SF Sketchfest 2019

Once again, the Chapel becomes the Roadhouse. Join the Red Room Orchestra for a new round of the music of "Twin Peaks" with a deeper dive into the musical world of David Lynch's work featuring Marc Capelle's all-star ensemble recreating the beloved classic instrumental score and pop vocal tunes from every season of the show plus "Fire Walk with Me" and more from other Lynch films. With Tom Ayres, Allyson Baker, Marc Capelle, Eli Crews, Toby Dammit, Karina Denike, Tom Griesser, Dina Maccabee, Todd Roper, and special guests including Margaret Cho, Arline Klatte and cast members Chrysta Bell ("Tammy Preston") and James Marshall ("James Hurley"). Dress as your favorite character from the Lynch world and step into another dimension. 

Formed by San Francisco producer and multi-instrumentalist Marc Capelle in 2017, the Red Room Orchestra is a collective of popular, jazz, classical, and electronic composers and performers who’ve played and recorded alongside the Bad Seeds, the Plastic Ono Band, Cibo Matto, Oingo Boingo, Sonic Youth, CAKE, American Music Club, Lou Harrison, the Steve Reich Ensemble, the Nels Cline Singers, Rodriguez, Iggy Pop, Tune-Yards, Bill Frisell, and more. They’ve offered live renderings of the music of David Lynch’s Twin Peaks, reinterpretations of the soundtracks of Wes Anderson’s Rushmore and The Royal Tenenbaums, and for SFFILM they composed and performed original scores for the short films from Stephen Parr’s Oddball Films archive.   Co-presented by Popscene

"SF's premier soundtrack interpreters and experimental large ensemble." -- CBS
$35 Advance/$40 Day of Show, DOORS 8PM/SHOW 9PM, All Ages

Wajatta – the new group formed by beat-boxer/comedian/musician Reggie Watts and electronic music artist/DJ/producer John Tejada recently released its debut album, Casual High Technology. Presented as a cosmic collection of funk-infused techno, Casual High Technology is the culmination of decades’ worth of Watts and Tejada’s favorite electronic music shaped to fit a new dance sensibility. Wajatta (pronounced wa-Ha-ta), as the name suggests, is a mash-up of the artist’s last names. Having grown up with similar musical influences, Austrian-born Tejada and German-born Watts draw from their love of urban, electronic music. Exploring the intersection between influences and innovation, the two describe Wajatta’s music as “electronic dance music with its roots in Detroit techno, Chicago house, ’70s funk and New York hip hop.” Tejada’s deep, melodic production makes the perfect backing for Watts' wide vocal range and live looping skills. With an opening set by Galen & Solar from Sunset Sound System. $25 Early Bird, $30 advance / $35 day-of-show  DOORS 8PM / SHOW 9PM, 21+

In 1960 at age 19, Barbra Streisand was already making her mark in NYC, performing an array of jazz classics in between humorous musings and eccentric jokes. She was wacky, brilliant and beautiful and had a musical sensibility that was far too advanced for someone her age. Thankfully one of her shows was recorded, and lives on as "Barbra Streisand, Live at Bon Soir." Intrigued by this recording, Matteo was inspired to recreate this set of music and bring it to Pangea with his own updated flavor and stylings. This show hopes to capture Barbra's unique essence before she became a household name. Matteo has performed as a stand-up comedian all over the country and can also be seen on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert, and upcoming on Netflix's The Comedy Lineup . Music Director, Henry Koperski is one of the most in-demand pianists in the NYC music/comedy circle and regularly performs with artists of stage, TV, and film all over the country.   This is a partially seated show—arrive early for a seat. $25, 21+  Co-presented by Frameline and the Jewish Film Institute

After tackling the soundtracks of Wes Anderson's "Rushmore" and "The Royal Tenenbaums" at last year's SF Sketchfest, the Red Room Orchestra set their sights on recreating the soundtrack of the Coen Brothers' classic comedy "The Big Lebowski." From Bob Dylan and Meredith Monk to Kenny Rogers and Yma Sumac, no musical stone will be left unturned. Hold out some hope for the Creedence, and love it or hate it, we're playing the f*ckin' Eagles, man. Come dressed as your favorite Lebowski character, order a white Russian, and abide.  With Carroll Ashby, Tom Ayres, Allyson Baker, Marc Capelle, Eli Crews, Toby Dammit, Bart Davenport, Karina Denike, Ben Goldberg, Tom Griesser, Jess Ivry, Amber Lambrecht, Scott Larson, Dina Maccabee, Todd Roper, John Schott, Kurt Stevenson, and special guests including Margaret Cho, Kevin McDonald, Eugene S. Robinson, Kelley Stoltz, Stephen Yerkey and more. Hosted by "The Stranger" (James Adomian as Sam Elliott)

