Rae Livingston and David Owen both help book the Barbary at Outside Lands, and have for several years now. This, is course, means they have a lot to talk about. So we split the interview in two, because we here at Spinning Platters understand that your time is precious. In this one, we talk about the bookings that they are most excited about this year, as well as some favorite memories of passed years.
If you missed part one, it’s right here! And if you still haven’t purchased tickets yet, what are you waiting for? You can find those right here!
SP: Yes, it’s gonna be good. Okay. So back to Dave. Oftentimes, the Barbary will include past shows that have played SF Sketchfest. How do you pick who’s had a successful SF Sketchfest outing to bring up to the Barbary?
DO: We think about—you know, coming out of January—we think about shows that would work well in that context: in a field, in a circus-style tent, in the middle of a music festival. Having done this for seven years now, we’ve seen the audience that come in to the Barbary, and we’ve seen what they responded to.
So, there’s always a handful of things that have done SF Sketchfest. Jeff Goldblum’s band, is an example. Red Room Orchestra. Various improv shows that we’ve had, where we’ll suggest them to the Barbary team and try it out—see if it works.
But, we’re also trying to work from the ground up. We don’t just come to the Barbary stage and say, what are we gonna do that was already at SF Sketchfest? We’re also trying to come up with ideas that haven’t been done before, to try something completely knew.
I remember, I think our very first year, seeing Neil Patrick Harris and a bunch of the Jim Henson Muppets backstage getting ready, practicing their juggling. That was just an odd day at work, for me, to see that. I don’t think anything had ever been done like that in a live setting.
So, it’s exciting to get to try something new. And you know, sometimes, an idea will originate at SF Sketchfest—and then go to the Barbary—but the reverse can happen too. Something really cool that plays the Barbary might end up playing SF Sketchfest, a year or two later.
But, that goes back to having similar tastes. Like, Rae has impeccable taste and great instincts for comedy, for what’s going to work, what an audience is going to like. That makes it pretty easy.
RL: Thanks Dave. It’s mutual.
SP: Now to move from Dave to talking about … D.A.V.E.
RL: Ha, nice transition.
SP: It looks like Discussions About Virtually Everything seems kind of like a play on TED Talks, which I’m guessing it is. What inspired this, adding something serious to the Barbary tent?
RL: So, one of the collaborators for D.A.V.E., Kerry Black, one of the founders at Superfly, (had) an idea to do something. For the state of the world right now, it’s like politics is on the mind. So as nice as it is to have Michelle, Chelsea, and Phoebe also commenting on the current state of affairs in their work, we wanted to create a space for something a little more serious.
We acknowledge that Outside Lands fans are well-rounded people. If you take Outside Lands, as a whole, you can kind of get your hands on everything. You can see your favorite bands, you can eat something incredible, you can see a comedy show, you can buy a really one-of-a-kind trinket—please edit out that I said the word “trinket.”
SP: No, that’s actually going to be the headline.
RL: Perfect. You know what I mean. Outside Lands sort of scratches every itch, and I feel like this is something that people are really engaging with in their everyday lives. We’ve kind of dabbled in it, we had the podcast Lovett or Leave It last year, which is, you know, a comedy version of a political podcast.
But we wanted to give it a true space to breathe in. So what we’ve done is carve out some of the podcasts we were doing and brought in political speakers, like Gavin Newsom, who, when he was mayor, really contributed to carving out the space for Outside Lands. So to have him as a speaker, especially when he’s on the campaign trail, is exciting.
And we always have to sprinkle in some interesting stuff, so it hasn’t been released yet, what Mickey Hart is going to talk about, but definitely it will be interesting. And Dave and I have both had Stuff You Should Know and are big fans of Josh Clark, so he’s gonna come out and give a talk. He did something similar at the Bell House. The Barbary doesn’t have to be strictly comedy. It’s really just what we’ve been fans of over the year. So D.A.V.E. is another space where, we’re fans of this as well, so we have some room to talk about these things.
