Two things are bound to come up at the mention of popular electronic music producer Gregg Gillis, a.k.a. Girl Talk, Sunday’s main attraction at University of Puget Sound Field House.
First, there’s his uncanny ability to turn what on paper looks like a boring show – essentially, a guy playing music on a laptop – into a sweaty spectacle.
During last year’s performance at the Gorge Amphitheatre’s Sasquatch festival, Gillis invited hordes of revelers onstage and fired off reams of toilet paper with a big TP gun. He’s been known to strip down to his skivvies and dance around when the mood strikes him.
More than that, Gillis is known as a massive lawsuit waiting to happen. In an era when everyone from the Beastie Boys to Lil Wayne has been sued over the use of samples, Gillis packed hundreds of unauthorized clips onto his 2008 mash-up masterpiece “Feed the Animals.”
The producer packs infectiously familiar snippets from Roy Orbison, UGK, the Spencer Davis Group, Twisted Sister and Pete Townshend in the first two minutes alone. Yet he’s never been sued.
As the Tacoma show approached, we called him at home in Pittsburgh to see if he has legal counsel on speed dial:
Tell me how you developed your live show.
(Early on) I was playing mostly in basements and art galleries and D.I.Y. show spaces; and those shows typically had, you know, one to 20 people there. So I just always try to have this level of interaction with the audience and try to get people involved. I kind of just have a crew of friends who tour around with me and help out and are always developing small ideas – just interesting things that can go down. And basically, anything goes at this point.
And here’s something you’ve been asked about once or twice. How have you managed not to get sued into the poorhouse?
What I’m doing is based on a specific political ideal. There’s an idea called fair use. It’s a doctrine in United States copyright law, and it basically states that you can sample without asking for permission if it falls under certain criteria.
Fair use basically looks at: Is the work transformative? How does it impact the potential sales of the artist that you’re sampling? Is it defacing the artist in any way? So I believe in the idea of fair use, and I believe that you can make music where the influences or the samples you can recognize, but it still becomes transformative.
So that’s basically where I stand on it. But as far as why no one has actually had an issue with it is kind of the surprising thing to me.
I think a lot of artists and labels and people who actually keep up with what’s going on kind of see, you know, what I’m doing as maybe being helpful toward the people I’m sampling as opposed to stealing from them or anything like that.
There’s fair use, but you’ve got Metallica on (“Feed the Animals.”). And those guys like to lawyer up. So you haven’t gotten any cease-and-desist orders?
Not yet. … I believe in what I’m doing, so I’d rather not let any artists’ reputation impact my work necessarily. Thus far, we haven’t had an issue. But like with any topic, people are on different sides of the fence about it. So I’m sure some people are completely open to what I’m doing, and some people probably aren’t. But thus far we haven’t been challenged.
If we were to go to court and if I were to win, that could set a certain precedent that would be potentially damaging to (the plaintiff) in a certain way. So maybe they don’t want to go ahead and potentially set that precedent.
There are other parts of the CD where it seems like you’re almost making a statement with how you juxtapose things. One part that comes to mind is where you’ve got Lil Wayne over “Hunger Strike,” talking about popping champagne corks or whatever. Is that coincidence, or are you deliberate in how you put those things together?
The whole process of putting it together is very trial and error. First and foremost, it’s a musical combination that will kind of catch my ear.
When I sample “Hunger Strike” and Lil Wayne “pop champagne” on the same track, it’s something where I’m not trying to critique either one. I’m kind of trying to celebrate both of them,
It can be a ’70s soft rock love song or it could be vulgar rap track. They’re just kind of expressing themselves in different ways. I’m trying to almost put them all in the same world, and just kind of highlight that there actually isn’t that huge of a difference … even though the messages might be very different.
What’s next?
I do a project with a friend of mine called Trey Told ’Em. I never like to do remixes under the Girl Talk title just ’cause it’s a different type of work.
The whole thing with my buddy, Frank, in Trey Told ’Em is more kind of traditional remixes. We just did one for Kings of Leon (for “Seventeen”) and we’re finishing some other ones. I think we’re gonna ramp up with that whole thing a little bit.
But then other than that I’ve been working on tons of new Girl Talk material for live shows, and I’m hoping by summertime to actually start editing another record. That’s kind of the goal right now.
Ernest Jasmin: 253-274-7389
ernest.jasmin@thenewstribune.com
mash up
What: Girl Talk performs
When: 7:30 p.m. Sunday
Where: University of Puget Sound Field House, N. 11th Street and Union Avenue, Tacoma
Tickets: $18
Information: www.ticketmaster.com
ONLINE: LISTEN TO CLIPS FROM THE GIRL TALK INTERVIEW AT BLOG.THENEWSTRIBUNE.COM/TACOMAROCKCITY.
JOIN THE DISCUSSION | Register here
We welcome comments. Please keep them civil, short and to the point. ALL CAPS, spam, obscene, profane, abusive and off topic comments will be deleted. Repeat offenders will be blocked. Thanks for taking part — and abiding by these simple rules. A thorough explanation of rules of conduct can be found in our Terms of Service. If you have any questions, including why your comment may not be showing immediately after you submit it, be sure to visit the commenting FAQ.