Formed by San Francisco producer and multi-instrumentalist Marc Capelle in 2017, the Red Room Orchestra is a collective of popular, jazz, classical, and electronic composers and performers who’ve played and recorded alongside the Bad Seeds, the Plastic Ono Band, Cibo Matto, Oingo Boingo, Sonic Youth, CAKE, American Music Club, Lou Harrison, the Steve Reich Ensemble, the Nels Cline Singers, Rodriguez, Iggy Pop, Tune-Yards, Bill Frisell, and more. They’ve offered live renderings of the music of David Lynch’s Twin Peaks, reinterpretations of the soundtracks of Wes Anderson’s Rushmore and The Royal Tenenbaums, and for SFFILM they composed and performed original scores for the short films from Stephen Parr’s Oddball Films archive.  Co-presented by SFFILM and Popscene

"SF's premier soundtrack interpreters and experimental large ensemble." -- CBS
$35 Advance/$40 Day of Show, DOORS 8PM/SHOW 9PM, All Ages 

Jon Daly and his Magic Sax Band (Cyrus Gharameni and Joe Wong) debut music from Jon’s new album with special guests Shannon Shaw (of Shannon and the Clams) and Scott Thompson (The Kids in the Hall)!
This is a partially seated show—arrive early for a seat. $25, 21+

Join wellness guru and possible cult leader, Dale Seever (comedian James Bewley) as he welcomes a stellar lineup of comedians, musicians, and noted experts for a cosmically-attuned variety show with a focus on the future. Will we need gills to survive? Can I marry a drone? Are ghosts still a thing in 2040? Dale explores all these questions and more as he plummets through a range of possible timelines with help from his guests: Janeane Garofalo, Stand-Up Comedy legend; The Templeton Philharmonic, razor sharp sketch comedy duo; Rose Eveleth, host of the Flash Forward podcast; Sureni Weerasekera, stand-up comedian; Comics of the Future, time traveling comedy partners; Francesca Fiorentini, comedian and journalist; playwright Peter Sinn Nachtrieb, reading a new work; a video by Cole Kush; a visit from Dale’s ex-wife; and other surprises. Featuring psychedelic sounds from the band, Agouti. $15, All Ages

In the Venn diagram of music, comedy, and geek culture, you will find this show sitting squarely in the intersection of all sets. Join the inimitable Jonathan Coulton, kings of geekdom Paul and Storm, and their rhythmically gifted friends for an unforgettable night of music, laughter... and maybe even a sing-a-long.  Co-presented by Amoeba Music  This is a partially seated show—arrive early for a seat. $30, 21+

Watch as Eliza Skinner combines stand-up and musical improv to make a sticky mash of comedy magic.

Eliza Skinner has appeared on "The Late Late Show," "Adam Ruins Everything," "Totally Biased," "The Pete Holmes Show," "@Midnight," and "Chelsea Lately." She has performed in festivals all over the world including SXSW, the NY Comedy Festival, the Edinburgh Fringe, and the Montreal Just For Laughs Festival. In his Reddit AMA, Patton Oswalt called her one of his favorite up-and-coming comedians, and Wayne Brady has called her "freestyle rap royalty."

"If you've never seen Eliza Skinner work, you really ought to. Talent and smarts just overflow all over the stage. Get to know her." - Paul Provenza

"Eliza Skinner is made of pure talent with small amounts of cat hair stuck to it." - Guy Branum

"One of the most creative comics out there, period." Austinist

"Animated, calculated and disarmingly thoughtful." - TimeOut LA
$25, All Ages

"Don't Stop Or We'll Die" is a music-comedy pop-rock-weirdo band featuring Michael Cassady, Paul Rust and Tony Thaxton. "The Sloppy Boys" are an LA-based party rock band comprised of Mike Hanford, Jefferson Dutton, and Tim Kalpakis from the comedy group "The Birthday Boys." This is a partially seated show—arrive early for a seat. $25, 21+

SF Sketchfest is thrilled for the return of Wheels Off with Rhett Miller (Old 97s) and his all-star friends. Modeled after old-school variety shows, Wheels Off features music, comedy, a little bit of discussion, and maybe even a skit here and there.  Co-presented by Amoeba Music
This is a partially seated show—arrive early for a seat. $35

The ‘Sad Clown with the Golden Voice’ is here with his heartfelt anthems and a suitcase full of Kleenex! This Pity Party is not all sadness and longing. The show is peppered with a brilliant sense of the absurd, mixing lots of humor with the awkward, tender moments.

