Girl Talk at Turner Hall
Finally, an election night that makes you want to dance
CJ Foeckler
Yeah, it probably would have been just as awesome if McCain had won.
Barack Obama had just won Ohio as Decider stepped into Turner Hall last night to see Gregg Gillis, the Pittsburgh engineer turned sampling superstar DJ known as Girl Talk. Talk about unlikely mash-ups: at one end of the ballroom, CNN's live election coverage projected on a wall, and at the other end, the stage where opener CX Kidtronik was tugging low-rise jeans past the all-too-eager, barely-legal butt-cracks of female fans.
Gillis' signature stroke of genius on his 2006 breakthrough Night Ripper was the tender piano of Elton John’s “Tiny Dancer” easing into the ominous thud of Biggie's “Juicy,” eulogizing the fallen rapper, celebrating him, carrying him and his rags-to-riches glory aloft on the soaring chorus. In that one moment, Gillis achieved something far greater than Danger Mouse's Grey Album, the other acknowledged mash-up masterpiece. He breathed an aching pop soul into the mash-up, finding honest, stirring art where disparate rock and rap classics merge with our collective pop consciousness. B.I.G. and Elton John, old and young, black and white, the news and the stage. Sometimes music is just music, but on a night like this something special would have to fill that space, bridge that gap. No doubt Gillis, a connect-the-dots master, had a worthy soundtrack on his laptop.
After technical difficulties euthanized The Death Set's monotone punk, Gillis jogged out to his turntables, dressed, as always, like a country club tennis pro. UGK and Outkast’s "International Player's Anthem" pored out over organ power chords from Spencer Davis Group’s "Gimme Some Lovin’”—the opening alchemy on this year’s excellent Feed the Animals—and the crowd surged forward, held at arm's length from Gillis by a crew of jittery guards while all musical hell broke loose. M.I.A's "Paper Planes" crashed into Jay-Z's "Can I Get A ..." and jettisoned a verse into "Blitzkrieg Bop." The wide-eyed MacBook Air ditty "New Soul" licked Khia's neck, back, and so on down. Three 6 Mafia lusted after "Jessie's Girl" and The Jackson 5, The Beatles, and The Dead’s "Casey Jones" peeked in. "Layla's" piano coda sighed at Hova's "Hustlin.'" And, of course, Biggie dueted with Elton, sending a hopped-up crowd into ecstatic fits equaled only when Obama racked up more electoral votes. Gillis paused the music when CNN projected Obama's win, but Clipse's "Wamp Wamp" wasn't a very stirring accompaniment for the roaring crowd. Luckily, as on Feed the Animals, Gillis saved the best for last. Girl Talk's curtain fell at one end of Turner Hall just as the president-elect took the stage on TV at the other. The climax of Journey's "Faithfully" mashed up two exuberant audiences into an epic rapture that would have had even the staunchest McCain supporter tingling like Chris Matthews—transcendent pop scoring living history, Girl Talk heralding morning in America.
