Fun Fun Fun Fest Preview: Yellow Stage

Few things highlight Fun Fun Fun Fest's "grab bag of awesome" atmosphere like this year's Yellow Stage lineup, which throws local bar-packing favorites in with some psychedelic punks, a stripped-down blues duo, a heady side of indie rock, and some of the biggest things going in under-the-radar comedy. We wrap up our Fun Fun Fun Fest preview coverage with the festival's stage that has too much talent to fit under one umbrella; don't forget to also check out our guides to the Black, Blue, and Orange stages.

SATURDAY

Moonlight Towers, 12:30 p.m.
With a sound as bright as its namesake (that would be the nostalgic nighttime illumination system introduced to post-19th century pop culture via Richard Linklater's Dazed And Confused), Moonlight Towers has been encouraging Austinites to raise a beer—or cry into one—since 2001. Leaning heavily on tried-and-true song structures and twangy, lived-in textures, it's the kind of everydude bar band that makes a compelling argument for hanging around your old hometown forever.

Low Line Caller, 1:15 p.m.
Hi Def Soft Core, the title of Low Line Caller's 2008 EP, is an apt, if not self-deprecating assessment of the band's sound, though the "soft" part is relative: The band's gauzy guitar textures are rooted in its past as a dual-drummer post-rock act, while vocalist Marc Ferrino has never met a vocal passage he couldn't take to soaring, tremulous heights. 

Altercation Comedy Tour, 2:30 p.m.
Defining “punk comedy” is a little like defining “punk rock” these days: It’s inevitably going to lead to a lot of pointless circle-jerking about bands and “attitude,” and in the end, it’s more easily defined by what it’s not. Altercation Punk Comedy Tour organizer JT Habersaat sums it up thusly: “We view comedy as an art form, as opposed to just kitschy entertainment.” Ergo, no hacky one-liners or corporate-picnic-friendly riffs from Habersaat and crew; just honest, occasionally acerbic stories from some of the best underground comics in the country. And okay, maybe a joke about Danzig.

Chelsea Peretti, 3:30 p.m.
A sometime presence on the TV talking-head rotisserie, Chelsea Peretti is a comedian whose humor hits tart and dry. She's far more visible on the Internet, where her sardonicism flourishes in the guises of The New York Rejection Line and Black People Love Us, as well as All My Exes, the only web series that dares to combine romantic desperation with 60 Minutes-style interviews. As part of New York sketch troupe Variety Shac, Peretti earned a development deal with Adult Swim, but she's an equally adept solo performer, with a patient delivery and an eye toward self-deprecation.

James Husband, 4:05 p.m.
Even hidden behind the nom de rock James Husband, the unassuming psych-pop of James Huggins III is the unmistakable product of a member of such Elephant 6-affiliated bands as Of Montreal and Great Lakes. Bearing the requisite hummable melodies and dense harmonies, Husband's A Parallax I makes a concession that's only recently begun to seep into his main gig's output—that worthwhile, inspiring pop music is not the exclusive province of the 1960s. In Husband's case, this includes '70s glam, along with the work of Gary Numan and Robert Pollard.

Dead Confederate, 5:05 p.m.
Dead Confederate hails from Athens, Ga., so it’s tempting to lump it in with similarly reverb-drenched, neo-Southern-rock groups such as My Morning Jacket. While that band tempers its bleakness with the occasional ray of sunshine, Dead Confederate aims for a starker, grungier sound, a slow-moving storm cloud built on guitars that buzz like beehives and Hardy Morris’ plaintive, needling vocals.

Brendon Walsh, 6:05 p.m.
Though (probably) unintentional, Brendon Walsh’s career upswing can be measured in direct proportion to his growing a beard that rivals that of Zach Galifianakis. Perhaps that’s because having something to hide behind gives comedians a cuddly aura that allows them to say whatever the hell they want, whether it’s talking about masturbating with hand puppets or recounting the time they bummed out an entire town using only a fake “Shot In The Dark.” Furry or clean-shaven, Walsh is one of Austin’s most loveably acerbic comic minds.

