Adrienne Armstrong Questions

Here are the questions I e-mailed to the lovely Adrienne Armstrong yesterday. No word yet, but she's obviously very busy, and I told her no rush.

The focus is heavily on Mankato, because that's where I am, of course, and that's where The Free Press readership is centered around. But don't worry, far-away GD fans. There are a couple of questions about the band in here, too. (No, I did not send the questions to her in alternating purple and blue lettering. That is solely for your benefit.)

1. Tell me a little bit about your college experience at MSU. Were you a studier? A partier? On the student senate?
(Also, what year did you start here, and what year did you graduate?)


2. Why sociology? What interested you about the subject and what career did you have in mind?


3. You seemed to have a ton of jobs while you were here. Your Mankato friends have listed Pier 1 Imports, the Piercing Pagonda, Pagliai's and The Jungle among them. Am I missing any? Any favorites among them?


4. Do you have any favorite moments in Mankato? Any night or event or time that really stands out for you when you think about your colleges years here?


5. I read you met Billie Joe in 1990 at a show in Minneapolis. Had you heard their music before that show? How famous would you say they were at the time?


6. Was it difficult having a relationship long-distance when Billie Joe was on tour after you'd first met? Especially being such a pretty girl in college with so many boys running around? : )


7. I couldn't get anyone to clear this up for me: Was it because of you that Green Day started coming to Mankato and playing shows? Or was Mankato a part of their early touring locations?


8. Talking to people around here now, it seems like the band was playing shows everywhere here in town: garages, basements and that show on a farm
near St. Peter. Was it really like that? Or was it just a few shows that just sort of popped up when they happened to be here?


9. Did you have any idea in the early days of your relationship that Green Day was going to hit the big time?


10. A few people who knew you said your decision to move out West to marry Billie Joe happened quickly. It was like one minute you were here and then you were gone. Was that how you remember it, too? Were you scared?


11. It seems as if shortly after you were married, "Green Day" and "Dookie" became household names. What was that time like for you? Was it strange to suddenly be living the life of a celebrity? Is it still strange?


12. What's your life like now?


13. What are your roles at Atomic Garden and Adeline Records? Does that keep you pretty busy?


14. Do you still keep in contact with anyone from the Mankato area?


15. And now for the $65,000 question. What do you think our chances are of getting Green Day to come back to Mankato to play a show some time? Are small markets like ours pretty much out of the question at this point?


16. Also, what are the chances we could get you to come back some time? We'd throw a big party in your honor, catered by Pagliai's. It'd be like a college reunion. I've got dozens of e-mails here that prove a lot of people would definitely show up to see you.

Update: Adrienne Armstrong interview

Adrienne e-mailed back and said she's flattered and would be happy to do an interview. I e-mailed her a list of questions, and she's going to squirrel away some time this week to answer. She's apparently having some family time during the next couple of weeks before Billie Joe goes on tour. I'll update more if I hear anything else.

: )

BREAKTHROUGH: Adrienne Armstrong contact!

OK people, major, major breakthrough. I received this e-mail today. We got through! We did it!

hello Amanda,
I have been getting emails from friends and family saying you are trying to get ahold of me. I hear you know some old friends of mine... the Rueda family.
Well, its nice to "meet' you. How can I help you?
adrienne armstrong


Here was my giddy response ...


Oh my gosh! Is this really you? I'm so excited!

A little background ... I am the arts person here at the freep, and for years I had heard stories about you and about Green Day's presence in
Mankato. I thought it was so cool that our little berg once had this neat little punk scene. So I first of all set out to uncover the real stories --
why Green Day had been here at all, where they actually played, what other bands were a part of the scene, etc.

You were also a name that came up often. Obviously because of who you are married to, but also because everyone looked at you so fondly. The
Ruedas have nothing but glowing things to say, and old friends of yours and acquaintances who have e-mailed me their stories about you all said you
were this beautiful, sweet, punk-rock girl who everybody had a crush on.

