Girl Talk @ Sonar Baltimore from SENBaltimore on Vimeo.

Following the release of his extremely danceable album "Feed The Animals", available online in several formats using the increasingly popular "pay what you can" model, the first Saturday night of Girl talk's current tour was a huge success. We caught up with Gregg Gillis backstage @ Sonar before the sold-out show to talk about his previous career, music, rather sudden fame, and what exactly makes him and what he's doing unique. For those unfamiliar with the Girl Talk phenomenon, a brief explaination of what a "mash-up" is: Traditionally, a mash-up is the concurrent playing of 2 records during sequences that fit well with each other spatially such as a vocal from one song and an instrumental from another, or breaks and solos that compliment each other without becoming cluttered and confusing. Combining disparate genres can create an entirely new sound, sometimes to comedic effect, with the recognizable original elements intact. Check out DJ Muggs of Soul Assassins for more traditional examples of the form. Gillis takes this musical technique several steps further by using hundreds of samples from an audiophiles' dream collection of Rock, Pop, and Hip-Hop spanning several decades to weave a multi-hued tapestry of non-stop dance music with a poppy skeleton layered with gangsta muscle. The show, and the album from which its fundamental elements are derived, feels more like a symphony or opera than any tradititional rock/hip-hop show or DJ set, being one continuous barrage of lyrics and music with no discernible breaks from one "song" into another. Combine nothing but bangers, Gregg's ultra energetic stage presence, and his penchant for letting everyone that can possibly fit on stage with him to dance as he performs, and you'll see what makes this soft-spoken former biomedical engineer make them scream like he was the Beatles.

Tags: Feed the Animals, Girl Talk, mash-up, mashup, Night Ripper, sonar