Girl Talk: A New Live Music Frontier

I WANT TO BE THERE.

I come from a family of concert-goers. When I was a kid, my mom met my stepdad while following the Grateful Dead on tour. As a pre-teen, I made a conscious decision to attend my first "real" concert at Carver-Hawkeye Arena in Iowa City. And I have to tell you, the Backstreet Boys rocked my world that night. I was in 12-year-old heaven. There's nothing better than live music, even if it is pop and partially lip-synced.

(I saw the Backstreet Boys again last summer at Ravinia. Everyone there was female, aged 20 to 35. It was a joyous reunion of my original music community.)

But not many acts patronized Iowa City or Hilo, so it wasn't until I moved to Chicago for college that I had access to the good stuff. Mad Caddies, Pepper, The Decemberists, Reel Big Fish, Maroon 5, My Chemical Romance, Keller Williams, blues clubs -- my tastes cover the spectrum. I took a break from live shows after college; they're expensive, and a bunch of my concert buddies had moved away. My triumphant return was marked by my first Weezer show in January and a single weekend in February that featured both The Decemberists and Keller Williams. But this Friday I embark on a genuine first: I'm seeing Girl Talk.

If you're unfamiliar with Gregg Gillis, aka Girl Talk, allow me to educate you:

The first track off "All Day," the most recent Girl Talk release (November 2010).

He's probably the most famous DJ* touring today, and his specialty is mashing up music -- everything from current pop to gangsta rap to Elton John to the Jackson 5. In performance, he mixes tracks live, so no two shows are the same. He's been called a lawsuit waiting to happen -- technically he doesn't have permission to use the copyrighted music clips -- but he releases his albums for free and asks people to pay whatever they want, citing fair use. And despite criticism, he's gotten away with it for 10 years, two EPs and five full-length albums. (Check them out here.)

What makes this guy amazing is the way he rehabilitates songs we've long since forgotten. For instance, if you never thought L'il Mama and Metallica made fit bedfellows, you've never listened to "Like This" off 2008's Feed the Animals:

Oh yeah, and Mya can come too.

One of my rare regrets from undergrad is skipping the show he played at our student center in 2008. I plan to set the universe right this Friday when my friend Christina and I see him live at the Congress. I expect nothing less than a life-changing experience.

When it comes to live shows, I'm all about preparation. Enjoy with me.

And just for fun: A list of all the artists and songs sampled in Girl Talk's Feed the Animals, courtesy of sjheil on Flickr:


* He's not a fan of the term, but "artist" and "musician" don't really convey a full understanding of how he makes music.