This little history-gathering project then sort of snowballed when we said, "Hey, let's launch a campaign to try and get Green Day to come back here
and play a show." Crazy, I know. They're obviously WAY out of our league, too pricey and the Alltel only seats 7,000. So we got a couple of charities
on board and have been sort of plugging away at marketing to try and see if we can't make contact in some way. The girl whose farm Green Day played at
in St. Peter actually works on things like this in L.A., so she's working on contacting CAA.

So, anyway, this is how the all-encompassing Campaign Green Day emerged. It's been so fun to read ALL these e-mails about people who were at the
St. Peter show on that farm in 1992, and people who knew you in various ways. I mailed copies of the massive article I did on all of this to Atomic
Garden and Adeline Records to see if it could reach you that way.

Anyway, could I possibly interview you on the phone about your time in Mankato? There are a ton of people here following all of this who would
LOVE to read about that and also what your life is like now.

Thanks so much for contacting me.
-Amanda.


Stay tuned!!!!

Campaign Green Day hits the radio

Be sure and tune into KTOE Radio at 1 p.m. today. The station has been kind enough to invite Eric Jones of the Alltel Center and me to talk about Campaign Green Day. Don't make fun of me if I sound stupid, though. I'm scared to be on the radio. I'm better in print.

And this just in ... KEYC TV is coming down this afternoon to do a spot on the campaign for the 6 p.m. news. Channel 10, peeps! (The no making fun of me applies here, too.)

Green Day St. Peter Concert

Here's the video taken at the rural St. Peter farm concert ...

Some really good stories about Green Day's history have been coming in since the article came out. Here are a few good ones. Because a lot of these former punk-rock kids are now grown-ups with important jobs, I'm keeping most of them anonymous. But they're still fun to read. One guy even jammed with Billie Joe! ...

Green Day, hedge-divers

I think the famous St. Peter show was at Jenny Frank's parent's house. She was a friend of mine in high school and I was lucky to be there. If I remember right a noise complaint shut down the show in Mankato so it had to be moved.

... If I remember right, my friend Wendy Pongratz in high school dated Tre from Green Day for a short while. We hung out with them when they played at the U of M in Dinkytown. I remember them saying they thought my name was cool.

After the show at the U they did what they called hedge diving. They would crawl up something (a sign or building) and dive into the hedges below.

Of course, this wasn't for me but it was fun to watch. I think Wendy was recruited to make Green Day concert t-shirts the next day. Memories are a little foggy. I lost touch with Wendy and haven't been able to find her on Facebook or anything. I'm not sure if she is married.

... One afternoon I was watching MTV and heard the VJ announce that Green Day was up next. I thought somebody stole their name (I was so out of the loop). When the video came on, I knew it was them.

I jammed with Billie Joe

I was one of the goofy teenagers caught stage-diving in the video of the classic St. Peter Green Day show and I played in a bunch of mediocre bands in the old scene. I guess my big Green Day story involved playing on a street corner with Billie Joe once while hewas in town.

I was actually playing Green Day songs with a few of my friends in front of the Barmuda Triangle trying to make a few bucks off of drunk people when he came out of a bar with Adrienne (who I only casually knew) and he jumped in and played along. He was so drunk that he couldn't hit the high notes in the chorus of "Christie Road" -- that was funny.

By the way, I'm sure that somebody told you this at some point but the kid who originally hosted the Green Day show that moved to St. Peter was Dan Fisher. He was a high school skater at the time. Last I heard he is the owner of Professor's in the open mall in Mankato Place.

The St. Peter show was at my house

I was only fourteen at the time, but I remember how quickly it all happened. My sister, Jenny, called from a show that needed to get moved because it was getting too loud where it was at, and told me that it was Green Day and that there were a lot of people.

I mowed the lawn and got some stage material out to work with. I didn't have much, but when they got there it all came together really quick. The band members found the big empty wooden wire spools in the pasture and climbed up on them to roll them in place by walking on top of them. It looked like a circus act.

I remember a lot of cars. My whole yard was full. In less than an hour my quiet country house turned into a raging punk rock show. My mother, Barb, stayed in the house letting the women in to use the restroom, and keeping the peace, like mothers do. I let people in the hayloft of the barn where I had a small skate park for anyone to use. Everything went really smoothly and we had no problems, and everyone was very courteous.