We also partnered with the Global Climate Action Summit, which Jerry Brown is championing, and it’s an opportunity for that team to build a panel and talk about how are we going to deal with climate change? It’s something we really need to address, and if we find an audience who can come and eat their vegetables, before they go eat dessert, I think that’s how I’m thinking about D.A.V.E. You know, get there early, get your mind open, think about these things, and then go party.
SP: I really like the metaphor of vegetables before dessert.
RL: Yeah I was struggling to get all my words out there, but that’s the message I want you to come away with.
DO: This is a very important time for eating your vegetables. And some people like eating vegetables, and that’s what they’d prefer to eat over anything. I think these D.A.V.E. shows are going to be really well-attended, because again: It’s variety. It’s completely different from anything else you’ll see that day. It’s not a bad thing to have something thought-provoking to start your day at a music festival.
SP: Yeah I definitely concur. Also one of my favorite things is starting my day at the Barbary in general. It’s a nice way to open it up. All right so to jump from something serious to something maybe even more serious: the staging at the Barbary. For the first few years you were in a kind of cramped tent and moved around the venue, and last year, you upgraded. What kind of negotiation happened to get into a bigger space?
RL: We’ve always joked that the Barbary gets kicked around from meadow to meadow, but I think it’s a testament, because wherever the Barbary is, people will go.
It’s one of those stages that people actively seek out and find it, so I think it really made it a candidate. Like one year it was south of Polo [Fields], and then it was at Lindley, and now it’s at Marx. The reason we’ve moved around is we can build a tent. We really try to finesse crowd flow at Outside Lands, it’s something we work on day in and day out.
And one of the ways to do that was opening up JFK and expanding our festivals’ footprint into Max Meadow, which we worked closely with Parks and Rec, and negotiated over the course of a couple years. And we’ve been being really thoughtful about how to expand our footprint, and the Barbary is something people will go to find. So once we were in our own meadow, we were able to double the size of the tent.
We spent a lot of time figuring out how to do, you know, re-doing our ceiling treatments and adding more walls and doing all the things we needed to do to double our size. And, also we noticed over the years: It’s a hard place to get into, especially when you have, like, Neil Patrick Harris. So we wanted to give more fans an opportunity to get in there. So all those factors combined led us to Marx Meadow, and we will be returning there this year, and it’s nice to have back-to-back years where you don’t have to re-figure out your entire game plan, that’s a nice thing.
SP: Yeah I liked that it was at Marx Meadow last year. Especially since, the year before that, it had been moved to right behind the main stage—
RL: [Sighs] Yeah, uh, next topic. [Everybody laughs] It was not great.
SP: Yeah I can’t remember which comedian it was: They stopped the set and started singing along to Sam Smith.
RL: I’m pretty sure that was Comedy Bang Bang. I think it was Scott Aukerman.
SP: That feels about right.
RL: Yeah that was an unfortunate move, and we quickly course-corrected that, made it through the year with that sound bleed. Especially since I work in both the production department and in comedy, I always fight for our stage, and they’re really sick of me talking about sound mitigation, and can we change the sub-configuration at Twin Peaks so it’s better at Barbary.
SP: Yeah, well, I’m grateful you’re doing it, because that was the only year I’ve ever been less than happy about the stage, because there was so much bleed-through. But you did have an ice cream taco truck right next door, so that kind of made up for it.
RL: Oh good.
SP: One of my favorite Barbary memories that I haven’t seen happen again was the ping-ponging karaoke, which was closed out by Craig Robinson doing Muse. Was this planned, or was he just hanging out?
DO: Do you remember: Was that part of his contractual appearance, or did he just do that?
RL: I think that was before my time.
DO: I think he just did that. Maybe he had agreed to do a song? I really can’t remember. I think he might have just been hanging around, heard about the show, knew that it was karaoke and was like, “Oh, yeah, I’ll do a song.”
Or somebody said backstage, “Do you want to do a song?” And he said, “Yeah, sure. I’ll do it.” Gosh, yeah. I don’t remember if he was obligated to do that, or if he did it out of the kindness of his heart. That’s a great memory. That was really, really great.
