Oct 15, 2013
Marc Hershon here, back from last weekend’s rousing 2nd Annual Los Angeles Podcast Festival! And what a festival it was. Held once again at the Delfina Hotel in Santa Monica. There were tons of live podcasts going off during the three days – or, really, two and a half days – of the festival.
Looking back on the schedule for the PodFest, I count 40 shows and that’s not counting the folks like us that were recording our own shows and interviews in the Podcast Lab. Speaking of which, the next couple of episodes of Succotash will hopefully come out very quickly. Bam, bam, bam. Because they’ll be focused around interviews I did while I was at the festival.
I’ll be playing clips from many of the episodes of the podcasts that were done at the festival as well. A big shout out to our Honorary Associate Producer Tyson Saner, who's been doing an amazing amount of clip harvesting on behalf of this show.
I got to be a guest on Chillpak Hollywood Hour during their live appearance at the PodFest, and you'll hear not only hear a clip from that episode but also some chats I had in the Podcast Lab with Dean Haglund, Phil Leirness, and Lily Holleman - all three not only associated with Chillpak with the still-in-production film The Ladykillers as well.
The 10 Most Active Show In The Stitcher Top 100 Comedy Podcast List
This is the rundown of the ten shows on Stitcher's Top 100 Comedy Podcast list that have moved up or down the charts the most this past week.
37. The Smartest Man In
The World +28
42. The Mark & Lynda Podcast -34
63. The Dana Gould Hour +44
64. This Week In Blackness Radio +15
65. The Tenderloins Podcast +98
68. DVDASA with David Choe & Asa Akira -32
78. Sawbones: A Marital Tour of Misguided Medicine +48
79. SModcast >> FeAB -40
82. Answer Me This! +16
91. Who’s Paying Attention +15
The podcast at the top of the list - The Smartest Man In The World - is hosted by improv great and friend Greg Proops, who is also releasing a video special on October 22nd. Available online, you can find Greg Proops: Live at Musso & Frank at Chill.com.
The Clips
The Steven Brody
Steven Festival of Friendship
Our friend Tyson Saner harvested this clip from The
Steven Brody Stevens Festival of Friendship podcast and I’m
glad. I really like Brody and hadn’t had a chance to even
hear his podcast yet. Plus I also like James Adomian, who is
an amazing vocal talent and funny as hell to boot. His “Maron
in Space” bit on the IFC Channel is
hilarious.
Doug
Loves Movies
My first clip from one of the LA PodFest shows comes from Doug
Loves Movies with Doug Benson – one of the few podcasts
out of the 40 they had that I actually had the time to watch. The
one this year wasn’t as crazy as last year’s, which was unhinged.
(The RC helicopter nametag was back, but no sign of last year's
infant…) He had Jimmy Pardo, Nick Thune, DC
Pierson, and David Huntsberger on stage with him, but
this clip is before the guests even came out, when Doug clears the
air about Mr. Belvedere’s balls.
Improv 4
Humans
Matt Besser’s show was at the PodFest but THIS clip is from
another live appearance that Tyson Saner grabbed. It’s from
Bumbershoot in Seattle and Tyson says he liked this pull
because it’s very “Hi, this is who we are and here we go!”
Featuring Tim Meadows, Horatio Sanz & Brian
Huskey, it’s also based around the Harold structure for you
improv wonks, which lends itself pretty well to a
podcast.
The
Kira Soltanovich Show
Comedian Kira
Soltanovich was all over the LA PodFest. Every time I turned
around, there she was, either interviewing someone or being
interviewed herself. She hasn’t really been on my radar until now,
but I got to see her perform live at the late Saturday night
Standup Smash! Show they did there and now I’m a fan. In
this clip that Tyson grabbed, we hear part of Kira’s interview with
Laraine Newman.
Just Jump To The
End
It’s interesting to see
how many siblings pop up as podcast hosts. One of the best ones is
My Brother, My Brother and Me but there also the Sibling
Rivalry podcast, the Kamenetsky Brothers Land O’ Lakers
podcast and a whole bunch of other ones. One I just found out about
is Jump To The End, featuring brother-sister team Scott
Fitzman and Molly Harris. Their show’s Twitter page
describes the p’cast as “Two grown siblings talking shit about
people, places, and things.” In our clip they talk about revisiting
cartoons and other entertainment from their childhood, and what
it’s like exposing THEIR kids to it.
The Indoor
Kids
Back to the LA PodFest, we get a taste of the
live-in-front-of-a-live-audience version of The Indoor Kids.
Hosted by the husband-and-wife team of comics Kumail
Nanjiani and Emily Gordon, this show focuses on video
games. In this segment from the Fest with Blair Butler, they
talk about video games that they’ve recently been depressed by and,
also, games that they use as a carthasis.
Chillpak Hollywood
Hour
For the last taste of the LA PodFest this episode, I pull a few
minutes from the live Chillpak Hollywood Hour show,
featuring Dean Haglund and Phil Leirness, with their
special cameo guest…ME!
So there will be more clips from LA PodFest shows in the next few episodes. After that (or maybe in between some of that), I will have interviews with some comedians and some filmmakers who are in the throes of getting their Kickstarter campaigns rolling.
Rest up.
In the meantime, don't forget to pass that damn Succotash.
— Marc
Hershon