Monolith Music Festival Artist Spotlight: Girl Talk

One of the artist most likely to start a dance riot at this years Monolith Music Festival is none other than Mr. Greg Gillis himself, also known as Girl Talk, for those of you who have never witnessed a Girl Talk show live prepare to be blown away. I had a chance to see him in Boulder last July as seen in the pic below.

Pittsburgh artist Gregg Gillis (aka Girl Talk) has scrupulously created music from samples for over eight years. His fourth album, Feed the Animals, continues his sonic evolution towards his party-infested live show. While his first album, Secret Diary (2002), was full of purposeful glitches and noise, his subsequent albums, Unstoppable (2004) and the groundbreaking Night Ripper (2006), moved closer and closer towards dance-able mixes of varying genres, often including dozens of audio sources in a stream of juxtaposed hooks. With the fourth Girl Talk album on the Illegal Art label, Gillis steps even closer towards a creation that is centered on pop musicality rather than attention-deficit sample splicing.

Girl Talk has been known to underground audiences for several years, but it wasn't until 2006 that Gillis crossed over and caught the attention of a larger audience. With Rolling Stone, SPIN, Blender, Pitchfork, and even Beck including Night Ripper in their _best albums of 2006_ lists, Girl Talk has gone on to be booked by major festivals (Coachella, Lollapalooza, Bonnaroo, Virgin, All Points West, Pitchfork, DEMF, etc.), and solicited for remixes (Beck, Thrill Jockey, Tokyo Police Club, Grizzly Bear, Simian Mobile Disco, Peter Bjorn & John, TeddyBears, and Of Montreal). And with roughly 200 live shows over the last couple of years, Gillis has consistently played larger venues to capacity crowds (every date on his 2007 North American tour with Dan Deacon sold out).

A year after the critically acclaimed Night Ripper release, Gillis quit his job as a biomedical engineer and now focuses on music full time. With his newly acquired lifestyle he can now work on music during the week and fly out to play shows on the weekend. With only a laptop in hand, the Girl Talk live show is more portable than a traditional band and has afforded Gillis the opportunity to travel the world with minimal overhead. A visceral culture of audience involvement has also become key to the live Girl Talk experience. Performances oftentimes feature the stage being mobbed with a sweaty mass of dancers who surround Gillis as he triggers samples and create mixes, new and old, out of loops from his hard drive. Such performances have quickly become one of the most entertaining and exhilarating live shows many have experienced as Girl Talk has the extraordinary ability to get the crowd ecstatic and keep the thrill going for the entire concert.

The new album, Feed the Animals, collects the material that was developed over the last two years as part of Gillis' ever-changing live show. With hours of material in hand, it still took months to meticulously edit together the seamless album that combines 300+ samples in 50 minutes. Such fastidious care is what separates Girl Talk from the dime-a-dozen remixes that are posted to the Internet daily. In comparison to the previous release, Gillis has described this new album as expanded, with a larger range of tempos and samples. Yet, at the same time the focus has shifted from technical prowess to the flow and balance of each segment in an effort to successful translate the over-the-top party feel of the Girl Talk live show into album form.

Before Girl Talk suddenly reached critical acclaim, a typical show would attract 15-30 people. During those initial years it was an extreme oddity for someone to show up with a laptop and play elaborately constructed mixes of pop samples. In the last couple of years, though, not only have Gillis' live shows exploded, but he is also being recognized for his innovations. From Wayne Coyne of The Flaming Lips nominating him for the Shortlist Music Prize to Representative Mike Doyle speaking about him to Congress (in relation to copyright laws), Gillis has quickly become a public figure. Emerging from his underground Pittsburgh roots, he is now being lauded as the future of electronic music by techno pioneer Richie Hawtin, while celebrities such as Paris Hilton are vying to dance onstage during a Girl Talk show. Gillis modestly takes it all in stride and has stated in interviews that he will eventually go back to a normal job, all the while reveling in the party while it lasts.

While Girl Talk's music is often categorized alongside mashups, or DJ mixes, it is critical to note how distinct his assemblages are from the conventional mixing of two simultaneous tracks. Gillis' roots lie more in the rich history of sample-based compostion as demonstrated by artists such as Dickie Goodman, Negativland, John Oswald, Steinski, Public Enemy (The Bomb Squad era), and countless others. Rather than taking mashups to an extreme, Girl Talk is more focused on the art of the sampling and developing new tracks that have their own character, and surpass the original elements. Such transformative work is what helps qualify his output as being protected by the _fair use_ principle of U.S. Copyright Law.

Monolith Music Festival Artist Spotlight: The Yeah Yeah Yeah's

The first time I saw these guys was in 2006 at The Fillmore here in Denver they had just released sophomore album Show Your Bones. Nonetheless when they were announced as the Saturday headliners at this years Monolith Music Festival I was pretty excited. Continuing with our series of artist spotlights I present to you The Yeah Yeah Yeah's.

