Cassie The Venomous' Blog

It's Halloween. It's Frank Iero's birthday. It's fucking awesome. Try JibJab Sendables® eCards today! XoXo c.

The writer of a 2006 Washington Post article on the closing of Tower Records described the changing music industry saying, “Anything that can be squeezed down to ones and zeros and moved around at the speed of electrons doesn't have to be stacked in plastic cases, shoved into bins and splayed over aisles under fluorescent lights anymore.” For artists, labels and small record store owners alike, music has become something that can't be bought solely in physical form. It is no longer defined only by CDs, cassettes, or even vinyl that came before those formats, but – most commonly now – by bytes, bits per second, and digital properties that music fans see scrolling across the faces of their various MP3 players. Jeff Watson, who has worked at Warner Brothers Records for eight years, has personally seen the negative effects of this change in the form of online music piracy. “Since I started at WBR, I've watched physical sales go down each year, while file sharing has increased...

Atreyu Congregation of the Damned Hollywood Records October 27, 2009 Tracklisting : 1. Stop! Before It’s Too Late and We’ve Destroyed it All 2. Bleeding is a Luxury 3. Congregation of The Damned 4. Coffin Nails 5. Black Days Begin 6. Gallows 7. Storm to Pass 8. You Were King, Now You’re Unconscious 9. Insatiable 10. So Wrong 11. Ravenous 12. Lonely 13. Wait For You Read my full review here ! XoXo c.

Hey, guys! If you will look slightly to your right, you will see that I have added a poll to my sidebar. Basically, what I'm asking is whether or not you guys would be interested in reading about older shows. I have My Chemical Romance live reviews dating back to 2005 that I would willingly share if you guys are interested. Here's the catch: these were written when I was much younger and are, therefore, not as great quality writing. If I were to post them, I would edit them a bit, but they're still readable without much editing. Let me know what you think! XoXo c. PS: The picture I posted with this is a bit random, but it's my face-paint interpretation of "Thank You for the Venom," which is what made me think about doing this in the first place. Ha-ha!

"WHAT'S IT FEEL LIKE TO BE A GHOST? LOUDER NOW, LOUDER NOW:" that is what was screaming in my ears at 4:45 A.M. yesterday. My friend Emily, in the spirit of the event for which we were waking, had set her phone's alarm to a Taking Back Sunday song. By 5 A.M., we had left my dorm, and around 6, were sitting outside Lifestyle Communities Pavilion in the chilly weather with which Mother Nature decided to burden Columbus, Ohio. When we got there, the weather was dry. By 9 A.M., we were flooded from our sitting positions on the concrete. We were forced to plan our bathroom breaks and meals around the weather, and found ourselves shivering from cold. This is the way we pay our dues. This is the most we can do in exchange for everything we get from the shows we attend... ----- Check out my live review for ACRN.com here I may post a longer version here. :] XoXo c.

I've been waiting in line for the Taking Back Sunday show since 6 A.M. in the cold and rain... TBS is totally worth it, though!

For the full story and more music news, click here ! XoXo c.

My Chemical Romance bassist Mikey Way was asked to join Mat Devine of Kill Hannah for his weekly advice blog. The pair answered serious questions submitted by fans about life issues that many are facing. The topics addressed range from bullying, stage fright, self-harm and therapy to "Philemaphobia" and coffee-addiction. I think it's beautiful and rare to see something like this. More artists should be using their influence to listen to and help kids in this way. People can smell shit a mile away - Mikey Way... None to be smelt in Mat Devine's advice blog. Read it here XoXo c.

Only 2 days remain until I get to see Taking Back Sunday in Columbus! I will be posting a review for ACRN , but I'll link it here. Epic times are ahead! XoXo c.