Todd Barry, 6:30 p.m.
The subdued style and dry speaking voice of Todd Barry belie the almost obsessive tinkering he puts into everything he does. Barry is known to much of the world as Todd, the bongo-playing third wheel from Flight Of The Conchords (and more recently as Mickey Rourke’s asshole boss in The Wrestler), but he’s best when holding a room on his own, armed with nothing more than some slyly sarcastic barbs and the force of momentum to control. He has made guest appearances on everything from Wonder Showzen and Aqua Teen Hunger Force and has put out three comedy albums, including his under-appreciated 2001 debut, Medium Energy.

Shearwater, 7:30 p.m.
Compared to 2008—which saw the band playing a brief tour supporting Coldplay and continuing its ascent  from shambling, atmospheric Okkervil River side project to significant musical force with the apocalyptic, yet strangely hopeful Rook—it's been a relatively quiet year for Austin's Shearwater. Quiet, but no less busy: drummer Thor Harris released the crushing graphic novel An Ocean Of Despair, quavering-voiced frontman Jonathan Meiburg continued his studies in ornithology, and the whole band prepped the follow up to Rook, co-produced by The Paper Chase's John Congleton and due in 2010. 

Destroyer, 8:45 p.m.
Testifying to a career of fucking with expectations (Like the nerd-glam of This Night? Well here's 12 tracks of crystalline, synthesized brilliance called Your Blues!), Dan Bejar followed 2008's sorta-in-a-rut Trouble In Dreams with the EP Bay Of Pigs, a two-track experiment in ambient-disco that marries Bejar's hyper-specific, meandering narratives to the kind of soothing blips and bleeps usually associated with The Field. Further subverting expectations: Despite its whiplash-inducing change of style, Bay Of Pigs is another triumph for the man better known as the George Harrison of The New Pornographers.

SUNDAY

The New Movement, 12:30 p.m.
As the public face of The New Movement, Chris Trew's mustachioed mug is nigh ubiquitous in Austin comedy circles. His absurdist stylings (and nerdcore rhymes as Terp 2 It) have endeared Trew to bookers and fans across the city. Since his split with ColdTowne earlier this year, he's produced shows as diverse as the Mohawk's true story series Off Night On and the Alamo Drafthouse's "open screen" reboot Alamo Public Access. More often than not, he's accompanied by New Movement co-founder and straight woman nonpareil Tami Nelson; here they present a variety show as performed by an Egyptian pharaoh and his slaves. Because why the hell not?  

Bankrupt And The Borrowers, 1 p.m.
Bearing little more than their pseudonyms and instruments, the three founding members of Bankrupt And The Borrowers left the Northeast bound for Austin in the fall of 2006. In light of the 2008 EP Beers On The Bible their move seems more out of necessity than anything else—there's not much of a home for gunked-up, blues-inflected roots-rock  on the East Coast. Rough-and-tumble numbers like "Holden Caulfield At 35" have earned the band a fervent local following, one unafraid to pipe up during a show or pitch in during moments of need, as they did in the wake of the October fire that killed band member Jon Pettis and left his roommates (including Pettis' fiancée) homeless. In tribute to Pettis, the band plays its final show to that following here, with support from members of The Bread, Bridge Farmers, and The Van Buren Boys.

Cedric Burnside And Lightnin' Malcolm, 2 p.m.
Cedric Burnside has lived a life steeped in the Delta blues—his grandfather was legendary North Mississippi hill country bluesman R.L. Burnside. Steve "Lightnin'" Malcolm  was raised on the sounds of Muddy Waters and the KCS Railroad in rural Missouri. To say the blues runs in their veins would be both reductive and clichéd, but if you cut either of them, they'll bleed broken homes, juke-joint smoke, and Mississippi mud. Together as Cedric Burnside And Lightnin' Malcolm, the duo makes grimy, drum-and-guitar-based blues with little interest in anything outside of perpetuating traditions established by the likes of Burnside's grandfather.    

