So in the battle for the night of July 31 st  between Opus One Productions (Girl Talk Concert) and Joker Productions (Neko Case concert) it seems as if the final tactical maneuver on behalf of Opus One has rendered the Neko Case show (in my opinion anyway) obsolete.

Opus One (most likely at the behest of Mr. Greg Gillis) has proceeded to gather arguably the greatest collection of Pittsburgh-based talent on one bill in years.  In addition to the illustrious Girl Talk, the lineup will include Wiz Khalifa, Don Caballero, Donora, Grand Buffet, The Modey Lemon, and Centipede Eest peforming together at the Ampitheater at Station Square on July 31st at 6:00 pm.

The combination of The Modey Lemon, Grand Buffet and Don Caballero alone, who are all Pittsburgh legends respectively but played very few local shows as of late, has me frothing at the mouth.  And of course, anyone who has ever attended a Girl Talk concert knows what that means.  Mr. Gillis’ victory lap last fall at Gravity Nightclub was one for the ages, complete with a New Year’s-like blanket of  black and gold balloons, a large projection screen shooting up an elaborate collage of Pittsburgh sports iconography, and more high school kids than anyone could have possibly imagined.

Girl Talk was the first Pittsburgh-based artist I decided to write about.  When Night Ripper hit my iPod in the fall of 2006, which was passed onto me by a friend of mine  at Princeton’s WPRB, I did a number of things.  First, I frantically shoved the record in front of every member of my college soccer team, five of whom I lived with, desperately explaining how this guy, Greg Gillis, came from Pittsburgh and was the DJ equivalent of Batman (at the time of the record’s release Gillis was working at a still unnamed Pittsburgh- based chemical engineering company, repeatedly escaping the white collar grind to play riotous weekend gigs across the northeast, all while his co-workers were none the wiser).

Second, I came to the obvious conclusion that Night Ripper must become a pregame, house party, and late night dance session staple, simply because the album possessed an unparalleled ability to pitch the most disparate group of people into a dancing fervor.  Most importantly, I realized that Greg Gillis’ taste for popular music was unrivaled by any DJ working today.  Yes, while his technical prowess is impressive, (I read somwhere he crafted his albums, most averaging 200+ samples, using only a wave editor and a calculator) his keen ear for brilliant mash up combinations has taken a genre previously maligned as a mere novelty to an entirely different, challenging level.  A simple list of his most famous combinations will cement this fact: The Verve’s “Bittersweet Symphony” -  Ying Yang Twins’ “The Whisper Song,”  The Spencer Davis Group’s “Gimme Some Lovin” – UGK ‘s “International Player’s Anthem,” Metallica’s “One” – Lil Mama’s “Lip Gloss,” and last but not least, Notorious B.I.G.’s “Juicy” – Elton John’s “Tiny Dancer.”

With such a strong line up of groups leading to the explosion of pure, unmitigated fun that is a Girl Talk  live show, I am convinced this will easily become the party of the summer.

Girl Talk – Play Your Part pt. 1

Jackson O’Connell-Barlow (a.k.a. Iguanadon, Grape-a-Don, Plaps, Nate Kukla, and Mr. Pennsylvania) and Jarrod Weeks (a.k.a. M-Dog, Lord Grunge, Viceroy, Matt Kukla, Fred Durts) have been cranking out their own brand of fuzzed-out, synth-saturated, hysterical hip-hop since 1996, and are now basking in their 13th year of existence.  They have released over a baker’s dozen of demos, LP’s, EP’s, mix tapes and greatest hits compilations. They have a fervent cult following not just in Pittsburgh but in cities and college communities sprinkled across the country, a literal shit-ton of underground credibility, and the overflowing respect of anyone who has ever played with them on the same bill (including indie heavyweights Of Montreal and MGMT).  This is not a catalog of music you suddenly “get into,” these dudes have created a massive sphere of influence that is denser than fucking dark matter.

Listening to their latest album King Vision (and by latest I mean that it was released a little over a year ago) and their greatest hits album released in 2005, Five Years of Fireworks, I knew I was barely touching the surface of Grand Buffet’s mystique.  I felt embarrassed especially living in Pittsburgh most of my life that I am only familiar with their most recent record output.  By only examining Grand Buffet’s career from the fringes of their robust catalog, it’s hard to gain a dependable grasp on what these two dudes are about.

“…Most times, we come up with ideas that are so intense and so funky, we have to destroy them shortly thereafter,” said Lord Grunge in an interview with a Palm Beach newspaper in 2003. “.In fact,” he continued, “we have come up with tracks that are just too hot to exist.” If they actually edit their Twilight Zone-batshit crazy-verses, I can’t imagine the surreal ideas that don’t make it to the studio.

As I listened to Lord Grunge’s kaleidoscopic rap on “Cream Cheese Money” about meteorites breaking his fish tank and pancaking his wife, I realized he sounded more concerned about the fish tank.  Later, Grape-a-Don claims he’ll blow your microwave up because it doesn’t play DVD’s.

I was unprepared to wrap my head around the operating procedures of these two enigmatic MC’s. I attempted to categorize their music through the usual mediums of analysis but it only made me feel as if I was going deeper down the rabbit hole: more questions, fewer answers.  As I kept looking harder at who they were I slowly became removed from appreciating what truly made these guys great: the terrifying live shows complete with bona fide suicide threats, the rotating aliases, their unrelenting production of self-released material, most of which could only be obtained at one of their very few concerts.  All of these components were essential to Grand Buffet’s importance, but could only be understood through a first hand account.

