Here are more of the superlatives and less-than-superlatives Julie Seabaugh witnessed at the comedy tent at last week’s Sasquatch! festival.
Monday, May 26
Least Ready for Prime-Time Players: Great that Sasquatch! remembered the locals, but Seattle School’s RECESSION!—poorly lip-synched ditties about lipstick, the Nintendo Wii and Ben Bernanke – emphasized facial contortions and painfully hip pop-culture references over actual humor, ultimately walking about half the audience.
Healthiest Sign of Life IV: More than doubling the amount from the two previous days, 64 chairs crowded the front of the stage… and remained filled with increasingly familiar faces through every set’s standing-room turnover.
Rawest Revelations: Winding down his Standuppity Tour with Eugene Mirman, Marc Maron confessed to being exhausted, crazed (more so than usual) and still reeling from his wife’s recent decision to leave him. With the crowd already embracing his material on racism, politics, religion and technology, he shrugged, “Okay, I’ll try to work it through with you nice people.” Chunks on his anger issues, being alone and history of drugging and drinking gave way to his admitting, “There’s part of me that wants to be liked by everybody, but I beat the fuck out of that part. And that’s basically my personality.” Authenticity at its most admirable.
Most Missed Catchphrases of Power-Point Presenter, Pseudo-Political Reporter, Amateur Crypto-Zoologist and All Around Cheshire Cat of Sarcasm Eugene Mirman: 3) “I am bike cheese!” 2) “…bowls of tears and little fear cakes. That are not very good.” 1) “Miiirman! Man From the Sea!” Seriously, it’s been far, far too long. Someone book the dude a special immediately.
Worst Scheduling Conflict That Wasn’t So Bad Once You Really Think About It: Flight of the Conchords’ 6:05 p.m. appearance on the festival Main Stage in direct competition with Michael “Setting fake movie scenes to songs deemed by the counterculture as ‘totally lame’ means my playing them for a live audience makes me an ironic stand-up genius” Showalter’s 6 p.m. set.
Best “Oh Wait, Guess Someone Came to Their Senses” Moment: The higher-ups’ afternoon-of decision to go ahead and move back both Showalter and closer Michael Ian Black back an hour (to 7 and 8 p.m. respectively). Kudos, folks in charge.
Smallest Presence: The Conchords, unfortunately, as two slight New Zealanders performing acoustically on a huge stage in front of a sea of drunken music die-hards was a better idea on paper than execution. Grumbled on attendee: “Whoever this is on stage it wounds like they’re still warmin’ up. Just messin’ around and shit.”
Most Accurate Self-Assessment: “Strangers don’t find me funny. I’m an acquired taste; I know that,” noted Michael Ian Black before bits on ejaculating pine cones and the dramatic reading of “A Series of Letters to the First Girl I Ever Fingered.”
Best Reason to Reunite Stella (Again): Michaels Showalter and Ian Black, we love you, The State, Stella and Wet Hot American Summer. We really do. But you just can’t suddenly decide to tour and release albums (see 2007) with material that’s work-in-progress at very best. If we wanted semi-humorous lists of bands who sound like Radiohead, we’d read McSweeney’s. If we wanted drawn-out stories about human idiocy with no discernible punchlines, we’d…well, we’d talk to our grandfathers more. We thoroughly dig when you do what it is you do well, but this whole “stand-up comedy” path is just kind of a let-down. Take those pseudo-heckles of “Where’s David Wain?!” to heart.
Previously Part 1 of coverage of the Sasquatch! Comedy Tent
My good friend Julie Seabaugh, who I’ve taken more than a couple of cues from as far writing about comedy, attended the music fest Sasquatch. But instead of the music, sheengorged herself on the offerings from the comedy tent, a welcome new addition to the fest. Here’s her report.
Though it’s the seventh go-round for the rural Washington-state music gathering known as Sasquatch!, 2008 was the first year the hairy-palmed hootenanny hosted a Comedy Tent. And while David Cross/Aziz Ansari/Nick Kroll’s first-and-only rendition of “You Might Be a Deadneck If…” at Bonnaroo 2007 set the bar impossibly high for all future festival lineups, the Sasquatch names, considering the Tent’s infancy, were impressive in their own right. Among the high- and lowlights:
Saturday, March 24
Best Group Effort: UCB Presents ASSSSCAT, featuring Matt Besser, Matt Walsh, Horatio Sanz, Tim Meadows, Sean Conroy, Jerry Minor and Rich Fulcher. The Brigade ushered in the first day with a brain-blowing four afternoon/early evening performances.
