in a wig to make it look like he had a mullet in order to properly make fun of Billy Ray Cyrus and even wore a pink Hannah Montana tank top and tiny, tiny shorts with slippers. For those of you who like Reggie, he did a few Fluxuation songs, “Mood 4 Luv”, “J Train”, “Happy V-Day”, “V Train”, “What The Hell is Stipulation”, and more. Be prepared for lots of jokes and stories.
I’ve heard some stuff about Frank getting mobbed after the show, but I didn’t see it. Then again, I was over talking to Reggie’s guitarist (the one that hammed it up for my camera) named Rich (yay Rich!! If you wonder this direction, THANK YOU for helping make my night! You were amazing, dude!) and got several hugs from him and a photo, and then while I was waiting in line to meet James, I also got a photo of me and MC Chris. I did get my photo with James (w00t!) and saw Frank sitting in the back talking to, like, two girls. So, yeah, I went over and got an autograph and picture with him, too. Dude’s got new body art and an awesome mustache. I was tempted to pet it but I didn’t. He’s also got a fauxhawk going again. Not as extreme as the Revenge days, but it’s very subtle. Anyways, if you’re going, please let the guys breathe and do what they need to do. This isn’t like a My Chemical Romance concert where they’ve got a bunch of roadies.
Here’s some tips for those who are going: Frank and Rich play on the left side of the stage. James plays in the middle and spends a lot of time on the right side of the stage, however, he can’t really get over to the left side because of the positioning of the keyboards and his laptop to run the set. At least it was at The Social because the stage was a little shallow. James does crowd surf for those of you in the middle. Also, they’re doing their own merch and their own roadie stuff so if you plan on getting pictures and stuff with the other band members, keep in mind they have to get their stuff cleaned out but they will say hello to you and whatnot so don’t be afraid to talk to them because they’re all super sweet guys. Hambone cracks me up. I would’ve gotten a photo and autograph and stuff from him but he was running the Leathermouth merch table so I didn’t want to bother him.
I’ll post a full recap in a few days when I get it all down and I’ll put it under a cut for those of you who don’t want spoilers. And no updates because, for some reason, I can’t access my email.
I’ve got some good footage because Reggie’s guitarist Rich was totally hamming it up for my camera. I taped the entire set, though, I’m not posting most of it because I know it’ll get ripped and stolen. I’m not too much of a YouTube person, and those who have added me on MySpace might get some screen caps, but that’s about it. They will be tagged since, as I said, I know they’ll get stolen.
If I find these photos or review anywhere or used for anything, I will remove them all from the site and anywhere I find them. I don’t take stealing lightly. If you would like to repost, you must contact me and get my permission. johnnie [at] mikeywayonline.net
If those of you reposting would do me a favor and include a “Used with permission from Mikey Way Online.net. Please do not repost this.” then that would be great. I’m trying to be nice and still keep the promise I made 
I will include a link back to your website here on this post as a favor to you.
Reposted by: My Chemical Freak, Fuck the World
Pending: The Black Parade,
Do you want to help document My Chemical Romance’s tour history? Of course you do. Buzznet has launched a new concert thing and they want you to upload your photos and videos of the My Chemical Romance concerts you’ve been to. They already have about 400+ My Chemical Romance tour dates and 200,000 pictures. Sound like fun? Of course it does. I’ll get my Projekt Revolution stuff up when I get a spare chance.
Reggie and the Full Effect (yeah, I know, I got it bad for teh schmexy James which I will be seeing tomorrow night) was in a local college Orlando-area magazine. I wouldn’t have looked at it otherwise because the cover totally objectifies women but, with a little gust of wind, the cover blew over and there was a picture of James on the inside. I swear there was a higher being looking out for me. So, inside, there was an interview with him. Get this: Frank is playing for Reggie! So not only do we have James playing drums for Leathermouth, but we have Frank playing [insert some instrument here] for Reggie and the Full Effect’s final tour. They’re totally, like, bff’s, dude. I’ll have more on this tomorrow after the concert.
Like My Chemical Freak already posted, Leathermouth, Reggie, other openers and crew have all left for Orlando. I hope they got here before the storm set in. I sent them a little note on MySpace telling them I’d rather have them here in one piece than on time if it came down to it.
