Release and Aftermath
The album was an internet-only release with no intent of commercial gain; Dean Gray asked fans who enjoyed the album to donate to charities Green Day had been known to support. Nevertheless, only 10 days after its November 18, 2005, release, the American Edit website was shut down, reportedly after receiving a cease and desist order from Green Day's label, Warner Records, despite the fact Green Day singer Billie Joe Armstrong expressed an interest in the album after hearing on the radio "Boulevard of Broken Songs." The website returned online soon after but without inclusion of the music.
Despite the cease and desist, the album endured through word of mouth and fan protests staged in support of the album. Following the shutdown, 91X, a radio station in San Diego, aired the entire album. Soon after, on December 13, 2005, a fan-organized event referred to as "Dean Gray Tuesday" (a reference to 2004's Grey Tuesday) was staged as a protest against the shutdown, in which the album was uploaded to a number of participating websites as torrents, direct MP3 downloads or ZIP archives. Video clips of "Dr. Who on Holiday," "American Jesus," and "Boulevard of Broken Songs" were also made available. The shutdown and protest contributed to international press coverage beyond the music industry.
An edited, four-song version of American Edit was performed as a "mashup rock opera" at the Bootie 3-Year Anniversary Party at DNA Lounge in San Francisco on August 11, 2006. Entitled Dean Gray - American Edit: The Theatrical Experience, the show – presented by the band Smash-Up Derby and starring performance artist Foxy Cotton – was a combination of live music, theatre, and visuals.
In 2008 an unofficial extended version of the album was released online at The Pirate Bay. Subtitled "Deluxe Edition 2008", this version of the album featured the same original 11 tracks plus and additional 4 new songs, "Can't Get A Life," "Country Basket," "I Like American Idiots," and "Greenday Triple Tracker," from DJ Pegasus, who had no part in the original album.
The track, "The Bad Homecoming", would precipitate an actual collaboration between U2 and Green Day in 2006: a cover of "The Saints Are Coming." August 10, 2009, the song was played by DJ Adam-12 of Boston's WBCN during the station's four day farewell to analog broadcasting.
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Famous quotes containing the words release and, release and/or aftermath:
“We read poetry because the poets, like ourselves, have been haunted by the inescapable tyranny of time and death; have suffered the pain of loss, and the more wearing, continuous pain of frustration and failure; and have had moods of unlooked-for release and peace. They have known and watched in themselves and others.”
—Elizabeth Drew (1887–1965)
“The steel decks rock with the lightning shock, and shake with the
great recoil,
And the sea grows red with the blood of the dead and reaches for his spoil—
But not till the foe has gone below or turns his prow and runs,
Shall the voice of peace bring sweet release to the men behind the
guns!”
—John Jerome Rooney (1866–1934)
“The aftermath of joy is not usually more joy.”
—Mason Cooley (b. 1927)