The show hit its climax when the sheriff, who was extremely considerate for what he had to deal with, showed up and literally pulled the plug to deal with the noise complaints from miles away. Everyone kept on singing, though. They were singing "I Shot the Sheriff" and when they got done singing, everyone got in their cars and scooted away.

Thanks to everyone involved. It has been a pleasure to have the memory of Green Day playing at my house. I do not live there anymore, the tornado took most of it. The house is still there, but the barn blew down in the tornado.

-- Heath Frank

Adrienne and Green Day story promo

So the big story on Adrienne Nesser and Green Day and Mankato punk comes out Thursday. It's massive. 75 inches, the full Currents cover page, massive runover -- lots of good stuff to read about. And it was fun to write, too. There will be a sidebar on just submitted stories from former friends/acquaintances of Adrienne's that will run just on the Web below the link to the main story, so be sure to check that out. Also, embedded in the story online will be the YouTube video of Green Day's St. Peter concert, so check that out, too. It's grainy and dark and jittery -- totally raw and cool looking. The perfect memento for those 200 attendees.

I plan to cut out a bunch of copies of the story and send them everywhere. First of all, I'll send them to all of Adrienne's businesses in Oakland. Then, I'll give one to Cheryl Rueda to send to the last address she has for Adrienne in California (Adrienne babysat for the Rueda kids when she worked at Pagliai's with Cheryl). Then, on the publicity front, I'll send them to area radio stations to see if they want to help promote our little cause here.

Be sure and tell me what you think!

Six degrees of Kevin Bacon

One of the coolest parts of our little mission to get Green Day are all the connections to the band I get to read about in my inbox every day. I'm getting a ton of e-mails from people saying things like, "My mom is dating someone whose cousin is Mike Dirnt, the bassist." Or, "I used to live with Adrienne," and "I have a family member who works with Adrienne's family member," etc., etc. I even work with a guy who Adrienne babysat for when his kids were young. And I know another guy who lended a guitar to Billie Joe when he was in town. ...So very many strange connections to the band.

So I got to thinking that I bet every single person in Mankato is connected to the band by some degree. I mean, I'm now connected by three degrees, and all of you reading this, well, you can say you're connected through me, so there you go. Four degrees.

That's why I find it so amusing how difficult it is to make contact with celebrities. Such a powerful defense team they have. And for good reason, of course. There are people who feel about Green Day the way that scary British lady feels about "Twilight" (if any of you saw E! Weekend News). I suppose if I had thousands of fans wanting to maul me with lovin' every time I walked down the street, I might hire a few people as a buffer and unlist my number, too.

So maybe if I just make it quite clear, just in case this is the one thing standing in the way of getting Green Day, that I do not, in fact, want to maul the band with lovin'. All of us here in Mankato will keep our hands to ourselves, Adrienne and the band. Gua-ran-teed.

Free Press Sneak Peek

Here is a sneak peek at the story to run Thursday in Currents on Green Day's presence in Mankato, the lovely Adrienne (Nesser) Armstrong, with lots of stories from people who knew her here, and the Mankato punk scene in the early 1990s.

Preface:
A campaign has been launched to contact Adrienne (Nesser) Armstrong, the first lady of Green Day, who attended Minnesota State University in the early 1990s. Her presence here, as far as we can tell, is what lured in Billie Joe Armstrong, her now husband, and his band Green Day to play a couple of shows here. Despite the fact that the band is now at the global fame level, we're trying to appeal to their sense of nostalgia and get them to play a show in K-Town. And we'd love to talk with Adrienne, who is our own little local punk icon from the past, about her time in Mankato. For details, visit www.katotainment.blogspot.com.


