Spinning Platters presents “How Did I Get Here?” Episode 10 with David Owen, Co-Founder of Sketchfest

Spinning Platters presents “How Did I Get Here?” is available most everywhere you enjoy podcasts. You can find us and subscribe here!

In this installment, I got to speak to SF Sketchfest co-founder David Owen about, well, how to put on an underground comedy festival, and what do you do when it’s no longer underground. We talked about his first production, his first festival, how he met Cole Stratton and Janet Varney, the other two founders of the festival (SPOILER: It’s Talking Heads related, just like the name of this podcast), and how they are handling things when it’s entirely unknown when the festival will be safe to play out again. 

SF Sketchfest is doing a virtual live read of Plan 9 From Outer Space just in time for Halloween with Kat Aagesen, Maria Bamford, Bobcat Goldthwait, Dana Gould, Jean Grae, David Koechner, Tim Meadows, Laraine Newman, Oscar Nunez, Bob Odenkirk, Jonah Ray, Paul F. Tompkins, Janet Varney, Baron Vaughn, plus musical accompaniment by Eban Schletter. Well, just before Halloween. October 29th to be precise. Tickets can be purchased here!

SF Sketchfest’s archives have also been opened up for rental, and those shows can be found here!

If you have any feedback about this episode, feel free to email me at dakin@spinningplatters.com. If you like what you heard and want to help support this thing, feel free to Venmo me whatever tip you feel is adequate @Dakin-Hardwick.  And, most importantly, please go to SaveOurStages.com to find out what you can do to help independent promoters and venues weather this COVID crisis so we have shows to go back to when this pandemic is over. Thanks for listening!

Film Review: Popstar: Never Stop Never Stopping

Raps and riffs its way to gold, but far from platinum.

Conner is 4 real.
Conner is 4 real.

10+ years ago, “Lazy Sunday” took the internet by storm and injected the Berkeley-based comedy musical trio, The Lonely Island, into the mainstream. Since then, they’ve been responsible for countless popular SNL Digital Shorts and a handful of award-winning comedy albums. Now, their first feature-length film, Popstar: Never Stop Never Stopping, hits theaters and brings along their superb blend of awesomely crude but catchy pop music, satirical humor, and over-the-top random ridiculousness. Popstar is great at poking fun at the pop music industry, and delivers some really raunchy humor and fantastically clever music, yet fails more often than not to produce worthy punchlines or climaxes to major scenes.

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