Our MySpace
Our Other Website
Green Day Live Crew
GREEN DAY NEWS
--------
Green Day Mash-Up Leads To Cease-And-Desist Order, Grey Tuesday-Style Protest
Band's label may not like it, but Billie Joe Armstrong calls American Edit 'really cool.'
Mash-up DJs around the world tend to give themselves fierce names designed to strike fear in the hearts of record labels everywhere (think the Freelance Hellraiser or the Legion of Doom). The latest masher to gain fame — or rather, infamy
— for his mixes goes by a somewhat less-than-menacing handle, but he's still managed to draw the ire of one of the biggest music conglomerates in the world.
His name? Party Ben. And while it's not exactly the coolest or baddest nickname out there, it's the one on the lips of mash-up fans across the globe thanks to AmericanEdit.net, a site he started with another masher — an Australian DJ named Team 9 — that features a track-by-track reworking of Green Day's quadruple-platinum American Idiot album.
Though the site was only active for 10 days, the duo's mashes (including Ben's "Boulevard of Broken Songs," which mixes Green Day's "Boulevard of Broken Dreams" with Oasis' "Wonderwall," Travis' "Writing to Reach You" and the sample of Aerosmith's "Dream On" from Eminem's "Sing for the Moment") earned them underground fame and, unfortunately, a cease-and-desist order from Green Day's label, Warner Music.
"Originally, the goal was to point out just how similar some of the songs on American Idiot are to other rock songs. And at some points it's laugh-out-loud funny, because we're showing people how Green Day just stole some riffs," Ben said via telephone. "But there are also some tracks we did that created entirely new songs, and they're amazing. So we decided to put the entire mashed-up album online, and on November 18 we did. Unfortunately, we were e-mailed a cease-and-desist order on November 28, at which point we shut down."
Neither Ben nor Team 9 wanted to test the patience of Warner's legal department ("We're both a bit too old to lose everything," Ben joked), nor did they intend American Edit to become a rallying point for mash-up fans and free-sampling enthusiasts around the world. But thanks to a like-minded masher in Portland, Oregon, that's exactly what happened.
"This guy named Noisehead in Portland reached out to us and launched AmericanEdit.org, and he decided to organize a protest on that site," Ben said. "So he put out the call to have a Grey Tuesday protest, modeled after what people did with DJ Danger Mouse's Grey Album back in 2004 (when more than 170 sites posted the album for download after music conglomerate EMI served Danger Mouse with a cease-and-desist order; see "Grey Tuesday Group Says 100,000 Downloaded Jay-Z/Beatles Mix"). And we were just kind of like, 'Um, OK man.' But he did it. And a whole lot of people helped out."
Ben said that roughly as many sites participated in the December 13 American Edit Grey Tuesday protest as in the 2004 action. Though he's yet to hear from Warner, he at least knows that he's got a fan in Green Day's Billie Joe Armstrong, who, in an interview with MTV Radio recently, described the whole thing as "really cool." Ben's hoping that there will be another Grey Tuesday-style protest in the near future — not because he's looking to cash in on the whole thing, but rather so he can get his music out to even more listeners.
------
Green Day Promises That Next Album Will Be An Event!
BEVERLY HILLS, California — Now that Green Day are presumably finally done collecting awards for American Idiot, the guys have only one task left as they embark on the album's follow-up: building new trophy cases.
"We went to Ikea," singer Billie Joe Armstrong joked at last week's American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers Pop Music Awards.
"Yeah, it cost me 50 bucks, but it took me two years to put it together," bassist Mike Dirnt added.
Actually, Green Day have already started working on what a post on their site curiously called "cool projects" (see "Green Day End Their Vacation To Work On Mysterious 'Cool Projects' ") — but is likely the band's next release.
"Everything that we do is contributing to something that we're going to put out," Armstrong clarified, sort of. "We don't have a solid idea yet, it's just the beginning, but the beginning ideas that we have are really exciting.
