It Was Impossible to Know

Author’s Note: Not everything herein should be taken laterally.

Hollywood isn’t known much for its interactivity.

I always (always-like the 10 or so shows I’ve seen here) find L.A. crowds a bit stuffy (and by stuffy, I mean that my friends and I were actually listening to the music (Assholes at Air)). Ok, So not always, but it had, on occasion, felt like a lot people are there more for the show than the show, or the show more than the SHOW (these are not mutually exclusive, merely exclusive). I’m not innocent. There was this one time when the venue was so inappropriate for rocking out that I sat, in shame, and watched, in envy, while the die hards rejoiced. (This was probably about looking kewl, (I mean my friends were sitting too) but wouldn’t I look foolish bodyrockin’ myself off of a balcony?)

But, to be sure, the LA scene has its share of the see and be scene.

And maybe I feel this way because when I was a 15 year-old, listening to 15 year-old music and dancing like a spastic 15 year-old I didn’t notice that it’s always been that way. And now I am a 21 year-old, listening to 15 year old music, and dancing like a spastic 15 year-old (To every toe I’ve ever stomped, anyone I’ve hit with my flailing elbows, or any short people I’ve wrecked out of the way (woman at Hive’s concert: all three) I sincerely apologize. But not sincerely enough to ever stop. (To woman at Hive’s concert: please have 3).

Anyhow this is about the Girl Talk show I was dragged to last night. Dragged cuz I only have one album of his and find the music far too schizophrenic*. I hear a song I like and then it’s gone and I wanna groove out gd’it.

*I kinda wanted to say post modern but am not sure if it applies. By addressing this it shows that I could be right, and if I am and you know it too, I’ll at least appear informed, kinda, but you will, def) (If you dig all this flip flop reverse talk. thought. kind of maybe feelings and sort of thoughts. prothestically protected, punctuated profalactics performing, well then, check out the NYT’s review for Charlie Kaufman’s new flick Synecdoche, New York. If you’d prefer something a bit more ballsy, check out Antagony & Ecstasy’s review. And If you want my opinion, (and trust me, it is insightful, Kaufman screened the film at my school and spoke afterward, so I know things) Well it’s that:

KAUFMAN: Finally…boobs

KAUFMAN (CON’T): just boobs.

de la ROCHA: Malkovich, Malkovich, Malkovich, Malkovich…

Back to the fucking concert already. So like I said,

“Dragged cuz I only have one album of his and find the music far too schizophrenic*. I hear a song I like and then it’s gone and I wanna groove out gd’it.”

I didn’t really like/know Girl Talk but Andrew swore that with my high level of ADHD that his music was “designed for people like” me! “You’re the most ADD person I know!” And whatever, he’s the laziest kid I’ve ever met. Kind of.

I was right, mostly and wrong, entirely.

You know when you go to see some band (I’m going to use Benny Benassi as an example) and you know all of their songs, or a few of them, or even if you only know ONE of their songs, the radio single probably, (in this case the sexy music video with tons of jigglies) you’ll def “want to hear it soooo bad!”. And you expect they’ll play it and if they don’t (which is:

• likely: if your favorite song is obscure
• possible: if it isn’t on the new album
• probable: if you miss the concert entirely. i.e. run out of printer ink.

) you “will JUST DIE!” (Benny’s RHCP remix could not shroud his neglection of California Dreamin’ in LA, on a perfect fall’s eve).

Well Girl Talk has this problem in the extremes. 80% of the audience has been listening to 80% of the samples for 80% of their lives. (Before the show I made an invisible wager. “I wanna hear Jessie’s Girl. It’s a no brainer that it will show up, everyone fucking knows that song” It did! I won!) But when the jungle juice showman gets rolling with one of his classics (I assume) and then proceeds to REMIX it, as he did with Hilary’s “FAVORITE jam”, it’s like “What the fuck?! That was my favorite jam.”

Nothing really could be expected from this guy except a monster party, and we were at one, for sure. and didn’t really calm down. The Girl Talk guy even did his best to introduce us to each other, using the star to tune down the idol, “Put away your fucking cameras Los Angeles! Everyone put your fucking cameras in your pockets!” Something like that. (The debate about the “artistry” of The Girl Talk Project is entirely irrelevant. But he has a science minded past which is certainly an fascinating side dish) L.A. livened up about 30 minutes in (when it got louder) and for some disappointingly-less-than-forever time period we were the show. We were blasted by dip’n'dots visuals, bathed in bath tissue, rained by on giant versions of those bags of air that are (why!?) slowly replacing packing peanuts.

But in the end, the literal end, my suspicions were founded and unexpectedly this felt truly unexpected! Having shimmied, bopped, skanked, thrashed, ground, and broke to every song I’ve ever heard (except “All The Small Things”) I got left waving my hands in the air, eyes closed, listening to 500 kids sing a song that might have been Journey or may have been Foreigner. And maybe, both. But I didn’t know it.