A veritable “Pagliacci by way of Pee-Wee Herman and David Lynch” (The AJC), Puddles Pity Party has 286k fans on Facebook and over 76 million views on YouTube for indelible interpretations of classics by ABBA, Bowie, Cheap Trick and Queen and his unforgettable mash-up of “Pinball Wizard/Folsom Prison Blues”. You may recognize him from his recent appearances on "America’s Got Talent" and video collaborations with Postmodern Jukebox. Puddles has toured extensively in the US at legendary venues like the Regency Ballroom in San Francisco, the Kennedy Center in D.C. and the Troubadour in Los Angeles. He has also performed many times in the UK at Soho Theatre London and the Edinburgh Fringe Festival. Other worldwide festival appearances include the Adelaide Fringe Festival, Perth Fringe World, Melbourne International Comedy Fest, Just for Laughs Montreal, Belgium’s Gent Festival, Festival Supreme (LA), Bumbershoot Festival (Seattle), Moontower Comedy Festival (Austin), and Bethlehem’s MusikFest.

“It seems like a parody. But when Puddles opens his mouth to sing, it’s beautiful. Operatic.”  - The Boston Globe

“Fantastically brilliant…originality at its best." - Simon Cowell

“His special effect is a textured voice laced with melancholy…what makes him transcend the trope is his vulnerability.” - The New York Times

“Clever and often hysterically funny… (Puddles) is ideally suited to songs popularized by belters old and new like Tom Jones, Sia and Celine Dion, all of which he performs with tear-jerking bravura…” - LA Weekly

“Pagliacci by way of Pee-Wee Herman and David Lynch.” - The Atlanta Journal Constitution
7PM DOORS / 8PM SHOW
$125.00 Tier 1 VIP Meet & Greet
$49.50 Tier 2
$35.00 Tier 3

Best-selling writer-comedian Greg Behrendt (He's Just Not That Into You) brings his wildly popular Bring the Rock show back to SF Sketchfest. The show gives comedians the chance to tell a story about a song from their past -- sometimes embarrassing, sometimes sentimental, always funny. Once their tale's told, Behrendt's band Electrik Snöfläke covers the song, often led by the comedian in question. Equal parts stand-up, storytelling and music appreciation, Bring the Rock is what karaoke should be.
Co-presented by Amoeba Music
This is a partially seated show—arrive early for a seat. $30, 21+

Join The Milk Carton Kids and their musical and comedy friends on the festival's closing night for a special one-of-a-kind old fashioned variety show!

Waltzing into disaster and its aftermath, The Milk Carton Kids' "All the Things That I Did and All the Things That I Didn't Do" is available now on ANTI- Records.

The new project marks the first time that acoustic duo Joey Ryan and Kenneth Pattengale have brought a band into the studio with them. "We wanted to do something new," Pattengale says. "We had been going around the country yet another time to do the duo show, going to the places we'd been before. There arose some sort of need for change."

"Musically we knew we were going to make the record with a bigger sonic palette," says Ryan. "It was liberating to know we wouldn’t have to be able to carry every song with just our two guitars."
Since their last studio album, "Monterey" (ANTI- 2015), life has changed dramatically for The Milk Carton Kids. Pattengale has moved to, and is now producing records in Nashville. Ryan is now the father of two children and works as a producer on "Live from Here with Chris Thile," the reboot of "A Prairie Home Companion." A break from years of non-stop touring, Ryan says, has yielded "space outside of the band that gives us perspective on what the band is."

But it's not just the addition of the band here that creates something new. National politics left Ryan feeling disoriented and mournful. Pattengale’s relationship of seven years ended, and he found himself unexpectedly needing surgery for cancer. (He is cancer-free now, and accidentally broke his cigarette habit in the process.)

Though they didn't approach the new album conceptually, a theme of shattered realities began to emerge out of the songs that sparked to life. Recent events provided a bruising background for the record, yet the project is somehow bigger than any personal grief. Two-part harmonies ride acoustic guitars high above the haunting landscape created by the presence of the band, as if Americana went searching for a lost America.

Produced by Joe Henry and engineered by Ryan Freeland, "All the Things That I Did and All The Things That I Didn't Do" was recorded in October 2017 in the Sun Room at House of Blues Studio in Nashville. Musicians who joined them there included Brittany Haas on violin and mandolin, Paul Kowert and Dennis Crouch on bass, Jay Bellerose on drums, Levon Henry on clarinet and saxophone, Nat Smith on cello, Pat Sansone on piano, mellotron, and Hammond organ, Russ Pahl on pedal steel and other guitars and Lindsay Lou and Logan Ledger as additional singers. Mixed by Pattengale, the album was mastered by Kim Rosen.  Co-presented by Amoeba Music $45/$35, All Ages