SP: Yeah it was epic. I remember Cole (Stratton), one of the other SF Sketchfest folks, doing a Kings of Leon song, which I’ve actually seen him do karaoke numerous times—
DO: Oh that’s one of his go-to songs, yeah.
SP: Yeah and I remember being like, okay: The people that put this together are gonna do a song, and it kind of felt like it was the end, and then Craig Robinson was seemingly—literally—called up by the KJ out of nowhere and just destroyed everything, and I thought, wow. Lovely.
Okay. What’s on your wishlist? This is a question I ask in every interview: Who is someone you want to have but haven’t been able to get yet, at least that you can say?
RL: Hmm, I don’t know if it would be too revealing, Dave. We’ve got our sights set on something for 2019—
DO: Yeah, I—to be honest, I never like answering that question because I like to keep the cards a little close to the chest. You don’t want to jinx something, you know? There’s some cool things we really want to do, but I’m afraid that if we say them, they won’t happen. And then we’ll be sad [laughs]. It’s like your birthday wish: You’re not allowed to say it, or it won’t come true.
RL: There ya go.
SP: Fair enough. So at what point do you start the booking process? Is it immediately after the previous year? What kind of lead time do you have?
RL: I think probably after Sketchfest is when we start. David, Janet, and Cole don’t really want to talk to us in January.
DO: We disappear into a deep, dark hole from August to January. It’s hard to think about anything else. But we’re always, in the backs of our heads, keeping a running list for Outside Lands.
RL: Yeah, there are the things we’ve tried for a few years. We have that wishlist. As we move off the festival, you keep things in mind to target for next year, and sometimes you just get cranking on it, and some things come through, and some things don’t. Some things are just new and of the moment. I think a good example of that is Getting Curious, with Jonathan Van Ness. That has been the number one thing we’ve been getting responses to on social. People are beyond excited for him, in particular.
So, much like Michelle Wolf, to actually have him at Outside Lands is a real thrill. Especially, having never predicted the Queer Eye reboot, he’s such a force to be reckoned with right now, and such an example of good and niceness and that there’s hope in the world. He just kind of gives me the warm and fuzzies, and that really came from this year, and the Queer Eye reboot, and his podcast shooting to the top of the charts.
SP: Awesome. So every year for the music stage, I do a preview—my Top 10 from the bottom half of the calendar. So, each of you, tell me why I should go see one of the acts from the bottom half of the poster.
DO: I was recently in London, watching, like, panel quiz shows on TV, in my hotel room. And James Acaster is in so many of these shows, and I think he’s brilliant. I think he’s one of the funniest guys around. So I’m excited about that.
And Eliza Skinner. Eliza Skinner, at the last Sketchfest, everybody was talking about her Setlist performance. There’s a show called Setlist, where the comedians make up their performance on the spot, and they’re given topics on stage. And she, I guess she sang her entire set. I haven’t seen this set, but it’s already legendary because everybody was talking about it. She’s not just a great comedian but a really fantastic improviser.
So those are two names that really jump out at me, are James and Eliza.
SP: Man, one of the few years I missed Setlist. Okay, Rae, what about you?
RL: I’m very excited about Naomi Ekperigin. I’m excited that I learned to pronounce her name right. I just think she’s so funny, and I get her on a deep, guttural level. She’s someone we’ve had at Clusterfest and I’ve been a fan of hers for a long time. I don’t think she’s going to be at the bottom of the lineup for long. Also, Rhys Darby is someone I’ve been chasing for a long time- he was on my wishlist and it came true, and I’m excited that Rhys will be there.
SP: Awesome.
RL: I also just want to say, our VIP courtyard is basically all female chefs and restaurateurs. So along with our music lineup—and the top line at the Barbary—it’s another exciting example of women just, dominating.
SP: That’s so cool to me. Me and a friend have been looking at festivals, keeping an eye on the lineups, and the female representation is always so low. This makes me really happy. Even if it isn’t intentional—it’s almost better that it’s not intentional. So, hopefully GastroMagic will follow suit.
RL: Yeah, it’s natural. TBD.
SP: I’m excited to see what you’ll have cooked up. See you guys in a few weeks.
