Close To The Edit

At the center of the latest mash-up contoversy is a local-to-me producer. Party Ben works in the production department at a local radio station and hosts a weekly mash-up mix in addition to producing a number of amazing mash-ups over the years including Oasis vs Green Day, Beyonce vs Alphaville, U2 vs Lyrics Born, Tegan & Sara vs Mylo and Hot Hot Heat vs David Bowie. Here is a bit of from mtv's story about the cease-and-desist order given the "American Edit" site:

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...

"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."

: There was just a "Grey Tuesday" for the album with a dozens of sites hosting the tracks, but I missed it. Still it's good to see that Party Ben getting more attention.