Part two of Zack’s interview with Girl Talk:

ZT:How wild is a Girl Talk show?
GT: I’ve seen people having sex on stage. Doing legitimate drugs on stage. Last fall was the first time someone had sex at a show that I saw.
When the stage gets this packed, it’s easy to not notice dancers going at it. Gregg said he’s seen it happen at least four or five shows this year. “The girl straddling the guy, skirt up. It’s as discreet as it can be.” (note to self… Get. On. Stage. At. Girl Talk.)

Misconception: It’s the same thing live as the album…
GT: When you hear “No Diggity with “Flashing Lights,” the presentation will be different. You might hear the a capella for a second and then the music kicks in. The verse from “No Diggity” will be one loop, the chorus will be another. As you hear one part start and another it’s me triggering it in real time. Live sound processing. Read the rest of this entry »

~Z.T.~ Gregg Gillis (better known as Girl Talk) spoke to me before his first weekend off from performing all year. He just moved into a new apartment in Pittsburgh and has been without internet for two weeks and says he’s loving the freedom. With no internet or shows to distract him, he’s still putting in 5-10 hours a day with his system of trial and error on samples. Even though he’s always working, he “can’t even imagine making another album, but that’s how I felt after Night Ripper too.”Trial and Error: “Most of the mash-ups don’t work. The majority of it doesn’t work. If I sat at computer, I could play ones that surprise you.” Read the rest of this entry »

~Z.T.~ Every time I worry Festival season has come to a close, another one creeps up on me. This weekend is the Jazz Fest in Grant Park. I’ll admit, Jazz is not really my area of expertise, but I’m up for anything.

Ornette Coleman is the big draw Sunday night and if I can get anyone to go with me, I plan on nursing my hangover there in the early hours and then reveling in the smooth “yazz” sounds all night. That y in Jazz isn’t a typo. It’s just me highlighting how little I know about Jazz by making an Anchorman reference. I’m going to learn.

-A.S. Kanye West has gone a bit video happy with Graduation. This time he hits us with “Good Morning.” My favorite part is when animated Kanye Bear gets his degree and the whole crowd goes wild. I’ve also decided that the psychedelic mushroom forest obstacle he has to overcome is a metaphor for Bonnaroo. Enjoy!

-A.S. I found myself talking with my friends yesterday about how upset we were that summer was coming to an end. More specifically, that it was going to start getting cold again soon. As if on cue, Blues Traveler released North Hollywood Shootout today. An album that has a few great tracks for cruising with the windows down while the weather is still nice.

The first thing that I noticed while listening to North Hollywood Shootout was that on the songs that I was digging, it was Chan Kincla’s guitar that was drawing me in and not John Popper’s voice or harp.
Perhaps it was seeing how good Chan Kincla was at Lollapalooza that made him stand out more to me on this new album.

“You, Me, and Everything” sounds as good on the album as it did live at Lollapalooza. The biggest rocker is “The Beacons.” Kincla’s guitar absolutely screams on “How You Remember It.” Although “Queen of Sarajevo” starts slow, it turns into one of the albums best tracks by the end. Definitely one of the best second to last tracks on an album I’ve heard in a while.

The album closes with a spoken word track called “Free Willis, Ruminations from Behind Uncle Bob’s Machine Shop.” Bruce Willis does the talking, and really gets into it, while the band jams out over a drum beat. Best Bruce line: “Hold my cell phone. It’s a Blackberry, hold it. My other Blackberry is ringing.”John Popper and co played a few of North Hollywood Shootout’s tunes at Lollapalooza.

The album is good, but not great. I’m sure most of the songs will sound excellent live, as the ones I remember from Lollapalooza did. They give you some rockers to go with some of Popper’s usual ballads. Plus, how many albums have John McClane on them?

~Z.T.~ Ezra Furman and the Harpoons end their Monday night stay at Schubas tonight. Two weeks ago the band played Plastic Ono Band on John night. Last week Ezra played a memorizing solo show that led to an encore. Tonight we have the record release party.Ezra teased a batch of the songs last week and I was a big fan. At least come to see if he wears those red pants for the third week in a row. I hope I see you there. Schubas. 10 p.m.

~Z.T.~ I don’t really care much for structure. As you can see here, festivalcrashers.com is fighting to get out of the box. But we know you love your scheduling, so we’ll give you one:

Sunday: Week wrap-up linking to all stories the past week
Monday: Preview of Concerts in Chicago the upcoming week/Reviews
Tuesday: New Album Reviews
Wednesday: Music Videos
Thursday: Top Lists
Friday: Dream Rock ideas (perfect festival, band we most want to see live, general musings)
Saturday: Off unless we’re at a festival

I added digg to the blog last night. If you like what we’re doing, can ya digg it? Ya know, “Like a rolling stone. Like the FBI. And the CIA. And the BBC. BB King. And Doris Day! Matt Busby! Digg it Digg it. Digg it. Digg it. Digg it …” Oh, and click the ads. We be po’ boys.

*Photo by Eric Weiler

~Z.T.~ This one was almost too easy. When it was over, I wanted to crash something else. I had even warmed up my crashing skills by sneaking into “Tropic Thunder” earlier in the day. The key there was asking where the bathroom was and going to the theater from there.

I knew I’d have to be more inventive than that to crash Reggae Fest. My friends Paul, Jordan and Eric all bought tickets as I stood around the entrance to form a plan. My plan going in was to use the media entrance gate that they kept so unguarded at Pitchfork. Read the rest of this entry »

~Z.T.~ As Anthony B’s solid set winded down, we decided to get into the Jamaican Jerk Chicken line. If we had to wait 40 minutes until Bunny went on, we might as well make it a productive wait. We had no idea what we were getting ourselves into. After 20 minutes we could tell we hadn’t moved far, but we were of the “Well, we’ve put in all this time, we can’t stop now” mindset. Then it just dragged.

Eric and I are big JJC fans and the two large Jamaican women behind us insisted it was the best chicken in the festival. As we heard the “One good thing about music, when it hits you feel no pain” lyrics to “Trenchtown Rock” at around the hour mark, part of me wanted to just say forget this and get closer to Bunny, but how do you wait an hour for food and then not get any?

When we got to the front I saw the hold-up. The operation was three Jamaican dudes working a line so ineffective it would make a German’s head spin. One dude on the grill (which they needed at least two more of) one dude playing with his iPhone and making excessive small talk with every paying customer and one dude kinda floating in between them, chopping the chicken when he felt like it. I wanted to freak out on them and ask if they had any idea how long the line was, but that’s not jahh way to do it at reggae fest. And I’m sure they couldn’t have cared less.

I guess you’re curious if it was worth it. Not at all. The sauce was super strong and I got a nasty case of hiccups for half the meal. It was worth about 12 minutes of waiting, tops.

P.S. if this post felt excessively long and not really worth your time, well, that was the point.

~Z.T.~ The only thing worse than white guys with dreads, is white guys with Mullet Dreads. It’s business in the front. Irie in the back.