However, Grand Buffet haven’t played a show in Pittsburgh since they opened for the shitstorm that was Girl Talk’s victory lap at Gravity Night Club last November.  I watched their opening set from afar, choosing to stay close to the make shift bar area that was handing out 16 oz. Pabst Blue Ribbons by the handful.  I had no context for what I was seeing, it depressed me to think I could have gotten closer to what was apparently a legendary show and chose not to.

They play a couple of shows in Florida over the next couple weeks, but have been known to keep Pittsburgh dates quiet and selective; who knows where or when their next show in Pittsburgh will be.

Why do I feel that failing to notice the prominent presence of such a celebrated rap group in my hometown is such a bad thing? Why am I so worried that I missed my chance to appreciate them? What the fuck does it matter?

I grew up in the south hills of Pittsburgh which comes with a feeling of detachment from the city proper. Mt. Washington does more than obstruct the view of the PPG building, it disconnects the suburbs from the collective unconscious of the city’s underground music scene. Maybe Grand Buffet can only exist within the limits of the pulsating city. Maybe Lord Grunge and Grape-a-Don’s desire to remain elusive motivates their desire to continue producing music that is meant to mystify and provoke speculation. Maybe I don’t like the feeling of missing out on something as potent and unstable as a Grand Buffet concert. Maybe I’ve convinced myself that I’ll never get a chance to witness their mad-scientist genius in Pittsburgh again.

Grand Buffet – Cream Cheese Money

Grand Buffet – Dark Autumn

I had read about his shows. I had seen the YouTube clips from Chicago, New York, Coachella, and Pitchfork. I even heard a first hand account of how he played, quite illegally(though I highly doubt that fazed him), through a sweat drenched night at a frat house basement in the middle of St. Louis, after the cops shut down his show, literally cutting the power off, on the campus Washington University of St. Louis earlier that night. But even after all this hype, the many glowing reviews and my own ridiculously high standards; I was still unprepared for how much undiluted, visceral fun I was about to experience.

The effect sinks in only moments after the “show” has ended. My ears are still stinging with howling wind tunnels effects, every conversation taking place in my immediate proximity sounds like Charlie Brown’s torso-less parents are scolding me for some indecipherable mistake. I catch my breath, put on my heavy sweatshirt over the sweaty t-shirt that was rubbing up against close to thirteen girls I never knew, and will never know, and walk out onto the sharp, salt crusted asphalt of Pittsburgh in late November. We wade into the parking lot with a sea of other people and stand amidst what could possibly be the most embarrassing strip mall ever assembled. It includes a dry cleaner, a western trading post(whatever that is), a Payday Loan center…in a store front, and a former roller skate arena that has spent the entire night testing its natural frequency against the man named Girl Talk.

Almost everyone was shaking their heads in disbelief, recounting their favorite moments, still bumping up and down from the reverb in their heads. After I took a much needed steaming piss smack dab in the middle of the asphalt lot, I was still amazed, asking myself one question over and over again: how the hell does he do it? How does Greg Gillis change the momentum of a concert/dance party/club experience, whatever the hell you want call it, so effortlessly? How does he keep mounting the suspense of the night through the anticipation of what booty shaking, earth shattering, mouth watering combination of beat and voice that will come next?

But then I come back to the moment, one that I was already anticipating but somehow forgot about, that sealed the deal. As I was busy shaking my ass to one of my favorite combinations off Feed The Animals– Kanye’s “Flashing Lights” meets Blackstreet’s “No Diggity” meets Radiohead’s “15 step”—which sounded so perfect on the album I could hardly imagine those songs being separated thereafter, the classic combination the crowd was anxiously waiting for begins. Elton goes first with four bars of Tiny Dancer innocently trickling out of the laptop alone. Everything is now vibrating at a higher frequency, my eyes shake like Blair Witch cameras and I rub closer to the girls I don’t know. Then, Biggie’s bravura takes hold, “I LET MY TAPE ROCK TILL MY TAPE POP!”

Everyone sways, waiting for the drum to hit, knowing full well we are all at the will of Mr. Gillis. He throbs over his lap top, intently examining the screen as a horde of “dancers” on stage threaten to boil over the edge, assimilating back into the crowd. He swigs his 16 oz. beer and lets the drum pop. The crowd cheers, the moment is upon them now, washing through everyone in the abandoned roller skate arena that poses as a concert venue, complete with an impromptu bar area near the doors. Black and gold balloons that were suspended above the crowd, daunting them with the promise of a faux New Year’s eve, are unleashed upon the masses. The screen in the stage’s background, formerly throwing up collages of Pittsburgh sports emblems, now pulsates with one sentence, “I AM NOT A DJ.”

This mash-up sequence, which combines Elton John’s “Tiny Dancer” with Notorious B.I.G’s “Juicy,” is arguably Greg Gillis’ most infamous combination. The music tumbles through the speakers with even glitchier variations of 808’s and Auto Tune than I remembered, careening gracefully out of control. To say this was the climax is an anticlimax. I want to avoid hyperbole… but it was fucking religious. Slam ten pounders of PBR and witness this attack of disintegrated popular music and even your most banal opinions of hipster scenes at smaller concert venues will be washed aside. It was easily the most memorable concert moment of my young life, one that Pittsburgh must remember for years. The prodigal son returned, made love to Pittsburgh, and tore shit up. I don’t think any us who attended that show could have asked for more.

Girl Talk – Play Your Part pt. 1