Tegan and Sara make the cover of Spin

Man, they’ve come a long way babies. The summer of 1999 was the first time that Tegan and Sara first popped up on the Straight’s radar, the then-Calgary-based twin sister act receiving a glowing review for its performance at the now-defunct Under the Volcano festival.

Since then, the Quin siblings have forged a career best described as slow but steady. First came shows at the no-longer-in-existence Starfish Room and Richard’s on Richards. (Notice a trend here? Everything they touched in Vancouver during the early days subsequently went what trained military pilots faced with a potentially hazardous inverted flight condition might describe as “tits up”).

Building its fan base one show at a time, Tegan and Sara eventually started clawing out the kind of career that most musicians dream of, but few are lucky enough to achieve. Appearances with such diverse acts as Against Me!, the Reason, Kaki King, and Jim Ward, helped the Quins escape the notion that their dream list of touring partners started and ended with Ani DiFranco.

As a transplanted Tegan put down roots in Vancouver, and Sara moved to Montreal, their following mushroomed on both sides of the border, helped by cover appearances on publications like Alternative Press. Hell, that grotesque slob from NOFX even wrote a song about them. 

Today, as they ready the release of their seventh full-length, Heartthrob, Tegan and Sara are legitimate pop stars, selling out soft-seaters like the Orpheum. Which brings us back to the fact that they’ve officially made it.

How far have they come? Well, they are now on the cover of Spin, the photo shoot for said appearance chronicled here. That Spin doesn’t technically operate as a physical magazine doesn’t really matter (that part of the publication's business platform has apparantly gone what trained military pilots faced with a potentially hazardous inverted flight condition might describe as “tits up”). In this case, though, it’s the thought that counts. Man, they’ve come a long way.