       For tour dates and my full story on ACRN.com, click here . Here are the tour dates (since the ACRN site is still under construction and it's harder to find the news story now) 1/12/10 Detroit, MI @ Magic Stick 1/13/10 Chicago. IL @ Bottom Lounge 1/14/10 St. Paul, MN @ Station 4 1/15/10 Omaha, NE @ Sokol Underground 1/16/10 Denver, CO @ Cervantes' Masterpiece Ballroom 1/19/10 Portland, OR @ Hawthorne Theater 1/20/10 Seattle, WA @ El Corazon 1/21/10 San Francisco, CA @ Slim’s 1/22/10 Hollywood, CA @ Henry Fonda Theatre 1/23/10 San Diego, CA @ Soma 1/24/10 Anaheim, CA @ House of Blues Anaheim 1/25/10 Tempe, AZ @ Clubhouse 1/27/10 Austin, TX @ Red 7 1/29/10 Covington, KY @ Mad Hatter Club 1/30/10 Cleveland, OH @ Beachland Ballroom 1/31/10 Buffalo, NY @ Town Ballroom 2/01/10 Albany, NY @ Northern Lights 2/02/10 Boston, MA @ Paradise Rock Club 2/03/10 Philadelphia, PA @ Trocadero ...

"If for one minute you think you're better than a sixteen-year-old girl in a Green Day t-shirt, you are sorely mistaken. Remember the first time you went to a show and saw your favorite band. You wore their shirt and sang every word. You didn't know anything about scene politics, haircuts, or what was cool. All you knew was that this music made you feel different from anyone you shared a locker with. Someone finally understood you. This is what music is about.” - Gerard Way That is all. XoXo c.

Hey, guys! I recently wrote an article on illegal downloading for my News Writing class. This is a video I was required to make to accompany it. For a grade, I need to get feedback from YOU; so, I would LOVE your comments. I always love comments, but I'll love them even more if you help me get a good grade. Thanks, guys! XoXo c.

Photo from Alternative Press So, for the past few days, I have been living vicariously through the Live-tweeting of Alternative Press , who are at RiotFest , a Chicago-based punk-rock extravaganza. AltPress just broke that Alkaline Trio played two brand new songs during their RiotFest set tonight at the Congress Theater in Chicago, and singer Matt Skiba announced before the first of the two that the 'Trio has finished recording their new album. From the set list pictured, it seems that those two songs are called "Dine, Dine" and "This Addiction" or some longer variants of those two titles. Alternative Press claim they have videos of said songs, and I will post them here as soon as they are available. ... And, more than two-and-a-half hours later, here they are: "Dine, Dine, My Darling" "This Addiction" The sound quality of the first video pretty terrible, but you can get the general idea. I am LOVING "This Addiction" already, thou...

So that the ACRN.com editors could get a feel for our writing styles, all the new members of the editorial department had to write a sample CD review. The topic: Your Least Favorite Album by your Favorite Artist Tough subject! I chose My Chemical Romance's The Black Parade This is way irrelevant since the CD came out almost three years ago, but I thought some of you might like to read it. The Black Parade My Chemical Romance Warner Brothers/ Reprise October 24th, 2006 9/10 ★★★★★★★★★ Opening with the sound of a beeping heart-monitor and the line “Now, come one, come all/to this tragic affair,” My Chemical Romance’s second major-label release The Black Parade immediately sets up the listener for a dark, theatrical adventure. The listener is guided by the main character of the concept album, a freshly-deceased man the band refers to as “the patient,” as he explores his life and the mistakes and losses he experienced during it via the twisting riffs and melodies MCR uses to portray...

If I'm assuming correctly, this twitter post by My Chemical Romance lead guitarist Ray Toro is telling us something great! David Campbell is the composer who did arrangements for the band's 2006 release, The Black Parade . Now, MCR said they were going to avoid the grandeur for their upcoming release, but having the man who made elaborate string and horn arrangements on their previous album seems to be a step away from that. An awesome step, if you ask me. XoXo c.

In a blog entry posted today by My Chemical Romance guitarist Ray Toro, he informs fans that the band is "almost done tracking the record" and will be moving on to the mixing process for the album very soon! This translates to: the album-recording process is more that half way done! On average, an album may take three weeks to mix, but -- of course - there is no standard, and the duration of the mixing process varies with studios, producers, and artists, but the mixing is the quick part of making a record; so, the wait is coming to its final stretches. In his blog, Toro explains that after their brief stay in Japan to play Summer Sonic , the band came back to the U.S. and to their album with a new motivation and wrote what he believes are some of the best songs on the album. The guitarist stated that something could be learned from their inspiration following the shows in Japan: "Sometimes you have to step back to get to the real heart of things." In interviews pr...

