| Intro | American musician |
| A.K.A. | Girl Talk |
| Is |
Musician Engineer Record producer Composer Deejay |
| From | United States of America |
| Type |
Business Engineering Music |
| Gender | male |
| Birth | 26 October 1981, Pittsburgh |
| Age: | 38 years |
Girl Talk is the stage name of Gregg Michael Gillis (born October 26, 1981), an American disc jockey specializing in mashups and digital sampling. Gillis has released five LPs on the record label Illegal Art and EPs on 333 and 12 Apostles. He is trained as an engineer but left his job to pursue his music.
Early life and education
Gillis began experimenting with electronic music and sampling while a student at Chartiers Valley High School in the Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania suburb of Bridgeville. After a few collaborative efforts, he started the solo “Girl Talk” project while studying biomedical engineering at Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, Ohio. In school, Gillis focused on tissue engineering.
Influences
Gillis states his musical inspirations to have been Squarepusher and Aphex Twin. He has also stated to be interested in punk rock, including artists such as Merzbow, a noise music artist.
Gillis has also stated that he was always into hip-hop and pop music. As he aged, he started to like older artists such as The Beatles. He stated that he was first introduced to the genre by John Oswald.
Career
Gillis worked as an engineer, but he quit in May 2007 to focus solely on music.
He produces mashup-style remixes, in which he uses often a dozen or more unauthorized samples from different songs to create a mashup. The New York Times Magazine has called his releases “a lawsuit waiting to happen,” a criticism that Gillis has attributed to mainstream media that wants “to create controversy where it doesn’t really exist,” citing fair use as a legal backbone for his sampling practices.
The name “Girl Talk” is taken from the late ’80’s and early ’90’s board game of the same name. Gillis has given his own different explanations for the origin of his stage name, once saying that it alluded to a Jim Morrison poem and once saying that it alluded to an early Merzbow side project. In 2009, he attributed the name to Tad, the early 1990s SubPop band, based in Seattle. Gillis has said the name sounded like a Disney music teen girl group.
In a 2009 interview with FMLY, Gillis stated:
The name Girl Talk is a reference to many things, products, magazines, books. It’s a pop culture phrase. The whole point of choosing the name early on was basically to just stir things up a little within the small scene I was operating from. I came from a more experimental background and there were some very overly serious, borderline academic type electronic musicians. I wanted to pick a name that they would be embarrassed to play with. You know Girl Talk sounded exactly the opposite of a man playing a laptop, so that’s what I chose.
Gillis is featured heavily in the 2008 open source documentary RiP!: A Remix Manifesto.
For possible future projects, Gillis is considering creating an original song rather than full-length albums featuring songs by other musicians tied together. Girl Talk released his fifth LP All Day on November 15, 2010 – free through the Illegal Art website. A U.S. tour in support of All Day began in Gillis’s hometown of Pittsburgh with two sold-out shows at the new Stage AE concert hall. Since Gillis releases his music under Creative Commons licenses, fans may legally use it in derivative works. Many create mashup video collages using the samples’ original music videos. Filmmaker Jacob Krupnick chose Gillis’s full-length album All Day as the soundtrack for Girl Walk//All Day, an extended music video set in New York City.
In 2012, Illegal Art started to be on an indefinite hiatus, so Girl Talk was not able to release any more of his works through them. In 2013, Girl Talk continued his work on a new mashup album, producing various hip-hop beats and tracks along with his live shows. In 2014, Girl Talk and Freeway performed an unknown collaboration during a private show. Then, Girl Talk released a video clip for “Tolerated” with Freeway and Waka Flocka Flame. The Broken Ankles EP was released soon after via DatPiff.
Gillis played at the Coachella Festival in 2014. For the first time in one of his live shows, artists, including Busta Rhymes, E-40, Juicy J and Freeway, performed their vocals over his mashups.
Album pricing
After the success of his album Feed the Animals, for which listeners were asked to pay a price of their choosing, Gillis made all of his other albums similarly available via the Illegal Art website.
Awards
Night Ripper was number 34 on Pitchfork’s Top 50 Albums of 2006, number 22 on Rolling Stone’s Best Albums of 2006, and number 27 on Spin’s 40 Best Albums of 2006. In 2007, Gillis was the recipient of a Wired magazine Rave Award.