Campaign Green Day Area fans reflect on the early '90s, when a small punk scene thrived and Green Day was part of it
By Amanda Dyslin
adyslin@mankatofreepress.com

It was dark in the middle of the southern Minnesota countryside, somewhere by St. Peter in the summer of 1992.
On a farm with a barn and not much else, there was one light pole casting a shallow light on three guys standing atop 6-foot wide, 5-foot tall wire spools -- a makeshift stage to gain high ground over 200 or so people watching. Next to them was a big, old, beat-up beast of a car pulled up by the owner so 15 or so people could stand on top and gain a better view. One of them had a video camera.
Ben Gruber, then a sophomore at Loyola High School, was there. In fact, he and a buddy had helped haul equipment for the band, and even gave the drummer, Tré Cool, a ride before the show in Mankato. The music was good, he said. A lot more polished than other punk bands he'd seen in Mankato.
He was aware of the five-year-old band, born in Berkeley, Calif., he said. They'd put out a couple of smaller recordings, including their full-length debut "39/Smooth" on Lookout! Records. But they were two years from their breakthrough record, "Dookie," which would have pretty much everyone at the show that night in awe of what they had experienced -- maybe one of the last stripped down, small-scale punk shows Green Day would ever perform.

Green Day, hear us!

Things we will do to get Green Day to come to Mankato ...

1. Hourlong back scratches and/or massages for all band members and crew.
2. A night at Mettler's, with the tab totally on us. (They don't sell Cristal there, do they?)
3. They can host an hour of radio at KMSU and play whatever they want (I'm sure Gully will be up for this).
4. We will rename something in the town "Green Day." Maybe not a road, but how about a bench or a corner or something? How about the corner by my house, Spring and N. Broad. It's a bus stop, too, so lots of people will be able to stand and enjoy "Green Day Corner."
5. They can each take turns petting my dog, who is the best dog in the world.

Well, Dann Saxton of our charity, UnityShows, made the pitch to the booking agent online and an automated response system declined both times. However, Eric Jones at the Alltel said the official talent agency for Green Day is CAA, so we were probably going through the wrong channel.

Also, Eric doesn't think we'll get anywhere with CAA. The band is on tour, and CAA serves as a huge force field in front of them so they don't have to deal with all of us trying to convince them to play in our towns. CAA won't care about our little campaign here.

So, we're back to our original thought: Adrienne is our only hope. We must find her. We must tell her we (the royal "we," as I never knew her when she lived here) love her and that she is a local legend, and we must convince her to get Green Day to perform at the Alltel Center for a reduced charity fee, with a portion of the proceeds going to UnityShows. ... Does this all sound totally impossible and completely out of our realm of ability? ... I know. But it's fun to try. We will perservere!

I got a lead, too. A girl who Adrienne used to live with still stays in contact with her. So I'm going to call her up today. I believe it's Gretchen Kortas, so we'll see if she's listed.

Wish me luck!

Green Day Campaign: Gratitude

It's so cool how many people are supporting our Green Day campaign and offering any help they can. Even just comments like "I love what you guys are doing -- I'll totally go to the show" are fun to read. Tonight I read an e-mail for a Mr. Anonymous (to you, not me) who has a family member who knows a family member of Adrienne (immediate family!!!), as well as another connection, and he's passing on the link to this very blog. As I've stated various times before, it's actually REACHING Adrienne and the band that is the hardest part. (For some unknown reason, they're not listed in the phone book. Maybe they just have cell phones now. No real point having a land line, but I digress.)

Dann Saxton of UnityShows made the pitch to the booking agent, and he'll hopefully get his answer Monday. That's the direct way of making this happen. Otherwise, finding Adrienne is our only hope.

Keep sending me your Adrienne stories in the meantime. I'll be writing a story about this with all of those stories this week.

Green Day Campaign: Day 4

Looks like Dann's the man. (For background, see below. Too much to recap.) My e-mails to all businesses Adrienne co-owns have gone unreturned thus far. However, Dann Saxton has found the booking agent and will be making our charity show pitch on Monday. If this all pans out, it looks to be a huge bash here in K-town.

Saxton knows the guy who did a documentary on Green Day on the "American Idiot" tour, and he's going to ask to screen the film before their performance here, assuming (hoping) they make one. We're also kicking around the idea of having a major battle of the bands to see who will get to open for the band. (I'm assuming the band would have to approve that first.) Anyway, this is all new to me, but we're having fun with it. Lots of energy surrounding this project after only four days.

Stay tuned!

