Girl Talk's performance at the 9:30 Club last night could best be described as the ultimate six-year-old's birthday party, but in the best way. The musical persona of Pittsburgh's experimental musician-turned-DJ, Gregg Gillis, Girl Talk has become synonymous in recent years with "party" for a slightly older demographic. His performances, from clubs to festivals, are short and sweet and littered with party favors. It's the odd man out who does not have a stack of glow bracelets to wave around or a balloon to clutch. There is no petting zoo onstage -- that's reserved for the audience below. Instead, Gillis brings out his confetti cannons, inflatable shapes, LED displays, giant air-filled pouches of confetti and helium-filled balloons that float upward when pierced. It may be a blessing his sets clock in at just over an hour -- anything longer and his fans might faint from overstimulation. more ›

There's a screening tonight at SILVERDOCS of Brett Gaylor's RiP: A Remix Manifesto, and another on Saturday night. It's a must see film, and you should try to get out to the festival to check it out, but don't sweat it if you can't make it. You can always just download it. No need to go combing through torrent sites looking for a decent copy, though. You can download it directly from the filmmaker. If you want to pay him, great. You name the price. If not? That's cool, too. And if you want to re-cut his footage and post your edit online, or contribute original material to next year's planned 2.0 release, go right ahead. All of this is the point of the film: creativity, ideas, and media need not be controlled by the few; it belongs to us all. And copyright law needs to be rebuilt so that it serves its original purpose: to encourage creativity, not restrict it. more ›

Gregg Gillis studied biomedical engineering in college. He's also been playing music since he was a teenager. Combining that interest in breaking things apart and seeing how they work with his love of music, maybe it's not all that surprising that Girl Talk was the result. Girl Talk, as anyone who's been to a dance party in the past few years probably knows, is Gillis' stage name; he mixes samples of dozens of songs together to make unbelievably smart and fun songs in their own right. His recent album, Feed the Animals, worked its way onto most everyone's iPods after Gillis and his label, Illegal Art, decided to follow the Radiohead model and let people choose what they wanted to pay for a download. Tonight the Pittsburgh native is coming to the 9:30 Club, to put on a show that sold out long, long ago. We talked with him last week about old friends, Lil Wayne and the economic crisis. more ›

Fun Fun Fun Fest 2007 Recap from Super!Alright! on Vimeo. Austinist attended a town hall meeting about proposed noise ordinances that could undermine the city's future as the Live Music Capital of the World, and lamented the possible loss of Texas's only feminist bookstore. Throughout the week, they interviewed a bunch of indie fashion designers and D-I-Y websites—Etsy, Ornamental Things, 31 Corn Lane, and Aorta Designs—for the upcoming Stitch Fashion Show. They also did... more ›

>> Tonight's Girl Talk show at Black Cat is sold-out, but if you're desperate to go after reading our interview with opener Dan Deacon, craigslist has some options. Also White Williams, 8 p.m. >> The Hall Monitors heated up the DCist servers with their Three Stars appearance a few months back, and tonight they'll be warming up the stage for Jon Spencer and Matt Verta-Ray's Heavy Trash and Denmark's pshychobilly trio Powersolo at the... more ›

Baltimore's Dan Deacon, who plays tonight to a sold-out Black Cat, does things differently. His latest album, the critically acclaimed Spiderman of the Rings, starts with cascading and overlapping samples of Woody Woodpecker's laugh. Usually called an "absurdist composer" rather than solo electronic musician, he packs a crazy sense of humor, samples and loops into a building frenzy on tracks like "Crystal Cat," the 11 minute "Wham City," and "Snake Mistakes." In concert, Deacon sets... more ›

Ahhh, summer music festivals. As any music blog reader could tell you, as soon as the ground starts to thaw, they're all the indie kids can talk about. Last year we were all lathered up about getting a mega-fest of our very own (or at least, within reasonable stomping-ground distance). Several DCists embarked upon Pimlico and were pleased to report that the festival was wonderfully organized, accomodating, really well done and... that it just plain rocked. more ›

Between fake terrorist alerts and scandals big and small, this just might be the Best Best of the -ists ever. We're exhausted just thinking about it. First up, SFist, who saw their little 'ole site be the center of what was a nice little scandal (even getting their editor on TV) only to find their scandal dwarfed by the even bigger scandal caused by their Mayor boffing one of his aides' wife. We're not... more ›

FRIDAY: >> It's the DAM! Festival, son. We've already written a blue streak about it, so check out our recent music archives for some great interviews and MP3s from participating artists, and weigh your options between The Red and the Black, the Rock and Roll Hotel, or Velvet Lounge, full schedule with too many bands to list here. Of course, the non-DAM! show of the night is clearly Baltimore's Spank Rock, who'll be bringing their... more ›

As a rather fervent concert goer, I've been watching my October Outlook calendar with alternating excitement and dread as my concert calendar gets more and more crowded. This all came to a head yesterday as I started putting in the DAMfest schedule and noticed a whole bunch of scheduling conflicts in the making. Area indie rock fans are going to have some tough choices to make the last full week of October. Thursday, Oct.... more ›