Valerie's 2017 Moontower Picks

This year’s 5^th Annu­al Moon­tow­er Com­e­dy Fes­ti­val packs a strong punch. As with last year, the same fear of miss­ing out will hap­pen when my friends and part­ners in crime at Com­e­dy Wham rave about some­thing fan­tas­tic they saw. That’s okay, I bet I’ll still wit­ness com­e­dy his­to­ry with my picks, too.

Jay Pharoah

Last year, I was excit­ed to watch Sat­ur­day Night Live cast mem­bers Leslie Jones, Col­in Jost and Jon Rud­nit­sky (who has since left the show) per­form at Moon­tow­er. I grew up watch­ing SNL, nev­er miss­ing a sin­gle episode, and love the lore and his­to­ry. Sure, Pharoah left SNL ahead of its cur­rent sea­son (he start­ed as a fea­ture for the 2010 sea­son), but his impres­sions were amaz­ing and he can claim to his cred­it that he was SNL’s Pres­i­dent Oba­ma. The reviews of his live com­e­dy shows are always incred­i­ble, so I know I can expect an amaz­ing expe­ri­ence to laugh and escape the world that the real, and the SNL, Oba­ma left behind. I hope he opens with ​“Atten­tion teach­ers and stu­dents…” for old time’s sake. Pharoah has one show this year. Get in line ear­ly at the Para­mount The­atre ear­ly for his 9:30pm show on April, 20^th.

Ali Wong

I’m a ter­ri­ble crit­ic some­times. I gen­er­al­ly can’t stand watch­ing com­e­dy spe­cials on TV. You know which com­ic final­ly broke me of that? Ali Wong did. Her now famous Baby Cobra spe­cial (unique in that Wong record­ed while near­ing her deliv­ery date) avail­able on Net­flix was one of the most riv­et­ing pieces of record­ed com­e­dy that I’d ever seen. Since releas­ing that spe­cial, she has sold out shows across the coun­try con­sis­tent­ly, which means seats will fill up fast at the Para­mount The­atre for her shows on April, 20^th at 7pm and April, 21^st at 9:30pm. I can’t wait to see her per­form live (sans the bel­ly that endeared me to her, I presume).

Brad Williams

I missed see­ing Brad Williams last year but lucky for me, he’s com­ing back and I get an oppor­tu­ni­ty to right that wrong. He’ll per­form both solo and with his About Last Night pod­cast part­ner, Adam Ray. Tech­ni­cal­ly, I did see him last year in an impromp­tu mosh pit that formed dur­ing Big Jay Oak­er­son­’s per­for­mance of a Pan­tera song at the God­damn Com­e­dy Jam. His enthu­si­asm while mosh­ing was so mem­o­rable, I lit­er­al­ly slapped my fore­head when Lara told me she had caught his show and how amaz­ing his com­e­dy was. I won’t make this mis­take twice. Williams is busy this year at the Moon­tow­er Com­e­dy Fes­ti­val. It’s best to click this hyper­link to track his schedule.

Pat­ton Oswalt

Pat­ton Owaslt is roy­al­ty to me. He not only shines as a com­ic, writer, and actor, but his polit­i­cal and social com­men­taries (if you’re not fol­low­ing him on Twit­ter, do so imme­di­ate­ly) always lands per­fect­ly. A pow­er­house in every way, Oswalt was dealt with a ter­ri­ble blow last year when his wife of 12 years, Michelle McNa­ma­ra, died unex­pect­ed­ly. Oswalt shared his pain very pub­licly on Twit­ter before going pri­vate. It was a very human­iz­ing moment and the pain he expressed still moves me to tears today. I feel like being in the audi­ence for his show is a small ges­ture of kind­ness toward him, let alone a chance to wit­ness some­one who has reached lev­els of suc­cess that only few can reach. Oswalt head­lines the Para­mount The­atre on April, 22^nd at 9:30pm.

Pod­casts, Pod­casts, Every­where Podcasts

The Moon­tow­er Fes­ti­val orga­niz­ers have keyed into the fact that many comics hone their skills by host­ing pod­casts and the audi­ence for pod­casts is grow­ing which means a grow­ing demand for live pod­casts. And wow is Moon­tow­er deliv­er­ing on that demand! The big one for me and it’s the one kick­ing off the fes­ti­val on Wednes­day night, is the My Favorite Mur­der pod­cast host­ed by Karen Kil­gar­iff (Mr. Show) and Geor­gia Hard­stark (Cook­ing Chan­nel). Kil­gar­iff and Hard­stark turned on the recorder in Jan­u­ary 2016 to share their take on true crime sto­ries — appeal­ing to large com­mu­ni­ties of peo­ple that are fas­ci­nat­ed by true crime — with­out glo­ri­fy­ing the crimes themselves.

Nor­mal­ly, they’re sit­ting on Hard­stark’s couch, with Elvis the cat clos­ing the episodes by meow­ing for his cook­ie. While those ele­ments are absent from the live shows, the dynam­ic between Hard­stark and Kil­gar­iff trav­els eas­i­ly, and their inter­ac­tion with live audi­ences makes me very excit­ed to see them in action. Good news for fes­ti­val goers: My Favorite Mur­der has two shows at the Para­mount The­atre on April, 19^th at 7pm and 9:30pm.

Oth­er great live pod­cast choic­es are About Last Night (Adam Ray and Brad Williams), the inau­gur­al appear­ances in Austin of Guys We Fucked (Krysty­na Hutchin­son and Corinne Fish­er) and The Fight­er and The Kid (Bryan Callen and Bren­dan Schaub).

The God­damn Com­e­dy Jam

Dur­ing the wrap-up par­ty for last year’s Moon­tow­er Com­e­dy Fes­ti­val, I told Josh Adam Mey­ers that watch­ing his brain­child was a reli­gious expe­ri­ence. I could­n’t stop rav­ing about what I had wit­nessed. Josh is elec­tri­fy­ing as host and the comics who per­form? I think they melt into the music, too. Adam Ray’s per­for­mance of What’s Up? is still one of the most mem­o­rable things I’ve ever seen. There’s also a full back­ing band and a crowd warm up team (lead by ris­ing star Jere­mi­ah Watkins who also sup­ports Jef­frey Ross’ Roast Bat­tle as part of ​“The Wave”). The show just launched reg­u­lar air­ing on Com­e­dy Cen­tral, so sure, you can catch it on TV. But label this one a ​“MUST SEE LIVE” show.

Boast Bat­tle

I was lucky enough to catch Jef­frey Ross’ Roast Bat­tle tap­ing in Austin last sum­mer fea­tur­ing some of the best in Austin com­e­dy. But, every­thing new cre­ates an oppor­tu­ni­ty for com­pe­ti­tion, right? A new­er con­cept show, Boast Bat­tle is a com­pet­i­tive com­pli­ment con­test. I know comics are known for their abil­i­ties to bust balls, but how good are they at kiss­ing ass? I plan on find­ing out what this Kyle Ayers host­ed show is all about. Bonus is that LA com­ic and actress Eri­ca Rhodes (@midnight and loads more act­ing cred­its) and DC com­ic Aparna Nancher­la (with her own Com­e­dy Cen­tral Half Hour spe­cial) are on the show. Let’s see how fun it is to be nice!

Don’t for­get to check out Moon­tow­er Com­e­dy Fes­ti­val’s web­site for all infor­ma­tion includ­ing venue locations.