Spinner

Famous Last Words: A Tribute to My Chemical Romance

Maria Sherman — 2013-03-25T17:00:00 00:00

Ethan Miller, Getty Images

During the presidential campaign last year, Lena Dunham played with the idea of virginity and voting, using "your first time" to show first-time voters that this was an intimate decision not to be taken lightly. People my age are an Internet generation, millennials whose choices are predicated on firsts. In my youth, one of the most important decisions I faced boiled down to this: Which theatrical "emo" band's fan club I would join (and whether or not I would become involved with the fan forum, the platform of choice for weirdos).

Somehow I coughed up the confidence (and the $29.99 a year) to join the MCRmy, an organization that, in retrospect, differed greatly from most fan clubs. Sure, there were the regular posts on the band's personal lives: Was singer Gerard Way actually dating Lyn-Z from Mindless Self Indulgence? (He would later marry her and they have have a daughter named Bandit.) There was also fan fiction, but more often than not, there was the sharing of personal stories, teenagers who wrote lengthy narratives on My Chemical Romance saving their lives.

I Took Dating Advice From an Article Mark McGrath Wrote in 1998

Maria Sherman — 2013-01-30T16:00:00 00:00

Filed under: Exclusive

Sam Levi, WireImage

My best friend's boyfriend and I suffer from a similar disorder: While intoxicated, we -- on a very infrequent basis -- morph into kleptomaniacs. We don't steal things of value, but silly things, like rolls of toilet paper, pens, pencils. After attending a '90s-themed party a few months ago, Nick arrived to my apartment with an issue of Young and Modern, dated October 1998. Knowing my love of all things tween, he handed me the Ma$e-covered mag with the message "thought you'd enjoy this."

He was right. After scouring the rag's pages for "10 get-him-to-commit clues" and "25 fibs not to fall for" (can we blame tweens for the rampant listicalization of journalism?) I hit gold: "5 Ways to Make Any Guy Beg for You" by Sugar Ray frontman Mark McGrath. The overly alliterate subtitle: "Want to bring him to his knees? We asked Sugar Ray's super sexy lead singer to spill on what it takes to make a boy go ballistic for you. Here's the fox's 'Fly' advice."

As a 20-something single woman living in New York City (as "Portlandia" joked in a recent episode, the "hardest city to find love") and a child of the '90s, I thought it only logical to take Mr. McGrath's advice and see where it would land me. (I should also note that the article ran two years after McGrath met his wife, beautician Cairn Kingsland, before becoming engaged in 2009 and married last year. 1998 was also the year McGrath was named "Sexiest Rock Star," so, ya know, why not take his advice?)

Japandroids' 'Celebration Rock': Why Your Favorite Rock Record of the Year Won't Save Us

Maria Sherman — 2012-10-26T16:00:00 00:00

Filed under: Exclusive, Spinner Says

Simone Cecchetti

This week marks the release of Jersey punks Titus Andronicus' Local Business, the highly anticipated follow-up to 2010's massive The Monitor. With it, like the previous album, comes the weight of a distinct sociopolitical agenda, the "question your surroundings" mentality that made thousands of fans fall in love with the band in the first place. Paired with good ol' American rock 'n' roll hooks, this allows Titus Andronicus to inhabit a space of authentic guitar rock at the top of the indie pyramid, a space not as welcoming to the guitar-bass-drums schema as it was in the past. While discourse on the validity of the latest record ensues, let's take a look back at the other major rock record of the year, one Local Business might very well find itself in competition with as 2012 ends: Japandroids' Celebration Rock.

A few weeks ago I poised a question on Twitter: Would anyone be interested in reading an essay on Japandroid's "Celebration Rock" and how the record is, in my opinion, less than the perfection it is being heralded as? After receiving overwhelming negative response, Pitchfork music writer (and public Japandroids enthusiast) Ian Cohen replied with "Would totally read that considering the negative reviews have mostly been 'it's too much awesome!'" -- largely the reason I felt inspired to go ahead and write this damn thing.