Healthiest Sign of Life I: Prior to ASSSSCAT, the line stretched from the Comedy Tent gate, up the hill, and past the VIP Zone, the wooden statue of a bear playing the guitar, the Mike Patton-fronted Crudo opening their Wookie Stage set with “Running with the Devil,” and beyond.
Best Cross-Promotion: Besser to a female audience member: “Would you have sex with the members of Flight of the Conchords?” Female audience member: “I want to have sex with their manager.”
Hairiest Reoccurrence: Reggie Watt’s prodigious ‘fro. At media check-in. Strolling by the Wookie Stage. By the rear sound board before ASSSSCAT. Distributing bottled water to the front row 20 minutes before his own Sunday performance. Hiding beneath a tie-dyed tee near the tent’s picnic tables after.
Celebrity Most Desperate for Street Cred: Office-mate Rainn Wilson, at the festival promoting upcoming feature The Rocker, glad-handling drunken fans in the back of the room during ASSSSCAT’s 6:30 p.m. slot.
Sunday, March 25
Healthiest Sign of Life II: At noon, a group of four was already first in line for the People’s Republic of Komedy show featuring Andy Haynes, Kevin Hyder, Aziza Diaz, Derek Sheen and Andy Peters…which began at 3 p.m.
Oddest Item Spied on Comedy Tent Floor: Post-Reggie Watts’ blistering 45 minutes of music-looping wizardry, sexual innuendo, mobius-like wordplay and spot-on M.I.A. impression: a used condom.
Healthiest Sign of Life III: Comedy geeks who didn’t leave the tent all afternoon – and why would they need to, when drinks/porta-potties were right there on the premises? – gradually inching forward with each performance, into the 30 folding chairs at stage front and remaining in their staked territory for upwards of five hours.
Best Context-Driven Banter: Two slurring women in the back questioning dark ‘n’ deadpan Morgan Murphy’s complaints about the hour-plus line for campground showers: “Why would you shower?” Murphy: Because yesterday like eight guys came on my face…Did I tell them they could? No, but R.E.M. was that good.” And Murphy, minutes later, referring to the current indie band sound-bleeding into the tent: “Ah Jesus, who’s playin’ now? Somebody sad.”
Recipient of the Sarah Silverman Award for Distinguished Achievement in Really, Really Needing to Write New Shit: Cuddling with wife? Mouth baby? Dennis Rodman? Samurai sword? Puppy time? You look like you like to bend sluts over and pound their assholes? That overdone “Hairless Yeti” yelp? We salute you, Brian Posehn.
Lines to get into the comedy tent. Always an encouraging sign...
Another report (and more photos) to come later from Julie on the rest of the doings at the Sasquatch comedy tent.
It just started last night in Kentucky, but midwest and west coast comedy nerds should check out the Stand Uppity Tour, which features Marc Maron, Andy Kindler and Eugene Mirman. Produced by the Huffington Post’s humor site 236, it’s got an appropriately liberal elitist tag line: “Comedy That Makes You Feel Better About Yourself, and Superior To Others.” Or as Kindler told a Minnesota paper: “It’s the anti-Robin Williams show. If you don’t think you’ll enjoy Robin Williams, you’ll enjoy this show.”
Here’s the remaining dates:
May 12 Lake Shore Theater, Chicago, IL - 9:00 PM
Get tickets
May 13, 2008 Turf Club, St. Paul, MN - 7:00 PM
Get tickets
May 14, 2008 The Aquarium @ Dempseys, Fargo, ND - 7:00 PM
Get tickets
May 17, 2008 Neurolux, Boise, ID - 7:00 PM
Get tickets
May 18, 2008 Bagdad Theater, Portland, OR - 8:00 PM
Get tickets
May 20, 2008 Mezzanine, San Francisco, CA - 8:00 PM
Get tickets
May 22, 2008 Echo Plex, Los Angeles, CA - 7:00 PM
Get tickets
May 26, 2008 Sasquatch Music Festival Comedy Tent, George, WA
(No Andy, just Marc & Eugene)
Get tickets
Bonnaroo is coming up June 12 to the 15th with performances by lots of Dead-Frog fave comics including Cross, Galifianakis and Garofalo. But with Fabrcie Fabrice’s doppelganger Nick Kroll not on the bill, who will handle the craft services for all these funny folks?
