Can you spot Greg Gillis, a.k.a. Girl Talk, in the mayhem? Photos by .
To encase oneself in the hard shell of a public persona while still maintaining the soft human inside is a feat I admire in an entertainer. In a music industry diluted with million-selling underage sexpot drama queens, hook-addicted rappers, and adult contemporary faux rock n’ rollers, Gregg Gillis, also known as , is a humble rarity, a music-maker of unique proportions.
On stage, he’s a self–proclaimed “not-DJ” known for getting so riled up during his own set that he drops his pants. In private, he’s a regular dude from Philadelphia who still views his musical success as a really sweet weekend gig.
Hanging out with Gillis back stage at the in Boulder on Thursday night, the soft-spoken engineer ate Pho out of a Styrofoam bowl while talking with Denver photographer and me about K Records, New York City lifestyles and album artwork conception. He is a goofy, pop culture-saturated twentysomething who seems too calm and collected for the big-bang-up MC/Masher he personifies once he hits the stage.
As Girl Talk, Gillis redefines pop music by marrying Elvis Costello, Shawty Lo (D4L), Rick Springfield, Prodigy, T-Pain, Veruca Salt and hundreds of other artists into mash-ups other DJs could only dream about.
His style compiles dozens of song samples into three-minute dance-floor bangers packaged perfectly into four releases thus far, “Night Ripper” and June’s Radiohead-style internet release, “Don’t Feed the Animals,” being his most successful to date. Inexplicably escaping copyright lawsuits, Gillis takes his decades-wide library of song samples, and stretches and twists them into unique tracks impossible to duplicate live.
After spending those few quiet moments with Gillis pre-show, I emerged from the theater basement into a venue teeming with barely-twentysomethings in horrendous misinterpretations of neo-’90s style, girls in full-blown American Apparel nightmare spandex and boys in “Frankie Goes to Hollywood” rip-off T-shirts. It was the crack in an evening that would quickly become a chasm of sheer booty-dancing terror.
Around 10:30 p.m., the packed house became restless and started to chant, bro-style, “GIRL! TALK!” The jockish hooting and hollering was a first for me, a Girl Talk fan who, in the four other times (in three different states) I have seen Gillis perform, have never felt the energy of a crowd go so wrong before man and laptop even graced the scene. Girl Talk arrived in a burst of confetti and the crowd bum-rushed the stage, completely incapacitating the venue security staff, visibly caught off guard by the riotous explosion.
It is the norm at GT shows for the crowd to join Gillis on a bare stage; armed with a laptop, Gatorade, and a sometimes concealed bottle of Jack Daniels, Gillis enjoys blurring the line between performer and spectator, letting girls take their picture with him while they grind and he clicks away at his laptop. However, this night felt different. An air of violence filled the sweaty theater-turned-club, and while Gillis kept the vibe happy, I couldn’t help but feel uncomfortable by dozens of unnecessary cops and feels, extremely pushy concert-goers, and drunk girls teetering in the sweaty human swell.
Further smashed-up, sample-injected versions of “Play Your Part,” “Set it Off,” and audience favorite “Bounce That” bumped through the throngs of bodies, house strobes flickering in the confusion. A second wave of concert-goers was allowed on stage in a safer, more organized manner, and I retreated to the back of the stage for the 90-minute set to dance, grope-free. But this was not the case.
Grabbed and pushed into virtual doggy-style by a strange boy probably a decade my junior, I elbowed free from my assailer and kept dancing with myself as Gillis played one of his most genius pairings to date: Notorious B.I.G.’s “Juicy” laid gracefully over Elton John’s “Tiny Dancer.” Letting the track run, Gillis crowd-surfed over the kids, a huge smile on his face, body squirming with joy.
A key component to Girl Talk’s success is his eclectic music taste and the ability to bring any genre from any decade into an audibly cohesive whole. Satisfying the permanently ADD Millennial Generation with split-second multi-layer samples, he connects UGK, Deee-Lite, Salt N’ Pepa, Roy Orbison, Nirvana, The Gap Band, Ludacris, Earth, Wind, and Fire, The Beach Boys, Dem Franchise Boyz, Cameo and Bizarre Inc. together to make a single splendid song.
Barring the abhorrent crowd of intoxicated (assumed) minors and the excessive amount of physical nonsense, Girl Talk pulled off yet another fantastic show. I admire Gillis’s fondness for the party-hard mentality, never acting tired, bored, or too good for his energy-expending DJ sets.
After almost three years of straight performing, he plays his laptop like a champ. Gregg Gillis is a hot nerd with a computer, a (not) DJ with penchant for dipping deep into my soft spot (the 90s), and making the party/show grand.
Thatap my DJ.
is a Denver-based writer and regular Reverb contributor. Check out her and .
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