Party Ben
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Party Ben is a DJ in the San Francisco area who works at local radio station Live 105 and is one of the more notable figures in the mashup scene. He is involved in the creative imaging of the station, and from June 2003-December 2005, created the weekly Sixx Mixx, a half-hour continuous mix show of mashups that aired on Live 105. Party Ben was also a member of the short-lived Untitled Friday Night Show along with Madden and Miles the Intern. After the Sixx Mixx ended, he began airing half-hour mixes on KJEE-FM in Santa Barbara, CA and 91X in San Diego.
In late 2004, Party Ben created the "Boulevard of Broken Songs" mashup, featuring elements of Green Day's "Boulevard of Broken Dreams," Oasis' "Wonderwall," Travis' "Writing to Reach You" and Eminem's "Sing for the Moment." (A later version replaced the Eminem with the original source of the audio clip, Aerosmith's "Dream On.") The track became his most widely-spread work and received worldwide attention, including that of Green Day's Billie Joe Armstrong, who mentioned in an interview that he thought it was "cool." "Boulevard of Broken Songs" was the impetus for Party Ben to work with Team9 on the American Edit album under the alias Dean Gray, where the two mashed up the songs from Green Day's American Idiot album, much like DJ Danger Mouse's The Grey Album.
Party Ben is one of the resident DJs at Club Bootie, a monthly mashup club night in San Francisco. In 2005, Party Ben and two of the other Bootie DJs established the Los Angeles branch of Club Bootie.
[edit] External links
- Dean Gray presents American Edit including links to press coverage from U.S. and Canadian news sources
- San Francisco Chronicle profiles Party Ben and discusses "Boulevard of Broken Songs"
- Los Angeles CityBeat profiles Party Ben, calling him "Mashup Man"
