Each week, Mikey Goralnik will tell you what happens when you take off your headphones and experience music the way you're meant to: live.
At this stage in my life, I have basically memorized every bit of my dear mother's repertoire of maternal advice. For any corporeal malady that isn't a broken bone: "Take a bath." For a hangover: "Here, drink this flat Tab." For anything else in the world ever: "Google it." (She doesn't at all know what this means.)
While her cache of seasoned, motherly wisdom is limited, and, admittedly, her suggestions seem quirkily ineffective, I can honestly say that, the times I have adhered to my mom's obscure proposals, I have almost never been disappointed (though her suggestion to Google my forgotten ATM PIN was not a success), leading me to conclude that, for what ails ya, mother knows best.
This is why I went to the Girl Talk show ... kind of. While digitally blended mash-ups of the last 10 years of popular music are in fact not part of my mother's medicine cabinet, she did tell me, in a rare disclosure of new advice, that to cure my annual winter malaise and heal the scars of a January spent in the hospital, I "just needed to dance and sweat it all out."
I am familiar with the cathartic effect of loud, energetic, live music, but going to a show exclusively for the emotional release had never occurred to me. Since the advice came from my mom, though, I unhesitatingly got a ticket to the first high-energy, booty-shaking show I could, which happened to be Pittsburgh's DJ Girl Talk (Gregg Gillis) mashing up pop songs on his laptop.
And as far as I was concerned, following my trusty mother's advice was just about the only reason I would want to go to a Girl Talk show. Don't misunderstand: I like his albums - juxtaposing Nirvana, Lil Wayne and Smokey Robinson is unassailably sweet. But there's a difference between liking a musician and wanting to see them live.
Two questions I often ask myself when deciding whether to go to a show are 1) will this be a pleasant, comfortable environment? and 2) will this artist do something that he or she cannot convey on their record?
It seemed to me like there were better uses of my time than crowding into The Middle East's sold-out basement to sweat gallons onto some random hipster's Timbuk2 bag while a crazed, shirtless Appalachian pressed buttons on his computer. But $12 shows are hard to come by, and like I said, mother knows best, so I decided to let the party, no matter how hot, sloppy and technically unimpressive it would be, begin.
And once you silence the voice in your head incessantly (and, to an extent, correctly) yelling, "He's not doing anything," what a party it is. Taking the stage around 11 p.m. with barely more than his laptop, mouse and goofy Roy Orbinson glasses, Greg Gillis catered a loud, reveling, emotionally satisfying dance party that would have made Dionysus proud.
Without headphones and on generic mixing software, Gillis pieced together hundreds completely unoriginal bass lines, guitar riffs, keyboard leads and vocal tracks from the recent pop cannon into one seamless, body-moving jigsaw puzzle.
The recipe is simple. Take four bars of a catchy, electro-rooted instrumental (for example, Hot Chip or Daft Punk) and repeat them. Layer in the hooky melody of one to two different, preferably diametrically opposed songs (for example, the guitar from Elastica's "Connection" and the piano from Elton John's "Tiny Dancer"), and repeat them. Lastly, add an ironic vocal sample, preferably a lewd/narcotic-referencing rapper. Adjust the tempo and pitch to taste, and voil? - mash-up bangers.
To a large extent, Gillis followed his own formula, adding minute variations onstage to the songs from 2006's critically hailed "Night Ripper." Nary a catchy hook was left out as Gillis fashioned an oft-goofy but always upbeat dance party out of obscure, general hip-hop vocals, Weezer, Rick Ross, James Taylor, Smashing Pumpkins, and even the "Austin Powers" theme. He even found room in his 75-minute set to add several new mixes, including a Justin Timberlake medley that featured guilty pleasures "SexyBack" and "My Love."
Though the high energy of the music and the utter abandon of its creator, whose rail-thin physique sweated at least as much as the sweatiest fat guy in the crowd, were highlights of the show, one of the best parts about seeing Girl Talk is trying to pinpoint where his breaks are from. There are few things more precious in this world than the split second when you suddenly remember something that you thought you forgot. With the samples switching every 45 seconds, a Girl Talk show is like an entire night of this, only with pop music.
As for the logical voice in your head, yes, it is true that the music is neither technically daunting nor particularly original, but who cares? The ability to rock an electrifying party and saturate a room with kinetic human energy for more than an hour is not only an impressive talent, but a valuable one.
I left that steamy basement with sore ankles, soggy hair and a feeling of pure release, as if I left my emotional baggage in the salty puddle that accumulated on the ground. I was happier when I left the Girl Talk show than I was when I walked in, and like my mom always says, "You just gotta do whatever it takes to make yourself happy."
-Mikey Goralink is a sophomore majoring in American Studies. He can be reached at Michael.Goralnik@tufts.edu.
