FYI

Girl Talk plays the Fox Theatre Friday. The show is SOLD OUT.

Gregg Gillis loves his pop music. He just prefers to mash-up all the sounds into a DJ party mix that is quickly becoming the hottest ticket in concert halls and on the Internet. Using over 300 classic-pop samples, Gillis has created a 50-minute show that incorporates his pop-music passion into a high-tech, party-centric concert. The buzz is on about Girl Talk and Friday’s Fox Theatre show sold out in advance.

Girl Talk is also breaking news in the world of downloadable CD sales. Gillis decided to let his fans digitally download his new record “Feed the Animals” via a “pay what you want” plan on www.IllegalArt.net. The CD will be officially released on Sept. 23 and it’s also slated to come out on vinyl.

“I got into avant-garde and electronic music when I was in college,” said Gillis. “I did go into the field of biomedical engineering, but I treated the music as my career. I started by dabbling in retexturalizing pop – I started sampling music and kept manipulating it. I wanted to create something original and I wanted to try something new. I picked the name Girl Talk, so it would sound like a very glossy, poppy project.”Gillis’ brand of “cut-and-paste” remixes started catching on with underground music fans, but the Internet was the primary force behind Girl Talk. The DJ’s knack for fusing pop tunes and turning them into experimental, electronic mixes helped Gillis create “new” songs through the world of technology. The DJ also became known for his outrageous stage antics and his knack for turning dance and concert halls into full-fledged parties.

To date, Girl Talk has officially released three CDs. As Gillis honed his mash-up style of music mixes, word started spreading about his shows.

“I knew this show had potential –and people caught onto it,” said Gillis. “A lot of people never heard of an album composed of 300 songs, so they didn’t know what to expect. I do use 300 samples on my CDs. It’s a very long, drawn out process for me. I sample hundreds of songs and try out different combinations. Only a small fraction of it will be used down the road.”

The process involved in creating a Girl Talk album is very time-consuming and intense for Gillis, so he only puts out records every two years.

That’s alright – Girl Talk fans are compensated with Gillis’ impressive live shows.

“It’s all about the live show,” said Gillis. “Even when I first started doing the live performances I tried not to do a traditional DJ show. I use a lot of software triggering, loops and samples. I pretty much put together a live music collage. I can move around the stage, just by clicking the mouse. The software’s all loaded up, so I can step away from the computer. It gives me a lot of freedom.”

Gillis says that freeing himself up from his techno toys allows him to interact with his audiences.

“In the early days I did the show with dancers and projectors, now it’s very bare bones,” said Gillis. “The kids know the drill – they know it’s a party. People are really interactive at the shows and I like to get people on stage.”

The nonstop dance party doesn’t disguise the fact that Gillis has come up with a clever new way to satisfy the appetites of pop music fans. Girl Talk has even been asked to do remixes for acts like Tokyo Police Club and Beck. With each tune he creates from the samples, Gillis goes another stop forward in reinventing his techno-pop sounds.

“This is a very unique way to present pop music,” explained Gillis. “My songs are entirely sample-based. It’s a giant pop sound that becomes this pure music collage. My new CD ‘Feed the Animals’ is pretty over the top. It’s much more extreme, complex and accessible. It also has a lot more dynamics than my previous records. I used 300 samples and turned them into 50 minutes of music.”

Gillis used pop music samples from diverse sources – alt-rockers The Toadies, and classic pop stars Journey and Spencer Davis helped create some of the sounds on “Feed the Animals.”

“A lot of times, there might be subtle aspects of the songs used,” added Gillis. “I also tried to touch on every era of pop. I had to sample over 3,000 songs to get these 300 samples for the record. I can’t force the process – it’s all done by trial and error.”

Girl Talk is evoking the DJ’s love of pop music into a new generation of music fans – and they’ve all been rallying around the Internet to hear Gillis’ remixed tunes. The act has earned up to 150,000 hits a day on MySpace, and countless fans have tuned into the DJ’s high-energy videos on YouTube.

Everything was in place for Girl Talk to hit the next level.

Gillis’ sonic pop remixes have now earned him praises in “Rolling Stone,” “Spin” and ‘Pitchfork” magazines. Girl Talk went from playing basement shows for 30 people, to selling out venues around the country. The Fox Theatre isn’t the only venue in the country that sold out tickets a week prior to show time.

Girl Talk has also been asked to appear at all the A-list music festivals, and Gillis has made appearances at Coachella, Lollapalooza and Bonnaroo. The DJ now clocks in over 200 dates a year, and he’s looking forward to performing at the Fox and promoting his new CD.

“We’re really excited about selling the new record on the Internet,” said Gillis. “We’re going to do what Radiohead did and let people pay for what they want. The Internet is really getting things out and the kids are coming to the shows because of it. My shows are pretty over-the-top affairs, so people coming to the Fox can expect a compressed party. It’s a dance event that all goes down in one hour. The music’s too exhaustive to do more than 50 minutes!”

It looks like Girl Talk is living up to the buzz.