Girl Talk @ the Proletariat’s Fourth Anniversary Party, 9.23.06
For my first “real” event post-relocation, I went to the fourth anniversary party of hep bar the Proletariat, which offered a slew of DJs playing to a fairly packed and bumping dance floor, topped off with the delicious post-pop soup of a live laptop set from Girl Talk! For free (before 11 CST), even! I love you Houston!
The first couple warmup DJs were brave but a bit meh, serving up wobbly mash-ups which really couldn’t be asked to compare with Girl Talk’s helter-skelter maelstrom. Things heated up when Daytah took to the tables, spinning a cheeky mix of irony-free dancefloor classics (”Lady,” “Music Sounds Better With You,” “Two of Hearts,” “Over & Over”) that brought a Balearic smile to my face. DJ Witness dirtied things up even more, focusing more on recent hits (”Kryptonite”) and adding a stronger hip-hop bent.
Girl Talk finally took to the “stage” at around 1 am, after an aborted attempt to raffle off some Proletariat t-shirts, which ended with them being thrown (really more like handed) into the crowd. Dressed to the nines in button-up, tie and blazer, Girl Talk (aka Gregg Gillis) played his geek chic role to perfection, grinning goofily while he leaned his lanky frame over the laptop to mesh together beats, bites, pieces and fragments of the last twenty years of pop history. The crowd (who I wasn’t sure would even know the steez) lapped it up, to their credit, jumping and grinding and hollering when favorite bits both expected (”Hustlin’,” “Take me to the Mardi Gras,” “Kryptonite,” again) and unexpected (Smashing Pumpkin’s “1969″) dropped into the mix. Downsides included wading through a sea of hipsters to wait for a half-hour to procure a watery bourbon & coke, and having someone throw a drink at their girlfriend only to hit me.
Otherwise a fine night, spent as one should - alone, in a beat-addled daze, covered in sweat.
3 Comments
- dominic replied:
1979. i was 5.
dude, headz want to know what a girl does to warrant having a drink thrown at her. besides appear in a rap video, i mean.
September 26th, 2006 at 4:54 pm. Permalink.
- houston replied:
please give us credit for knowing the shit that plays on the radio non-stop here. that makes us feel really cool.
October 8th, 2006 at 5:41 am. Permalink.
- mallory replied:
Er, meaning the whole Girl Talk mash up thing, kid. (I know it would have met to a numb reception in my previous home).
November 2nd, 2006 at 12:49 pm. Permalink.