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Girl Talk, Dan Deacon @ Metro (Chicago, IL) – 1/26/08

Nick Meador

I entered Metro just as Dan Deacon was finishing his set. Instead of positioning himself on stage, he had set up his equipment on a small table at the rear of the standing area. In fact, I was only about 5 feet away from him, although all I could see were strange lights flashing from within a tight circle of people. I hadn’t heard much of Deacon’s music in advance, but I was aware of his budding presence in the indie electronica scene. I managed to hear part of “The Crystal Cat” and all of “Wham City,” making me wish that I had arrived earlier. The latter opus has a trance-like quality that slowly builds to anthemic proportions, advertising a secret kingdom that would welcome any weary, alienated 20-somethings. The diehard fans situated nearest to Deacon supplied the song’s acappella climax. When the tune was done, the crowd cleared and Metro staff began to disassemble his “side stage” set-up, and all that remained was plump, bespectacled man hovering over an assortment of electronic toys.

Since Deacon hadn’t even performed on the stage, not much of an exchange was necessary for Girl Talk (stage name for Pittsburgh’s Greg Gillis) to come on. All of his equipment – a laptop and some effects machines – was set up on a single portable table at the edge of the crowd. Gillis has made something of a myth for himself over the past 18 months, and everyone at this “all ages” show was ready to dance. It only took about 60 seconds from the start of his performance for people to start flooding the stage. But whereas most venues would throw people back into the crowd, the security guards had probably been instructed to allow the fun to continue – that is, so long as no one attacked Gillis. But that wouldn’t happen, since the days of angry concerts vanished with the screamo sub-genre. And this is how Girl Talk becomes more a show of audience participation than of anything that Gillis does. He constructs the musical collage, of course, and yells into the microphone from time to time.
                 
I’m still not entirely sure how Gillis makes his mash-ups. I’m positive that some of the elements are created before the show – certain moments from the “Night Ripper”album were played exactly – but I think there is an impromptu factor as well. He must create some of the bits and pieces and then use a digital DJ program to mix them together at a given pace. Just as on “Ripper,” he started at a very slow tempo (approx. 84 BPM), and gradually built to a much faster pace (approx. 124 BPM).

One thing I realized during the show is that Gillis uses almost no actual dance music in his mixes. He uses lots of rap, lots of classic rock, and lots of radio pop songs. He employs tons of cheese that these city kids would never listen to separate from the mix. What I haven’t figured out is whether he’s mocking us all, or if he is implying that the songs are worthwhile in their own way – if used at a very specific moment in conjunction with some other unexpected track.
                 
I think the saddest moment of the show was when he unveiled a Kelly Clarkson song, and it caused the single largest commotion of the night. That means that “American Idol” has had more effect on this generation that ANY other musical outlet – even the various information supplies on the Internet. With all the promise for the human race that comes with the web, we as a species are still disgustingly addicted to television.
                 
However, I can’t complain too much. Gillis is perhaps the perfect embodiment of what has happened in the public music consciousness over the past five years. With the combination of the Internet and iPods, we all have thousands of songs at our fingertips at any given moment. Gillis is among the first to bring order to that chaos – but in the show, as on the album, he never holds onto an excellent discovery too long. He lets the tracks escape back into the public realm before becoming irreversible.
                 
Ultimately, the night went exactly as I expected. People were on stage the whole time, pushing up against Gillis until he jumped to the other side of his table. Security guards had to hold the table from being thrust into the crowd. Everyone danced for the entire hour that Girl Talk performed. We all smiled and laughed and sweat and felt happy. And then, at about 10 p.m., we were ejected from the premises so that Deacon and Gillis could do it all over again for the 11 p.m. “18-and-up” show. It was worth every penny spent, and I’m sure that every person in the building would stay for the second show if they had the chance.

Questions? Comments? Contact Nick Meador at meadorni@msu.edu