Those of you closely following My Chemical Romance will know that they opened their website to fan users at the end of July. The only problem at that point was, registration was open only to California members of the band's street-team, the MCRmy , who got invites to two surprise MCR shows at the Roxy in LA. Registration gradually opened to other members of the MCRmy who were Emailed the personal access codes they needed to register for the site. Well, no more! My Chemical Romance[dot] com is now open for public registration! If you have yet to create your account, you can do so by going here Jeff Watson, who runs the MCR website, gave me this explanation for the site's gradual registration process when I asked him what I could tell fans who were freaking out about it in August: "We have to do this slowly because the site will overload if we do at once, but we'll open to everyone soon." It appears the site is now ready for the rush; so, go, my friends, REGISTER...

Everything past the first verse of this song kinda defines my life right now. For a change of pace, I'm adding a video to this Lyrics of the Week post. I'm sure you wont mind the change, oh my readers. Against Me! - Borne On The FM Waves Of The Heart video From the album New Wave No, it's not what we meant to say. We don’t really love each other. What happens when the summer’s over? How long before distance becomes a chore? I'm approaching with great, great trepidation. I hope you’ll understand. Before you speak think about what you're trying to say. Who else is there to blame for miscommunication? You're getting caught up in the excitement. You making promises you can’t keep. You need to leave all your options open. Too much momentum. This room feels like it's going to explode. Too many angles. Too many factors to cover. Waiting for signal. You're searching for network. You have to fight to stay in control of the situation. Anxiety, Anxiety you give me...

Continuing the theme of my previous post , I stumbled across this heartbreaking documentary via Amanda Palmer's twitter . The Archive , a short documentary directed by Sean Dunne gives an emotional look into the passion of Paul Mawhinney, who boasts well over a million records in his archival collection that he has been collecting his entire life. Mawhinney comments on the changes in the music industry, calling it "a sad commentary on the times" that "nobody gives a damn" about all the albums, some of them rare to the point of being publicly unavailable, that he has accumulated. The Archive from Sean Dunne on Vimeo . Though this documentary comments on an older form of music's being neglected and forgotten, I can see this pattern continuing with the rise of the digital music world. I grew up on cassettes and CDs, and find it hard now to find peers who still prefer CDs to their digital downloads and the sound of their MP3 players. We must step back and loo...

So, Google Analytics is teaching me many things about my blog. From my statistics, I can see how many people have visted my blog, from where they are, at what they looked, how many different pages they viewed, and how much time they spent doing so. Don't worry; I can't see any personal information about you, blog-viewer, but what I can see is generally what drove you to come here. I can also see search keywords that are driving traffic to my blog, and I feel very ashamed of music fans to find that much of my traffic is coming from people trying to find illegal downloads of AFI's new album , Crash Love . You should be ashamed of yourselves. Let me just clear something up: you will never find a link to an illegal download of any music here; so, if that is why you're following my blog, please unfollow me now; because, this just isn't the place for you. If you're looking to preview the album, fine. I've found a couple advance-previews of albums online myself, b...

In the past, My Chemical Romance have held auctions that support causes , and they are at it again in support of Best Friends Animal Society , a very fitting charity for the band of animal-lovers. You can bid on the guitar pictured to the left, which comes with a letter of authenticity, by going HERE . Best Friends Animal Society works toward the ultimate goal of eliminating homeless animals by finding loving homes for animals that are often considered unworthy of adoption by shelters and society. Their main philosophy is "kindness to animals builds a better world for all of us." This cause is definitely up the alley of My Chemical Romance, who frequently post pictures of their dogs on their main website's blogs and on twitter. Bassist Mikey Way centers many of his twitter posts around his dog, Piglet; Lead Guitarist Ray Toro refers to his dog Bauer as his "son", and Frank Iero's twitter bio reads "i pick up dog shit all day long, but at night...at n...