Discovered in the wake of the Strokes' popularity and the subsequent garage rock revival, New York's art punk trio the Yeah Yeah Yeahs are comprised of singer Karen O, guitarist Nicolas Zinner, and drummer Brian Chase. O met Chase at Ohio's Oberlin College and met Zinner through friends after she transferred to NYU. Zinner and O formed the band in 2000; originally, they were a folky duo called Unitard, but they went electric after being inspired by Ohio's legendary avant punk scene. After the drummer they recruited initially bowed out, Chase joined the lineup.

The Yeah Yeah Yeahs wrote a slew of songs at their first rehearsal and soon wound up supporting the Strokes and the White Stripes, earning a significant buzz for their arty yet sexy take on garage punk. In late 2001, the Yeah Yeah Yeahs released their self-titled debut EP, which they recorded with Boss Hog's Jerry Teel, on their own Shifty label. Early the next year the band stepped into the international spotlight, appearing at South by Southwest, touring the U.S. with Girls Against Boys and Europe with Jon Spencer Blues Explosion, and headlining their own U.K. tour. Wichita Recordings distributed the group's EP in the U.K. and Touch and Go reissued it in the States.

In between tours, the group spent 2002 putting the finishing touches on its full-length debut and playing American dates with Sleater-Kinney, Liars, and Jon Spencer Blues Explosion. Late that year, the Yeah Yeah Yeahs released the MachineEP to tide fans over before their first full-length. The Yeah Yeah Yeahs moved to Interscope for their debut album, 2003's Fever to Tell. Boasting a cleaner sound and more eclectic songwriting than their EPs, the album continued their critical acclaim and also won them a fair amount of commercial success: the gorgeous ballad "Maps" became a hit in 2004 and pushed Fever to Tell to gold status that year.Karen O also moved to Los Angeles in 2004, making the Yeah Yeah Yeahs a bicoastal band.

The group took some time to pursue individual projects in 2005. O loaned her vocals to "Hello Tomorrow," a collaboration with producer Squeak E. Clean that provided the soundtrack to a Nike shoe commercial directed by Spike Jonze, whileZinner recorded with the side project Head Wound City and also had a book of photographs, -I Hope You Are All Happy Now, published. The Yeah Yeah Yeahs reconvened in the studio that year to record their second album with Clean as producer; jokingly, Clean said that the album was about O's cat and would be called Coco Beware, but the album's real title, Show Your Bones, was revealed soon after. Released in spring 2006, the album was the band's most mature, polished work yet, and reached number 11 on the album charts. The Yeah Yeah Yeahs spent the rest of the year touring in support of the album, and returned in summer 2007 with the Is Is EP, a collection of newly recorded versions of songs written in between the band's two albums. It's Blitz!, which took the band's sound in a more streamlined, electronic direction, arrived in spring 2009.

Sebastien Grainger brings it to the Mile High

We are in for a special treat tonight as not only to we get to witness Metric but also opener Sebastien Grainger as he opens the show at The Ogden tonight.

Here is a little bit about Mr. Grainger:

Sebastien Grainger & the Mountains out October 21 on Saddle Creek

"When Grainger goes by his given name, it means he's all about two things and two things only: the rock, and the roll." -Pitchfork

Sebastien Grainger & The Mountains is a record that reflects the majesty its title suggests. Big chords, soaring choruses, and Sebastien’s voice paint the portrait of a man still climbing. While lyrically and musically Grainger’s taken a sidestep away from the more aggressive approach of his past musical pursuits in favor of a more reflective and personal style, he still knows how to rock it when necessary. Pulling no punches, Sebastien’s crafted a muscular and smart rock record that will surprise people expecting him to relive his past.

Best known for his contributions as singer and drummer for Canadian dance-punk duo Death From Above 1979, whose decadently catchy anthems took the world by storm with the release of their breakthrough record You're a Woman, I'm a Machine in 2004, Sebastien Grainger is soon to be even better known to the world as a singer and songwriter of sophisticated distinction via his new solo works. Fans of his prior music will likely be surprised by his new direction: delicately layered ruminations rich with energetic arrangements and deep melodic undercurrents. With his first full-length album Sebastien Grainger & The Mountains he further expands upon the well-received melodic endeavors of his digital EP American Names.

Grainger will modestly tell you "every song is a problem, or an equation that I have to resolve," but it's obvious that the results are richer and more soulful rather than calculated and mathematical. Feeling like he is finally expressing himself on his own terms with the new record, Grainger is eager to hit the road once again and present these songs to the folks who've been curious about his next move after the dissolution of DFA 1979. Although he's a self-described "domestic person," Grainger's penchant for singing loudly, playing as hard as possible, and getting sweaty is real–as real as people's enthusiasm for him to keep doing so.