leave the lights on when you stay
I still have two My Chem icons, but neither of them really does justice to the way I'm feeling about them right now. Which is bemused with a slight edge of hysteria, honestly. My favorite band is back? Maybe?? One show for sure, and rumors of a tour and/or a new album. It's a little surreal.
California 2019. Those fucking trolls.
I've never been a fan of a band quite the way I was (am) a fan of MCR, partly because of being in bandom (and I never did RPF before that, and haven't since), and partly because of where I was in my life when it all hit me. I'd moved to Boston from living with my parents in Western Mass to take my first full-time office job, and my best friend (with whom I was somewhat codependent) was leaving for the Peace Corps. I was 24, lonely, terrified, and feeling pretty depressed about the realities of the daily grind. Finding the will and inspiration to make art was harder than it had ever been before.
Said best friend was in bandom already, which I'd initially scoffed at (like a jerk), but around the time I moved, I also caved, as it were. And MCR "saved" me in my own way - my love for their music and its sheer, earnest, often ridiculously defiant, macabre and overwrought lyrics helped me to reaffirm my sense of my creative self in the face of ~growing up and punching the clock and all that jazz. And bandom gave me community support and engagement when I needed it most. It was a big deal.
I made more stuff for bandom, primarily MCR, than I had for any other fandom, and I did it much more publicly, too, even collaborating a whole bunch (mostly through Big Bangs), which was new. But my original work didn't suffer, for all that - Gerard Way in particular was a huge inspiration to me, being a comics person himself and someone who embodied the possibility of taking multiple paths in life and art. I rode that inspiration all the way to grad school (and my second bit of correspondence from the school, after I had been accepted, came with a little piece of Show Pony fanart - because one of my bandom friends, unbeknownst to me, was there).
So yeah ... My Chemical Romance is hugely important to me, and naturally I was extremely sad when they broke up in 2013. But it didn't feel wrong, either. Things had been getting a bit strange; Bob had left, Gerard's behavior on social media was a bit uncomfortable (all that stuff about fighting back against "sanitization" and being pretty unpleasant to some fans on twitter), and Mikey had his whole relationship mess. I loved them, but doing RPF was increasingly uncomfortable for me, and I was also on the verge of graduating with my MFA: it seemed like time to be really focused on my own work. The timing, both for the band and on a personal level, felt pretty natural.
(I have never really been inclined to the sort of fervent, worshipful fandom, that flavor that's almost like faith. Which is how bandom could often be, even for me for awhile. All-in, completely fascinated, yes. But feeling 100% confident in Gerard Way's sterling feminism, for example ... not so much.)
I've missed them enormously. The Becky Cloonan Killjoys poster hangs over my bed. I enjoyed the heck out of Gerard's solo album, and the Umbrella Academy show, and I was a little sad, reading Gerard's interviews about how TUA was in part about processing the difficulty of being part of a dysfunctional "family" (the band). And listening to Gerard and Ray collaborate on the soundtrack, of course, made me wish ...
Maybe it shouldn't be a surprise! I mean, again, California 2019 seems like a pretty damn big hint in retrospect. Their last, "posthumous" single in 2014 was called "Fake Your Death." Ray and Gerard were already playing together! And apparently this even matches up with some comments Gerard made about wanting to follow the same 12 years together/6 years apart pattern as the Smashing Pumpkins?! But I am surprised. There's been a lot over the last few years that made it feel final, to me.
I'm in such a different place in my life in 2019 than I was in 2008. I'm not ready to dive back into RPF, certainly not on the all-consuming level of back in the day. I don't need them to save my sense of self, which is probably the strongest and most solid it has ever been. But the world is a fucking disaster (as opposed to the year when, you know, we elected Barack Obama). I need their earnestness and defiance to boost me up again in a different way, and I am so very here to have my bandom community back, to go to shows, to find out what ridiculous concept stuff they might have in store for us this time. I want all Gerard's ridiculous sweeping visions again, to play off and get inspired.
So I am so glad they're back, and I hope it's for really real, and not some one-time event that I can't possibly get myself to. I'm a little scared of how much I hope for that.
But also, damn, those fucking trolls. ♥ Well played. Now TALK TO US PLEASE. More, gimme more, gimme more.
