My Chem and Illuminate Parkinson’s

Tuesday March 13, 2012 Posted by: MCR

Gerard and Mikey recently participated in a photo shoot with Illuminate Parkinsons to raise awareness for Young Onset Parkinson’s. Prints of the photo will be sold online with proceeds to benefit a travelling gallery show documenting individuals with Parkinson’s. Learn more about the cause at IlluminateParkinsons.org.uk

We’ll let Emily give you a bit more insight as to how things came about:

I heard my first My Chemical Romance song seven years ago. They were everything I wasn’t; defiant and unashamed, confident in their individuality and refusing to apologize for their flamboyancy. It’s easy to shoulder the fears and expectations of life like a burden and sink beneath them. Much harder is finding the inspiration to be something (motherfuckers); to lock eyes on the horizon and tell the world, You just watch me run, and never, ever look back.

My Chemical Romance did that for me album after album. I found a foothold in their music and see a reflection of my life in their art, which welcomes us with open arms and never treats us as ‘lesser’ for being female, or gay, or just massive amounts of nerdy. I can hardly articulate the importance of this. It was only recently that I began to try, but I found that with words alone I lack the eloquence to encapsulate what the band means to me.

I thought a video, though, might work.
And really, I couldn’t have done it to any other song. The Kids From Yesterday is my favorite track off of Danger Days. The song is nostalgic; a coming of age anthem about the fear of growing so used to life’s drudging complacency that you forget what it is like to hear the music when your heart begins to break. It’s moving on from idealistic youth, but never forgetting who you were, who you are, and what you owe that to. It’s a journey, both a finale and a prelude. It’s about leaving things behind and flying by the seat of your pants. You never know when the end will come, so hold on tight – or, perhaps, Take my fucking hand – and set off to make something of yourself, because you only live once, you only live now, and the world is what you make of it. In a reflection of words written over ten years ago now, oh, how wrong you would be to think that immortality meant never dying.

I wish I could wax poetic about the intricacies of videomaking, but the fact is that I’m just a girl with a laptop and a knack for procrastination. I drew flow charts, downloaded nearly enough videos to crash my laptop, and spent some nights grumbling discontentedly about fonts. It took a brief entry into a hermit-like existence, a happy neglect of homework, rather too many potato chips and a single all-nighter to finish.

I could never have expected that one day, I would be contacted by the overwhelmingly lovely people of My Chem’s management and asked, in exchange for compensation, to contribute what I had made to the official video for Kids. Not after an era of spectacular Killjoy videos with whose Trans-Ams, inclusion of legendary comic book writers, and badassery, my own creation could never compete.

I am thrilled if other fans watch my work, and humbled to know that the band themselves has done the same. The idea that it was wanted for an official release, however, left me flailing. The idea that I could literally thank My Chemical Romance for saving me from having to drop out of college, watch my entire future slip through my fingers, fall short of every single one of my dreams, and possibly live in a cardboard box, left me not knowing what to say or feel. I think I just sat there, quietly shitting myself.

So, yeah. That’s how that happened.

I hope you guys can forgive the length and rambling nature of this. In summary: Overwhelming joy! Artistic fulfillment! This band is fucking awesome. Thank you, thank you, thank you, and I love you all. -Emily

Emily’s original video

After ‘The Black Parade,’ band struggles to find new direction

By Kevin W. Smith ksmith@azstarnet.com | Posted: Thursday, March 27, 2008 12:00 am in the Arizona Daily Star

A year ago, My Chemical Romance brought its explosive live show to the massive Jobing.com Arena in Glendale, a place that can hold close to 18,000 fans.

On Saturday night, the New Jersey five-piece will play a sold-out show at the more intimate Rialto Theatre. The Downtown venue will be brimming with 1,400 or so fans.

For this tour, the hard-rock act seems to have abandoned the stadiums and arenas it played following the 2006 release of its second major-label full-length CD, “The Black Parade.”

In a phone interview with Caliente last year, the group’s drummer said he wasn’t sure where the band was heading after the grandiosity of “The Black Parade,” a prog-rock epic.

“We’ve completely f— ourselves,” said Bob Bryar from Australia. “We’ve kind of backed ourselves into a corner right now. So, we’re not even going to think about that. Whatever happens, happens.”

Earlier this year, singer and goth-teen pin-up Gerard Way told NME.com he expects the next album will be more stripped down and that the band will “cut loose more.”

We’re not sure what My Chemical Romance cutting loose will sound like (Bachman-Turner Overdrive?), but what does the future-future hold?

Caliente looked into its crystal ball to see what life will be like for some members of My Chemical Romance.

2014: The band announces it is going on indefinite hiatus to pursue other artistic endeavors.

2015: Singer Gerard Way continues authoring comic books in the vein of his 2007 release, with its ultra-specific and ridiculously long title, “My Chemical Romance’s Gerard Way presents The Umbrella Academy Apocalypse Suite #1: The Day the Eiffel Tower Went Berserk.”

Way also releases a solo album, in which he moves more into a singer-songwriter, alt-country direction. The first single ends up on the soundtrack to the Rob Zombie-directed “Saw XXXIV: 3-D.”

2017: Bassist Mikey Way becomes a confessional music blogger in the tradition of former girlfriend and ex-manager of My Chemical Romance, Ultragrrrl aka Sarah Lewitinn.

2018: Guitarists Frank Iero and Ray Toro take over each other’s fan sites, frank-iero.net and ray-toro.com, in an effort to slam each other’s solos after years of pent-up but largely undetectable animosity. Also, Toro announces he is Iero’s father.

2019: Bryar writes a tell-all book, in which he reveals what it was like to join My Chem before the recording of “The Black Parade” and critiques other famous drummers like Travis Barker and Tommy Lee. He also disputes Toro’s paternity claim and insists that he’s Iero’s real father. The book, “Bryar For Hire,” is a commercial disaster.

2024: 10 years after announcing its hiatus, My Chemical Romance reforms for a summer tour. The group performs to sell-out crowds across the country, including Tucson’s new Downtown arena, with the majority of ticket buyers forced to hire baby sitters.

But the old fans still remember when My Chem played the Rialto way back when.