Harlem, 4 p.m.
Sounding like a ’60s frat party in those final moments before the cops get called, Austin’s Harlem (which comes via Tucson, to make it extra confusing) turns three-chord rave-ups and prettified harmonies into a thrilling, threatening mess. The band’s literally winking 2008 debut, Free Drugs;-), was recently reissued on Matador, which snapped Harlem up with a multi-album deal. It’s a louche, lo-fi affair of unapologetically half-in-the-bag confessions and jams more blown than kicked out, driven by noisy jangles and a big backbeat. 

Nick Thune, 4:40 p.m.
L.A.-based comedian Nick Thune’s humor is dry, deadpan, and usually accompanied by a guitar (or the occasional Casio keyboard)—which is why his short videos for ComedyCentral.com are called iThunes. (Get it?) Of course, some of Thune’s short videos feature actual songs, like a love song about a lobster, or a romantic interlude that takes a butterfly metaphor too literally. Onstage, Thune mostly strums out background music, but his absurdist one-liners and stories about IM love connections are rendered even funnier with the acoustic accompaniment.

The Strange Boys, 5:20 p.m.
Surprising for a band whose skuzzy R&B is at turns immediate and grating, The Strange Boys' debut, …And Girls Club, is one of the year's most rewarding listens, a record whose dark humor reveals itself only gradually. It's a side that's somewhat obscured in a live setting by frontman Ryan Sambol's mumbling delivery, though you'll probably be too busy twisting and shouting to notice.

King Khan And BBQ Show, 6:15 p.m.
The King Khan And BBQ Show pairs two primitive rawk gurus who first played together in Montreal’s Spaceshits in predictably rough-and-ready fashion. The title track of the duo’s most recent full-length for In The Red, Invisible Girl, slows its howling caveman stomp while layering on the doo-wop harmonies, but that softening of its sound isn't likely to be reflected in the band’s legendary live show, which finds the two men smashing away at guitars, drums, and tambourines, creating a racket big enough to put six-piece garage bands to shame.

Hannibal Buress, 7:10 p.m.
Chicago-raised stand-up (and Saturday Night Live writer) Hannibal Buress had to overcome a few things early in his career: His delivery is the epitome of patience-trying—it often takes a few minutes of his wry monotone to figure out what the hell he’s talking about—and the material is mostly left-field observational stuff that’s equal parts inviting and off-putting. (“I’d love to kick a pigeon,” begins one head-scratcher.) But Buress has gotten sharper by the day, to the point where his jokes about fire SUVs and “the next big blind guy” are no longer odd, but seen as a window into his wonderfully skewed sensibilities.

Josh Fadem, 7:40 p.m.
The creator of such self-explanatory shows as 30 Minutes Of Falling Down and Exploring The Space, Josh Fadem doesn't specialize in subtlety. A gifted physical comedian, Fadem excels at throwing his lanky frame around the stage—an abuse he's also reserved for tired comedic conventions like the straight-absurd dynamic, celebrity impressions, and jokes. A deconstructionist in every sense of the term, he's also parlayed his work in pratfalls into roles on It's Always Sunny In Philadelphia, Dollhouse, and an upcoming episode of 30 Rock.  

Brian Posehn, 8 p.m.
Brian Posehn has an impressive rap sheet: alum of Mr. Show and Just Shoot Me!, frequent collaborator with Patton Oswalt, regular character on The Sarah Silverman Program. The list goes on—not bad for a comic who doesn't exactly make a grand show of his own virtues. Posehn's style is dry and self-deprecating, but he makes it easy to laugh at much more than just himself.

Whitest Kids U'Know, 8:45 p.m.
New York-based sketch troupe Whitest Kids U'Know spent the past decade cultivating comedy nerd goodwill via its insanely popular online videos and eponymous cable TV show. Unfortunately, thanks to members Zach Cregger and Trevor Moore's turns as the writer, directors, and costars of the widely reviled Miss March, the troupe also carries the stink of a scatological, vaguely misogynistic film that seemingly no one enjoyed. (It currently ranks as review aggregator Metacritic's most poorly reviewed movie of 2009.) Here the group returns to its absurdist roots of reimagined Lincoln assassinations and rapping Hitlers.