Girl Talk @ The Forum 30.01.09

A Girl Talk show has quite a few gimmicks. Firstly, there is his name.
It's really Greg Gillis. Secondly, he comes on stage wearing full 'sweats' in
Sydney 30+ degree heat. Though in his defence, he does slowly undress
during his one hour performance. Thirdly, at every show he gets twenty
or so kids from the audience up on stage to dance, and stand
awkwardly, around his laptop. Personally, I like this element as it
gives me something to look at when no Girl Talk antics are going on.
However, there were others in the crowd who didn't appreciate the
impromptu show from the Supre set, who had a hard time keeping their
chests out of poor Greg's face (see video).

Gimmicks aside, the gig was everything you would expect from listening
to a Girl Talk album. He mixed the tracks from Feed the Animals
seamlessly amongst about twenty minutes of new material. This new
stuff was fun, though with notable tracks including MGMT's Kids,
Beyonce's Put a Ring on It and Kanye West's Love Lockdown it did feel
a little bit like the Kids Choice Awards. Interestingly, Kanye's new
direction did stop the room dancing for the first and only time which
suggests that the punters agree with the critics bagging of his new
album.

Gillis is a natural performer as he bounces endlessly from left to
right on his long skinny white boy legs. His rapid five second samples
have often earned him the ADD label. This is very much supported by
his show, one minute he is standing up on his decks and throwing up
cute little handfuls of confetti, next he is MCing over his music
before diving into a solid crowd surf. At times such showmanship helps
to stop the feeling that we are just listening to a Girl Talk CD very
loudly, in a room full of sweaty people. That said, Girl Talk really
knows how to throw a party and at the very least you would have a hard
time finding anyone who didn't have a whole heap of fun at his show.

Girl Talk Talks Good

I have a pen friend from LA and about two years ago she told me about this guy called Girl Talk. I immediately thought that any solo male artist who goes by that name must be a wanker, and so didn't give his music much thought. Then a few months later I gave him a proper listen and still didn't think much of him. I don't really have much of a fondness for R&B. And mash-ups generally annoy me because they leave me desperate to hear more than 10 seconds of each song. However, I finally came around and developed quite a soft spot for tracks such as Bounce That and Warm It Up off his third album Night Ripper.

To "do a Radiohead" has become such a self explanatory phrase that I don't think I need to say much more except that Girl Talk has done just that, by releasing his very impressive fourth album Feed The Animals for digital download for whatever price it is deemed worthy of from Illegal Art. I'm not quite sure of what I think of this system, but I do know this album is a very good listen. I think the main reason I had such a turn around in my opinion of Girl Talk is that I am a sucker for nostalgia. These tracks are riddled with reminders both of your high school days and your parents CD collections. The beauty of this is that different samples stand out for different people, and arguably make the listening experience unique for everyone. The first time you hear the album is pretty exciting, because you just never know what sample is going to be thrown in and usually its one that you would never expect!


Girl Talk-Give Me a Beat

Girl Talk Myspace