In other news, Reggie and the Full Effect is holding a farewell tour contest where you can win tickets to the shows, free Reggie CDs, and the grand prize winner gets two masks from the “J Train” set (so, yeah, you could get yourself a Frankenstein mask that our beloved Frank Iero sweated in).
Sorry if I’ve already posted this. I can’t remember. My Chemical Romance has received a nod from the 2008 Kerrang! Awards: Best International Band. The show airs on August 21st. Other nominees include Mindless Self Indulgence (Best Album, “If”), Bullet For My Valentine, Avenged Sevenfold, Weezer, and more.
The Jonas Brothers got inducted into Madame Tussaud’s Wax Museum in Washington, D.C. as wax figurines. Why do we care? Because there’s a fantastic My Chemical Romance joke in the article.
My Chemical Romance could appease the fans who weren’t happy with the demise of the Black Parade (and/or Gerard Way’s bleach job) by having wax figures dressed in their respective costumes installed. Mikey’s wax figure, like his real life counterpart, would likely have to be kept away from forks and toasters.
Read more: Jonas Brothers, Rock Stars…Candles? (Buzznet)
On a more sitely note, I’m replacing the image gallery. All comments and everything are going bye-bye. Sorry. Kathleen and I are deleting 500+ comments of spam and the last time I tried to modify it I about broke the thing. I’m also going to open it so you don’t have to be a registered member in order to view the gallery but I’m not going to allow comments on the images. All you need to know about the script I’ll be using is that it’s super light so it’ll hopefully display super fast and hopefully look a lot niftier.
Speaking of the gallery, when that gets up, I’ll have a load of scans for you guys. Like, at least 6 magazines worth. My scanner is going to hate me today.
Much to Kathleen’s amusement, every time I’ve responded to an email it somehow gets sent back to me (as if I’m replying to myself) and to Kathleen instead of being sent to the person who contact the site to begin with. So, if you have emailed me and have not heard back (regardless as to when), PLEASE email me again. I synched my site email with my personal one over in gmail and all of them are marked as unread. Go ahead and laugh. :lol:
And, in other site news, Brandi and I are teaming up to rip videos and post them. No, not like those stupid embed things. As in….check the entry below this. Brandi was able to rip it and I found a way to put it in an entry. Yeah, so hopefully I’ll get more videos posted when they come up!
Now on to the news….
You can add your two cents about My Chemical Romance’s vacation (or lackthereof?) on Buzznet. Rest your pretty heads: I don’t know where these rumors came from but My Chemical Romance is not splitting up. And there’s more press on it, of course…
Read more: State of Rock, Kerrang!, MTV.ca, Gigwise, Tourdates.co.uk, MTV Asia
A tip from Gerard on the second series of The Umbrella Academy!
The next series deals with the fallout and aftermath of series one. It’s definitely political, it deals with a subject in American history in which people might not see a sense of irony or black humour.
Gerard Way, Male First
Here’s something incredibly random that made Kathleen and I say, “WTF?”
New figures out today suggest that Facebook has supplanted MySpace as the world’s most popular social network, boasting 132m people in June versus MySpace’s 117.5m. A spokesperson for MySpace said in reaction to the news “It’s not fair, everyone hates me, the only person who understands me is Gerard Way from My Chemical Romance. Mood: Sad & Depressed :(”
Read more: Facebook overtakes MySpace, awaits passive aggressive status update in response (Tech Digest)
There’s this poll thing going on and Elvis Presely is #1 and My Chemical Romance is #9. If you’d like to vote, the poll is put up by RockinTown.com. Unfortunately, you have to be a registered visitor to vote and can only vote once per day. If you feel up to the challenge, you can vote for My Chemical Romance at RockinTown.com here.
Trailing Presley in the voting are Led Zeppelin (#2), Green Day (#3), The Beatles (#4) and Nirvana (#5). Evanescence and My Chemical Romance have a few hundred vote lead over the Rolling Stones who are currently 10th on the list. Over 69,000 votes have been cast for 63 groups or solo acts — only Presley has garnered more than 10% of the ballots.