Here’s a vid from last year’s fest which shows how good Fabrice Fabrice is at getting those soggy vegetable plates to stand-ups.
Lewis Black had a water bottle throw at him during the 2007 Bonnaroo Music Festival. At the time it appeared to be the act of one stupid audience member. But was it something more? This video looks into the truth behind what a bit of seemingly innocent asshole-ry.
Hmm… many questions were raised, but very few answers. Will more be revealed in the 2008 Bonnaroo Music Fest? Probably not.
But hopefully nobody will conspire against this year’s comedy lineup at Bonnaroo, which includes David Cross, Janeane Garofalo, Zach Galifianakis, Jim Norton, Brian Posehn, Mike Birbiglia, John Mulaney and Michelle Buteau. Plus, Chris Rock will make a one hour performance on the main stage. Bonnaroo takes place from June 12th to the 15th.
I mentioned that The Comedy Festival in Vegas lacked more low-fi shows. Besides the Garage Comedy show I attended, another alternative show going on at the time was a Backyard Comedy Show that I missed. But some footage of it just made the web. Here’s the video featuring Brody Stevens and Morgan Murphy, as well as the show’s founder Brandt Tobler.
Obviously, a little bit of this is had to be there stuff. But I dig the idea a lot. People getting together, probably mostly the comics and the comedy nerds, bringing a lawn chair (yep, it’s BYO Seat) and laughing. This show is something I can really see working over the web. So much of stand-up is presented cleanly - too cleanly. Seeing stand-up performed intimately, emphasizing the communal nature of laughter by making the show like a get together between friends. And then, if you’re going to share it with the world on the web, make it like that same group filmed it with handheld cameras, cell phone cameras, etc. all cut together.
Of course, some people’s backyards are bigger than others. The last show in February, which featured Doug Stanhope had 250 people at it, according to Backyard Comedy’s myspace page. How big is too big for something intimate?
With TBS now holding two comedy festivals, they need somebody to handle the production of them. Hence this listing. A couple of interesting passages from the job description:
Collaborate with Los Angeles-based originals group to develop and produce television programming for national network, VOD, broadband and wireless.
and
Create and lead business development plan to expand revenue sources for these properties (example scenarios: DVD sales, tours).
Which suggests to me that my earlier suggestion that TBS plans to compete with Comedy Central in stand-up might be accurate. It certainly says that TBS sees this fest closer to the business than Comedy Central currently does with its South Beach festival, which, to my knowledge, has not produced any programming or DVDs.
Couple this with Just For Laughs, which is co-producing the Chicago Very Funny Festival, stating frankly that they want to be on American TV. Add in that many stand-up specials are now independently produced and then marketed to networks (primarily Comedy Central, but also Showtime). A lot of these comics may now have another player, an apparently ambitious one, bidding for them.
My only question: how much have network execs learned from the 80s boom, where stand-up became comically ubiquitous at the expense of quality? Good to have a new player. Let’s hope they’re a smart one.
This list of five awful Saturday Night Live hosts can't entirely be proven, since Lorne Michaels won't let the Milton Berle-hosted episode see the light of day again. Which is probably a good thing.
The trailer for Ghost Town, the "Ricky Gervais plays a dick who learns to be a better person thanks to dead people" movie, just went up. That's probably all you need to see of it.
Paul Scheer says there's going to be a third season of Human Giant, they just got to work around Aziz Ansari's schedule, now that's he's a character in the Office spin-off. (Best Week Ever)
Rawest Revelations: Winding down his Standuppity Tour with Eugene Mirman, Marc Maron confessed to being exhausted, crazed (more so than usual) and still reeling from his wife’s recent decision to leave him. With the crowd already embracing his material on racism, politics, religion and technology, he shrugged, “Okay, I’ll try to work it through with you nice people.” Chunks on his anger issues, being alone and history of drugging and drinking gave way to his admitting, “There’s part of me that wants to be liked by everybody, but I beat the fuck out of that part. And that’s basically my personality.” Authenticity at its most admirable. 
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