I am an absurdly sappy asshole, okay. Back to your regularly scheduled feed.
This entry was originally posted at my dreamwidth. (
comments)
California 2019. Those fucking trolls.
I've never been a fan of a band quite the way I was (am) a fan of MCR, partly because of being in bandom (and I never did RPF before that, and haven't since), and partly because of where I was in my life when it all hit me. I'd moved to Boston from living with my parents in Western Mass to take my first full-time office job, and my best friend (with whom I was somewhat codependent) was leaving for the Peace Corps. I was 24, lonely, terrified, and feeling pretty depressed about the realities of the daily grind. Finding the will and inspiration to make art was harder than it had ever been before.
Said best friend was in bandom already, which I'd initially scoffed at (like a jerk), but around the time I moved, I also caved, as it were. And MCR "saved" me in my own way - my love for their music and its sheer, earnest, often ridiculously defiant, macabre and overwrought lyrics helped me to reaffirm my sense of my creative self in the face of ~growing up and punching the clock and all that jazz. And bandom gave me community support and engagement when I needed it most. It was a big deal.
I made more stuff for bandom, primarily MCR, than I had for any other fandom, and I did it much more publicly, too, even collaborating a whole bunch (mostly through Big Bangs), which was new. But my original work didn't suffer, for all that - Gerard Way in particular was a huge inspiration to me, being a comics person himself and someone who embodied the possibility of taking multiple paths in life and art. I rode that inspiration all the way to grad school (and my second bit of correspondence from the school, after I had been accepted, came with a little piece of Show Pony fanart - because one of my bandom friends, unbeknownst to me, was there).
So yeah ... My Chemical Romance is hugely important to me, and naturally I was extremely sad when they broke up in 2013. But it didn't feel wrong, either. Things had been getting a bit strange; Bob had left, Gerard's behavior on social media was a bit uncomfortable (all that stuff about fighting back against "sanitization" and being pretty unpleasant to some fans on twitter), and Mikey had his whole relationship mess. I loved them, but doing RPF was increasingly uncomfortable for me, and I was also on the verge of graduating with my MFA: it seemed like time to be really focused on my own work. The timing, both for the band and on a personal level, felt pretty natural.
(I have never really been inclined to the sort of fervent, worshipful fandom, that flavor that's almost like faith. Which is how bandom could often be, even for me for awhile. All-in, completely fascinated, yes. But feeling 100% confident in Gerard Way's sterling feminism, for example ... not so much.)
I've missed them enormously. The Becky Cloonan Killjoys poster hangs over my bed. I enjoyed the heck out of Gerard's solo album, and the Umbrella Academy show, and I was a little sad, reading Gerard's interviews about how TUA was in part about processing the difficulty of being part of a dysfunctional "family" (the band). And listening to Gerard and Ray collaborate on the soundtrack, of course, made me wish ...
Maybe it shouldn't be a surprise! I mean, again, California 2019 seems like a pretty damn big hint in retrospect. Their last, "posthumous" single in 2014 was called "Fake Your Death." Ray and Gerard were already playing together! And apparently this even matches up with some comments Gerard made about wanting to follow the same 12 years together/6 years apart pattern as the Smashing Pumpkins?! But I am surprised. There's been a lot over the last few years that made it feel final, to me.
I'm in such a different place in my life in 2019 than I was in 2008. I'm not ready to dive back into RPF, certainly not on the all-consuming level of back in the day. I don't need them to save my sense of self, which is probably the strongest and most solid it has ever been. But the world is a fucking disaster (as opposed to the year when, you know, we elected Barack Obama). I need their earnestness and defiance to boost me up again in a different way, and I am so very here to have my bandom community back, to go to shows, to find out what ridiculous concept stuff they might have in store for us this time. I want all Gerard's ridiculous sweeping visions again, to play off and get inspired.
So I am so glad they're back, and I hope it's for really real, and not some one-time event that I can't possibly get myself to. I'm a little scared of how much I hope for that.
But also, damn, those fucking trolls. ♥ Well played. Now TALK TO US PLEASE. More, gimme more, gimme more.
I am an absurdly sappy asshole, okay. Back to your regularly scheduled feed.
This entry was originally posted at my dreamwidth. (
comments)