Day 2, Green Day Campaign: Find Adrienne

We're moving right along with our campaign to get Green Day. (For background, see the "Help Me Get Green Day" post below.) Eric Jones of the Alltel is on board. Lots of "excitement" (or as much excitement as a room full of reporters can muster) has been exuded, unleashing stories from the past when the band played here in Mankato.

For instance, I came to find Adrienne Armstrong, Billie Joe's wife, babysat for coworker, Jim Rueda, and worked at Pagliai's with his wife, Cheryl. This gave me a great in when I e-mailed Adeline Records today, which Adrienne co-owns (at least, I hope she answers e-mail there, but probably not).
Here's what I said:

Hi there. My name is Amanda Dyslin, and Adrienne (if this is you, and I hope it is), you used to babysit for my Free Press coworker sitting right across from me, Jim Rueda in Mankato, Minn., where I am at this very minute. You also used to waitress at Pagliai's, where Jimmy's wife, Cheryl Rueda, worked.

I am contacting you because here in Mankato we have launched a campaign. I have heard so many stories over the years: people who went to school with you, people who had the hugest crush on you, people who saw Green Day perform at Marty's and in St. Peter, people who were part of Mankato's little punk scene from the early 1990s. So even though Green Day is so far out of our league at this point, our campaign is as such: Get Green Day to play a show in Mankato.

The Alltel Center only fits 7,000, and the price they can pay is less than what the band is accustomed to at this point. But we're putting all of our efforts into making this happen and trying to appeal to your sense of nostalgia. Eric Jones at the Alltel Center is offering free schwarmas for a year, or the key to the city, or renaming Hickory Street "Green Day Way." ...Actually, I'm not sure how much of that we can actually do, but we'd try.

I've started blogging about it at www.katotainment.blogspot.com, I've put a call out on our Web site at www.mankatofreepress.com to get people to share their Adrienne and Green Day stories with us, and we've been calling everyone we know who might have some sort of tie to you from the early '90s. We plan to continue writing and blogging about this for as long as we need to. I hope this e-mail finds you well (or finds you at all!) It would be wonderful to hear from you. 507-344-6388.

Thank you very much,
Amanda.

We are asking anyone who has memories of seeing the band perform here or who went to college with Adrienne to submit their stories to us so we can write a big ol' story that might help get them to come.
Send your stories to adyslin@mankatofreepress.com.

Oh, by the way, what's standing in our way of getting them here? According to Eric, Green Day is quite used to playing 15,000-seat venues now that they're megastars. They also are used to earning a lot more per show than we are able to pay here in smalltown
Mankato.

We need to appeal to their sense of nostalgia. We also need to reach them some how. I'm open to any and all ideas.

Wish us luck!

Help me get Green Day

As I'm sure many of you have heard in the past (and probably know better than I do), a little known band by the name of Green Day used to perform right here in Mankato.

Why? Well, Billie Joe Armstrong, the frontman, is married to Adrienne Armstrong, who lived in Mankato while attending Minnesota State University.

In fact, I have a pal who also is in a band, who tells a funny story. He was playing guitar in his apartment (or a friend's apartment or something) when there was a knock on the door. It was a nice young kid who asked to borrow a guitar for a while. My friend says something to the effect of: "Oh yeah, sure. So, you're in a little band, huh? Oh, that's great," and handed him a guitar. A while later my pal was flipping through the channels. And that nice young kid -- you guessed it, Billie Joe -- was right there on TV. MTV, that is. It was Green Day's "Longview" video off its multi-platinum album "Dookie."

I was reminded of this when Green Day came out with yet another album, "21st Century Breakdown," that critics and fans are loving. I thought, "Wouldn't it be awesome if we could leverage the past to get Green Day in Mankato?"

Seriously, why not? Eric Jones, the marketing manager at the Alltel Center, could put in a call to Green Day's promoter. He could say, "Hey, you know what would be an awesome show and surely sell out our civic center here in Mankato? A Green Day nostalgia show, a throwback to his time here in Mankato when the band was just getting started." Or, maybe somebody here in Mankato who still keeps in contact with Adrienne could ask her to convince her husband to come back.

I think we can do this. If we generate enough Web juice, this just might work. Let's all Twitter and Facebook and blog this idea! Let's get this campaign going!
Aaaaaand ... break!