The Black Eyed Peas’s “My Humps,” Kansas’s “Carry On My Wayward Son” and Kelis’s “Milkshake,” all one after the other . . . no, it’s not your iTunes on shuffle. It’s “Warm It Up” from Girl Talk’s 2006 Illegal Arts release, Night Ripper.
Gregg Gillis, more commonly known as Girl Talk, has popularized the mash-up — the art of mixing and layering songs.
Listeners initially identified the name Girl Talk as a commentary on how girls sound — often interrupting each other and vying for attention, but Girl Talk was not intended to critique female social mannerisms.
“It was a kind of goofy, joke-y name. I wasn’t expecting it to become part of my job,” Gillis said in a phone interview.
“When I started doing music, I was into the experimental scene and noise-based thing. I wanted a name that was flamboyant, kind of ridiculous, kind of the opposite of what was going on in that world.”
Secret Diaries, Girl Talk’s first release in 2002, reveals his more experimental roots. Although tracks from this album feature recognizable hits, they mainly focus on noise layered over a familiar backbeat.
The featured songs, such as Joan Osbourne’s “What If God Was One of Us,” took on new identities as they were chopped and mixed with different sounds.
The 2004 follow-up release, Unstoppable, began the transition from noise to dance as songs featured more recognizable hits. This album doesn’t share the robust, full dance-party quality of Night Ripper, instead following a more conventional sound.
Gillis, formerly a biomedical engineer in Pittsburgh, recently quit his “day job” to pursue his music career full-time.
“It is a little bizarre to play shows as your money-making tool,” Gillis said. “I’m getting paid to have a good time, which is definitely not a bad thing.”
This summer, Gillis played at music festivals Pitchfork and Bonaroo.
“I like club shows better. They’re more comfortable. You get to interact and hang out with the audience,” Gillis said. “I was expecting [the festivals] to be kind of awkward, but it wasn’t. It ended up being one big party.”
Last Friday, Girl Talk (along with British duo Simian Mobile Disco and DJ Dan Deacon) played to a sold-out crowd at the Avalon. Tickets sold for $15, but ticketless fans littered Lansdowne Street, offering to pay $100 per ticket — quite a price for a man who doesn’t play, write or sing any of his own music.
Inside, the atmosphere was even more chaotic than on the crowded street. By the time Girl Talk took the stage, concert-goers were body-to-body, swaying admidst other sweaty and mostly intoxicated Girl Talk enthusiasts.
The crowd jumped, weaved and put their bodies in any position they could in the minimal space while Gregg blared the mixed-up sounds of Notorious B.I.G., Rihanna, Kelly Clarkson, Elton John, Shop Boyz and just about any other pop culture icon with a hit song in the past three decades. Although Gregg did play a handful of renditions of some fan favorites from Night Ripper, the show was mostly comprised of new material.
“We [Deacon and I] both come from a basement style show which is very interactive. So this tour has been a bit of an experiment to see how our shows would go over on a larger scale,” Gillis said.
To give fans an experience similar to previous, smaller shows, concert-goers were given the chance to hop on the stage of the Avalon with Gillis, all of his technical equipment and a giant inflatable palm tree.
Although Gillis plays 75 to 80 percent new material at shows and hopes to release a new album by the end of the year, finding time to get everything completed has been tough.
“I am constantly working on new stuff. I work on new material for live shows. Eventually I take a step back and I have enough stuff for an album,” he said. “I am just looking for a gap of time to edit.”