Feed the Animals was number four on Time’s Top 10 Albums of 2008. Rolling Stone gave the album four stars and ranked the album #24 on their Top 50 albums of 2008. Blender rated it the second-best recording/album of 2008, and National Public Radio listeners rated it the 16th best album of the year.
Gillis’ hometown Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, named December 7, 2010 “Gregg Gillis Day”.
Film appearances
In 2007, Girl Talk appeared in Good Copy Bad Copy, a documentary about the current state of copyright and culture.
In 2008, he appeared as a test case for fair use in Brett Gaylor’s RiP!: A Remix Manifesto, a call to overhaul copyright laws. His parents, in one scene, complain to him about his frequent stripping during his performances.
Discography
Albums
- Secret Diary CD (2002, Illegal Art)
- Unstoppable CD (2004, Illegal Art)
- Night Ripper CD (2006, Illegal Art)
- Feed the Animals CD (2008, Illegal Art)
- All Day (2010, Illegal Art)
EPs
- Stop Cleveland Hate 12″ (2004, 12 apostles)
- Bone Hard Zaggin’ 7″ (2006, 333 recordings)
- Broken Ankles (with Freeway) (2014, Girl Talk Music)
Compilation appearances
- bricolage #1 CD (Illegal Art) – “Killing a Material Girl” – 3:37
- Illegal Art 2007 Sampler MP3 (Illegal Art) – “Let’s Run This”
- Circuits of Steel CD (SSS) (2003) – “On Nesbit”
- Ministry of Shit CD (Spasticated) – “Let’s Run This”
- Love and Circuits CD (Cardboard Records) – “All of the Other Songs Remixed” (under Trey Told ‘Em)
- Circuits of Steel II CD (SSS) (2007) – “Andy Van Slyke Marijuana Sensitivity”
Singles
- Tolerated (with Freeway) (2014, Girl Talk Music)
- I Can Hear Sweat (with Freeway) (2014, Girl Talk Music)
Remixes
- Beck – “Cellphone’s Dead” (2006) (unreleased)
- Peter Bjorn and John – “Let’s Call It Off” (2006)
- Grizzly Bear – “Knife” (2007)
- Bonde do Role – “Gasolina” (2009)
- Bad Brilliance – “Non-Tradition (Girl Talk Remix)/It’s So Fun (Andrew WK Remix)” (2009)
- Tokyo Police Club – “Cheer It On” (2007, under Trey Told ‘Em)
- Simian Mobile Disco – “I Believe” (2007, under Trey Told ‘Em)
- Professor Murder – “Dutch Hex” (2007, under Trey Told ‘Em)
- Of Montreal – “Gronlandic Edit” (2007, under Trey Told ‘Em) (unreleased)
- Thrill Jockey Records – Super Epic Thrill Jockey Mega Massive Anniversary Mix (2007, under Trey Told ‘Em)
Production credits
- Grand Buffet – Pittsburgh Hearts (2003) – “Cool as Hell”
- Jim Jones – “Believe in Magic” (feat. Lloyd) (2011)
- Maher, Dave (March 4, 2008). “High Places, Trey Told ‘Em, Fuck Buttons on Huge Comp”. Pitchfork Media. Retrieved August 28, 2008.
- “Beck Song Information – Cellphone’s Dead”. Whiskeyclone.net. Retrieved August 28, 2008.
- “Non-Tradition (Girl Talk Remix)/It’s So Fun (Andrew WK Remix)”. The Brooklyn Vegan. June 4, 2009. Retrieved December 12, 2009.
- Suarez, Jessica (April 17, 2007). ““Cheer It On” (Trey Told Em remix) [MP3]”. Pitchfork Media. Retrieved August 28, 2008.
- iskeith3 (July 19, 2007). “Girl Talk at the Pitchfork Music Festival”. YouTube. Retrieved July 11, 2008.
- Raymer, Miles (October 13, 2007). “The Thrill Isn’t Gone”. The Chicago Reader. Retrieved August 18, 2008.
- Jentzen, Aaron (June 23, 2011). “Girl Talk finds ways to grow”. San Antonio Express-News. Retrieved June 23, 2011.
- Jentzen, Aaron (June 23, 2011). “Girl Talk interview (audio)”. San Antonio Express-News. Retrieved June 23, 2011.
Live performances
Gillis began producing music with AudioMulch software, which he still uses, played live from a computer. During a live performance, he uses samples and loops to play a set — allowing room for variation throughout the set. His live sets are typically accompanied by video content on stage. He has been known to bring fans on stage to dance during performances.