Pierre’s Vinyl Cut: My Chemical Romance “The Black Parade”

We celebrated a New Jersian's birthday today on Pierre's Vinyl Cut. Co-Founder and lead vocalist of My Chemical Romance, Gerard Way was born on April 9, 1977 in Summit, New Jersey. He turned 46 on Sunday.

When they played Liacouras center some years back, I interviewed them. "The Black Parade" had just come out. It's a great record with some big hits. I saw them a few years later at The Tower and got to say "hi" to Gerard Way again. He said "I totally remember our conversation up at Temple," and shocked me by saying, "by the way you were sitting right next to my mom." I had no idea.

We happened to have a nice clean version of his record, "The Black Parade," featuring the beautiful song, "Welcome to the Black Parade."

My Chemical Romance released "The Black Parade" in 2006. It is a concept album and a rock opera. It follows the story of a patient dying of cancer. "Welcome to the Black Parade" was the lead single off the album. It is about the patient's death coming to them in the from of a parade. Instead of making death scary, they frame it as the triumph of the human spirit over darkness.

Happy Birthday Gerard Way. So happy to see that this act is touring again.

Two longstanding rock n' roll institutions have collaborated to produce a new guitar, and it's absolutely gorgeous.

Gibson Guitars tapped Green Day frontman Billie Joe Armstrong to produce a new Les Paul Junior. Jim DeCola, Master Luthier at Gibson, explains in a press release: "Billie Joe has previously used our P-90 and P-100 pickups to great effect and for him to choose the P-90 DC on his latest guitar is quite an honor."

That P-90 DC, a hum-canceling pickup designed by DeCola, features a "modernized version of the Sidewinder dual-coil technology that was first developed by Seth Lover in 1958, delivering a hum-free P-90 with the most authentic P-90 tonality yet, retaining the classic sound of a single coil P-90 while eliminating the noise." In less technical terms, this guitar will produce the punk rock tone heard in songs by Green Day and other bands across the genre, but without an annoying buzzy sound.

Armstrong says, "The single cut 50's Les Paul Jr has been the root of my guitar tone for over 20 years. Ever since I bought 'Floyd' my 1956 Sunburst Jr, in the early 2000's, I have been addicted. It’s a simple, raw, and powerful guitar that has a sound that just can't be beat! Plug it straight into any tube amp, crank it and it will roar!"

The Gibson Billie Joe Armstrong Les Paul Junior comes in two beautiful colors, Silver Mist and Vintage Ebony Gloss, and you can see them below. The guitar comes with a hardshell case that's got a pink exterior and leopard-print interior, giving us retro rockabilly vibes.

More info is available at authorized Gibson dealers and on Gibson.com.