Pitchfork

Girl Talk DJ/"not a DJ" Gregg Gillis stormed the grimy, punk-weathered stage at Chicago's legendary Empty Bottle venue Sunday night, ringing in the new year to an impossibly sold-out crowd: By the night of the event, the club's modest $25 tickets were selling on Craigslist for upwards of $250 a pop.

Inside the small, unassuming corner bar at Cortez and Western was a Chicago hipster "Soul Train" resurrection: 400 wasted party people, beat-thirsty and bug-eyed, knocking back straight whiskey and cutrate champagne, passing pizza boxes overhead, getting tangled in Christmas lights and ejected from the club. And Gillis-- lighting up sparklers on his laptop, gradually undressing, remashing Night Ripper faves with Daft Punk, Lil Wayne, and the latest Clipse clips, and celebrating his amazing year-- put in overtime, ensuring that everyone in the room had enough fun in the first hour of the new year to last them to 2008.