“The Top 5 is a pretty eclectic group,” said Mark Clinton, RockinTown.com’s manager. “There’s the King of Rock n’ Roll, the Hammer of the Gods, Punk, the Fab Four and Grunge. Rock’s breath and scope is encapsulated right there.”
Read more: IT News Online
No random photo, but I ran across an interview with Mikey from February 2007 by the Concord Monitor. These are the parts I thought were most interesting:
Let’s get right to the important stuff. How do you guys clean your marching band uniforms while you’re on the road?
We dry-clean them every day, which sort of sketches me out, because I keep being afraid someone’s going to steal them.
You don’t have duplicates?
Well, we’re getting some made, but they’re not ready yet. So that’s why I’m worried.
Is it ever hard to be in a band with your older brother? Do you guys get into of that stupid brother stuff?
We’ve always gotten along, our whole lives. We’ve never really fought. It’s really weird. So I actually look at it as, I have an advantage over everyone else because I have a family member with me on tour. Everyone else is separated from their families.
What’s the stupidest question you get asked by the press?
People who are still asking where our old drummer is. I mean, like five – three years ago he was kicked out. They’re like, “What happened to Matt?” I’m like, “Are you joking? That was forever ago.”
Do you ever worry you’ll be mistaken for real band kids and get picked on by high school jocks?
I get mistaken sometimes for someone who looks like they want to be in my band. That’s the funniest thing. Like, “You look like someone who wants to be in one of those bands.” It happened to me once, I was visiting a friend of mine who worked in a mall, and this guy in the store went back to tell him, “Someone else is here to see you. He looks like he jumped out of a My Chemical Romance video.” I’m like, “I’m IN My f—ing Chemical Romance!” And he was like, “Oh, sh-t, I’m so sorry.” I’m like, I don’t even care if you like my band. It’s the last thing on my mind.
Be honest with me. How long does it take Gerard to put on his makeup before a show?
Not really long. It takes him like 10, 15 minutes. He doesn’t wear as much as he used to. So not that long.
What advice do you have for Bowie-worshiping, aspiring glam-rocker kids in high school?
I think what you would tell them is, the people who get picked on and have a hard time in high school are the ones who will eventually succeed and make money and have the important jobs. And the people who are the most popular usually end up boring and doing nothing. You learn that after high school. You know, high school, it’s pretty bad. People are picking on you, you’re not happy, you think life’s always gonna be like this. I’d want to tell them, it won’t always be like that. Everyone I know from high school who was like that are the people making like $80,000 a year now. I’d say to them, don’t do anything to try to fit in. Go with what you like, what turns you on.
I just have one more question. Are you okay?
Oh, I’m great!
Promise?
Yeah, I – oh. Are you referring to the song?
Yes.
(Laughs) That’s the other question people used to ask us a lot. I mean, not that I don’t like it, but it’s funny. Yeah, I’m pretty much okay.
Read more: Welcome to the Black Parade (Concord Monitor)
Holy crap! I spent this morning putting together the update you see below this one and, goodness, something major comes out afterwards!
http://mikeywayonline.net/media/videos/interviews/gerard_mtv_sdcc08.flv
download this video: right click, save as
According to MTV, the guys from My Chemical Romance are out and about doing their own things: Mikey is doing his own comic, Gerard is penning something “top secret” for DC Comics (he was an intern there while he was a student at SVA in case you didn’t know), Ray is doing a Weezer tribute band (how effing awesome is that?!), we already know about Frank and Leathermouth, and Bob is in Chicago for some “unspecified reason” (perhaps because he lives there?).
Gerry (I assume is prounounced “Jerry” since the report is referring to Gerard; petname?) has also confirmed they will be “taking it slow” on the next record which he says will be a more stripped down record without the bells and whistles but not necessarily more punk. He said to expect it to be more of a social commentary but don’t expect a “boo hoo we got famous” record.
Read more: Shocking My Chemical Romance Info! (My Chemical Freak), My Chemical Romance’s Gerard Way: ‘I Think We Needed To Be Away For A While’ (MTV), Gerard Way Reveals Update on New Album & Other Projects for My Chemical Romance (Buzznet)
There’s more press on Desolation Row and other things, but it’s nothing we don’t already know so I’ll quit posting it.