"For us, everything that we do is completely, 100 percent passion- and energy-driven, so however we're going to come out with our next album, just be certain it's going to be an event, not just putting a record out," he continued. "At this point, to put a record out with like 12 songs on it and turn it in sounds a bit boring for us. So we want to definitely make something that is well thought-out and [that] all of our blood is put into."
So far, the group's been recording demos on a daily basis and working through dozens of ideas.
"We've headed back to the same [mentality as American Idiot], and that is what we really gotta do: Erase all the rules and go in and be productive," Dirnt said. "Be creative but be productive. And if [we] got nothing, record something and just enjoy what we do."
Although Green Day are moving on to their next record, they still plan to make a movie based on the American Idiot story line (see "Green Day Considering Movie Version Of American Idiot").
"It's definitely unfolding," Armstrong said. "Every single week there's more ideas about doing a film for American Idiot, and it's definitely going to happen."
Green Day End Their Vacation To Work On Mysterious 'Cool Projects'
After spending nearly 16 months on the road in support of American Idiot, the guys in Green Day decided to take a much-deserved break in early 2006. But now it looks like that time off is coming to an end.
"It's been a while since we filled you all in to what's going on in Green Day world. We finished touring at the beginning of the year and have all taken some much needed vacation," the post read. "We have started to get together and work on a bunch of cool projects. It is a very creative time for us and we look forward to working on them for the next year or so."
While it's not exactly clear what those "cool projects" are, a spokesperson for the band's label, Reprise Records, told MTV News that Green Day are beginning to write new material, though it's not apparent if they're working on a follow-up to Idiot, which has sold more than 5 million copies since being released in September 2004.
The band's message certainly lends credence to reports from earlier this year, in which frontman Billie Joe Armstrong was quoted as saying the group was going to take a break for a bit before starting to toss around ideas for a new album.
There's no timetable for making that new album, and there's no guarantee these new songs will end up on a record at all. But whatever ends up happening, Green Day are happy to get back to work, and they promised to keep fans abreast of any new developments.
"Everyone is doing great and we are enjoying the time at home," the post continues. "We will be sure to keep you all updated as to what is going on."
----
Green Day Enjoys Silence Before Next CD
Green Day hopes 2006 brings the sounds of silence. One of the big winners at the Dec. 6 Billboard Music Awards, the band headed to Australia after the awards show for two concerts before officially putting an end to the "American Idiot" era.
And, as Green Day's Billie Joe Armstrong admits, parting can be such sweet sorrow. "It was a crazy year, but it's been the best year of our career," he tells Billboard. "It's going to be kind of sad for it to end, but, you know, we don't have any regrets."
Finally coming off the road means the band can "get back to some of the other aspects of what we do," bassist Mike Dirnt says, "whether it's recording or just getting back into the creative process again."
Although Armstrong says discussions about the next album will begin this month, he says not to expect anything too soon. "We'll start with silence and that's how we'll be able to find the inspiration to find another record," he says.
Part of that inspiration comes from knowing when to stop touring. "A lot of people just keep going and going and going," Dirnt adds. It is important, he says, to know "when to call it quits for awhile and go home and rejuvenate and detox and write another record."
Already, Armstrong says, individual ideas for new songs are germinating. "We always share everything that we're doing. Right now, it's a lot of writing for ourselves and it's staying right there for right now and then [we'll] start to put the puzzle together and then try to up the ante a little bit."
As the band members look back at 2005, Dirnt says the highlight, in a year filled with them, was their stadium shows. "It's just something that we worked really hard to get to and the fact that we were able to do that is something to be proud of."
Green Day grossed $36.5 million from 76 shows, according to Billboard Boxscore. Its tour landed at No. 10 in the year-end ranking of top treks.
(PROVIDED BY VH1 NEWS AND CLUBNETRADIO.COM)
Email: gdnemail@aim.com
