Brian Schechter
| Name: | Brian Schechter |
| Also Known As: | |
| Occupation: | Band Manager, Stunt person? |
| Medium: | Music |
| Works: | |
| Official Website(s): | Twitter account |
| Fan Website(s): | |
| On Fanlore: | Related pages |
Brian Schechter is best known as the former manager of American alternative rock band My Chemical Romance, one of the core three bands constituting Bandom canon.
He managed the band from 2003 to 2009, and was instrumental in introducing MCR to The Used, which he tour managed, and, through them, to Bob Bryar who would tour with MCR in Europe as a sound technician, and go on to join the band as drummer from 2004 to 2010.
He is known to fans through his appearance in band documentary Life on the Murder Scene, narrating some of the band's achievement and mishaps, as well as in several of their video making-ofs.
In her excellent 2011 mcr primer, anoneknewmoose writes, about Brian's departure:
The first big Event of the hiatus was the band parting ways with Brian Schechter. There wasn't an official announcement; Brian just...disappeared from he internet by deleting his management company's website. It was a very weird time in fandom because Brian was a huge part of LOTMS. He's the one talking to the camera about Gerard's downward spiral, he's the one that got the band their big label deal and their tours, he's the tiny tattooed hotass spraying Febreeze on Gerard's nasty clothes. He later came back to Twitter and announced he was going to become a stuntman, and then he made a whole lot of bitter passive aggressive tweets, and now he's back to tour managing. I think. Anyway, before mid-2008 he was in quite a few MCR fics, and he's still pretty popular in some circles of fandom, so don't let that throw you.
Since he parted ways with the band in 2009 he has returned to relative anonymity.
Ships
Brian is a relatively minor bandom character. As of December 31, 2017, there were 460 works tagged 'Brian Schechter' on AO3.[1] This might possibly due to the fact that he was quite an "old school" character and as such might feature in works that have not (yet) been reposted to AO3.
He often appeared as a supporting rather than major character. Brian ships in order of popularity, according to AO3 pairing tag use:
- Bob/Brian with Bob Bryar: 66 uses[2]
- Brian/Gerard with Gerard Way: 41 uses[3]
There are a handful of occurrences of Frank/Brian, Ray/Brian, Mikey/Brian, and MCR GSF/Brian.
Depiction in Fanon
Brian's role in fanon often mirrors his canon influence as manager/authority figure:
- He is Gerard's AA sponsor in sinsense's Skin of the Canvas,
- He is the Resident Assistant in graceoftheworld's college AU, but i was tinkerbell and you were peterpan
- He is the tattoo shop owner in Unholyverse,
- He is the pizza shop owner in ladyfoxxx's No Experience Necessary,
- He is the bakery owner in dancinbutterfly's Umbrella Academy Cakes verse,
- He is the father figure who adopts the Way brothers in harriet_vane's Forever, Now.
He might also be the character going through tough times and needing comfort.
During the 2007 stage gay wank, the crack depiction of Brian as evil mastermind of Frank/Gerard was created, exemplified in the gif, created in an anon meme and attributed to LJ user vange.[4]
it came from the stage gay wank a couple of years ago. someone accused mcr, and other bandom people, of faking being gay on stage for profit. they implied (or said straight out, i can't remember) that mcr were just pawns in brian's evil, money making scheme. and then that .gif was made to illustrate how it might have gone down. poor brian, he just wants to make some money, is that too much to ask for?[5]
See for example anew-leaf's 2008 meta fic, Sweet Caffeine (and Love of Liberace):
“So,” Brian said, and Gerard pulled himself together to try to listen, “I talked to Craig Aaronson and he said Reprise has done some market research. They really like the direction you’re going with the music but they think the stage show needs a little more-“
“Blood?” Gerard mumbled, “I know, that’s what I keep saying, but-“
“Gay,” Brian finished, not making eye contact as he started to pack up the notes and papers.
“Sure,” Gerard agreed before Brian’s words actually sunk in. “Wait, what?”
Resources
- Tiny Tuesday: Brian Schechter! picspam/primer/recslist by sansets in bandom_recs, posted 11 March 2008[6]
- untitled picspam by mcee, 2007-11-21
References
- ^ AO3 tag
- ^ Bob/Brian AO3 tag
- ^ Brian/Gerard AO3 tag
- ^ May 26 2009 post by teenagelogic on bandfandom_ref about the origins of the Brian 'My life, so hard' meme
- ^ anon comment, May 26 2009 bandfandom_ref post
- ^ archived