HellaFrank

Over the past couple of months, I have developed a liking… no… an addiction to a musician (I think that’s what he is) who calls himself Girl Talk. It’s really hard to describe what he does, but Corey Lewis from the Stranger Dance blog sums it up nicely:

I don’t really know what exactly Girl Talk does. Mashup artist? No. DJ? Not really. I do know, however, that it’s great stuff. What he does isn’t really all that special, it’s more how he does it – serious, heavy-duty mixing using a dizzying amount and variety of songs, and doing it really, really well.

There you go. His MySpace page has some music if you want to really hear what he does – I recommend “Still Here” as a starter.

Anyways, back to the original reason for this post. Girl Talk’s album is a complex mix of more than 250 recognizable songs from the past and present, none of which are original work by Mr. Girl Talk himself. With the way the RIAA has been treating unlawful use of their music, you would think they’d be all over this guy, but so far they aren’t, and they shouldn’t be.

Since I started listening to Girl Talk, who offers a “pay what you want” pricing of his album, I have rediscovered songs I have forgotten about, picked out specific beats or guitar riffs I liked, and ultimately figured out what the songs were and bought them. I can safely say that I’ve bought somewhere around five to seven songs because of Girl Talk.

Girl Talk is a marketing machine, doing something that music labels haven’t figured out. His album is an hour-long advertisement for hundreds of songs delivered in ten to twenty second long bits that are mixed together to bring out the best in each one.

This man is a goldmine for the record industry, and hopefully they’ll let him stick around long enough to keep it up. I know I need a new album from him, I think I’ve listened to it every day on my walk to and from work for the past two months.

And I highly recommend going to his concert if you ever have a chance. Probably one of the best I’ve ever been to.

Yesterday I rocked out with about half the state of New Jersey at Bon Jovi’s free concert in Central Park and it… was… AWESOME…

50,000 people were at the Great Lawn to watch and seeing all the old tour t-shirts, Bon Jovi tatoos and hearing stories about concerts people had been to reminded me how this guy was THE MAN back in the day. He is still a pretty big deal, especially among the Jersey crowd, but it seems like his music is now mostly played in bars, sung along to by drunk 20-somethings that were probably a little to young to have really been engaged during his hey-day… Myself included. But his music has transcended decades and as was apparent yesterday, he still has a massive fan base and can easily fill 35 acres of park with fans (see photo above!).

Made me think I should have taken all of my childhood guitar lessons a little more seriously and been a rockstar. Now I’ll just have to wonder what it’s like to see women with a heart with a sword through it tatooed on their back with your name above it… Umm, yeah, I saw about 5 of those.

From my phone’s camera (regular camera’s were not allowed!)…

I heard this song called “SF Anthem” last time I was in San Francisco (where I currently am now), and it’s definitely grown on me. I think the mixture of San Francisco rap and Summer of Love music (Scott McKenzie’s “San Francisco”) sums me up perfectly — a rough urban childhood and upbringing by former hippie parents. Of course, West Portal is no “HP” or “Fillmoe.” Click play below and have a listen:

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b4GvlYfmxiM&rel=0&color1=0xd6d6d6&color2=0xf0f0f0&border=0]