And just when you thought you’d given up on live mashup music.
Flying in the face of last month’s disappointing DJ shows (Girl Talk, Super Mash Brothers), California up-and-coming mashup artist Milkman is slated to perform at Beta Theta Pi fraternity this Friday night.
Gregg Luskin, stage alias “Milkman,” got his start in music as lead guitarist for A Dead Giveaway, a four-piece rock band based out of San Francisco. Luskin was introduced to the world of electronic music years later while attending the University of California at Santa Barbara and became transfixed with the genre — a fascination that gave birth to the debut Milkman album, “Lactose and THC.” The album's 14 tracks were downloaded 26,000 times from his Web site that year, shooting Milkman to the front of the mashup scene and prompting the release of his sophomore effort, “Circle of Fifths,” in March of 2009.
With his music rising in popularity in the mainstream along with that of fellow leading mashup artist Girl Talk, it’s impossible not to draw comparisons between the two DJs. On the whole, Milkman’s tracks are nearly indistinguishable from those produced by Girl Talk’s Gregg Gillis: more electro-grounded mashups with a variety of samples from hit songs of the last 50 years. Luskin’s numbers are produced as individual songs, unlike Girl Talk’s continuously-mashed albums, and Milkman’s sound is generally more relaxed and less frenetically uptempo than many of Girl Talk’s high energy creations.
Both artists compose their albums from an amazing repertoire of music: Milkman’s “Lactose and THC” samples a total of 114 different songs, and Girl Talk’s albums feature as many as 19 or 20 different song samples per track. This slower tempo and more relaxed vibe evidenced on “Lactose and THC” proves a bit troubling in terms of Milkman’s translation to a live, dance-party type of show, but the more energetic sound featured on “Circle of Fifths” dispels any worries that his brand of mashup, like Girl Talk’s, came to party. Now, just one question remains: Will Milkman’s music, like Girl Talk’s, prove unsuitable to live performance? Will he reuse old samples and past mashups, dropping disappointment after disappointment on stage, or will Milkman deliver a unique and high-energy party this Friday night?
While Girl Talk was arguably the artist that brought mashup music to the mainstream, will Milkman be the DJ that keeps it there? Few musical acts can survive without a live show, and this campus’ recent experiences with mashup artists have shown the genre’s surprising incompetence in putting on a unique and high-energy live show. Will Milkman prove to be more of the same song and dance? Check out his performance at Beta on Friday to find out — Luskin is slated to go onstage at 10 p.m.
