Sketchfest Review: Comedy NightLife at the California Academy of Sciences, 1/26/11

Your Tour Guides, Kasper Hauser (By Jakub Mosur)

 

When I saw the roster of performers playing at California Academy of Sciences I knew I had to check it out.  Thomas Lennon, Robert Ben Garant, Greg Proops, Rick Overton and Will Franken were all scheduled to be there plus many more.  I had no idea how they were going to pack in all of those performances, but with the entire California Academy of Sciences at their disposal it was easy to fit everyone in, but not so easy to see all the performers you wanted to. Continue reading “Sketchfest Review: Comedy NightLife at the California Academy of Sciences, 1/26/11”

Sketchfest Review: Risk! with Kevin Allison at The Purple Onion, 1/28/11

Onion with a side of Phirm

One of my favorite pastimes is looking up whatever happened to some of my favorite 90’s icons. I mean, almost everyone knows what happened to some of the lesser known folks in 90’s TV programs. Like Six from Blossom is apparently a struggling country singer, and Rayanne from My So Called Life is married to a lord.  But, my absolute favorite show from the 90’s was The State. It was simply the only TV program of it’s time that I felt emulated my brain functions. With the program now streaming on Netflix, I was reminded of two of my favorite sketches: the mailman that only delivered tacos and the Jew, the Italian, and the Red-Headed Gay. Hence me feeling the need to learn about Kevin Allison, one of the “forgotten” members of The State. Much to my surprise, he has a genius podcast called Risk!, where famous people talk about embarrassing situations they’ve been in. And it’s pretty awesome to say the least. Even better was getting to see it done live at the legendary Purple Onion as part of Sketchfest this year!

Continue reading “Sketchfest Review: Risk! with Kevin Allison at The Purple Onion, 1/28/11”

A Music Nerd’s Guide To SF Sketchfest 2011

This is a picture of Chris Hardwick. He's not related to me, but he will be in San Francisco for Sketchfest. I will be hitting him up for birthday money, anyways. Hopefully I can fool him.

To the uninitiated, San Francisco’s Sketchfest is probably the most overwhelming 2 1/2 weeks out of the entire year, in terms of live entertainment booking. Its closest cousin is probably Austin’s SXSW festival, where you have a wide array of up-and-coming talent mixed with veterans, all playing some very intimate spots.

As a person that considers himself to be an expert of sorts on taste, I am going to sift through this year’s line-up, and let you know what you should be going to at this year’s Sketchfest. I will guide you through which Emmy winners or CSI corpses (both of which are well represented by this event), in my humble opinion, is most worthy of your hard earned dollar.

Continue reading “A Music Nerd’s Guide To SF Sketchfest 2011″