Last week, the PR firm for the Outside Lands Music Festival invited members of the press to a conference call, which is exactly like being on a boring client call except you get to do it from home in your PJ’s and the person on the other end of the phone is way more famous than some VP of Marketing. In this case, we spoke (or listened) to the agreeable Nathan Followill of Kings of Leon, the delightfully accented Eugene Hutz from Gogol Bordello and Scott Youkilis of Maverick, which is a restaurant and not a band.
Followill tackled questions regarding the Bay Area’s wine scene, which he promised to sample liberally before headlining Sunday night, and addressed burning questions about the now-infamous Pigeongate incident in which a St. Louis flying rat defecated in bassist Jared Followill’s mouth. Gross! But they’re ready to move on, you know, as a band. The Followill boys are apparently big fans of San Francisco in general (as Nathan said, “I do enjoy a cold breeze.”), although festival organizers might think about calling in Oakland Airport’s anti-bird squad if they want to keep their headliner on stage.
Scott Youkilis mostly talked about pulled pork sandwiches. The Outside Lands flack did step in to brainstorm some ideas for a Grateful Dead-centric dish with suggestions like “Dead Pig” or “Dead Cow”. To which Youkilis deadpanned, “I was thinking like falafel or like a veggie burrito or like a grilled cheese or something.” That’s why we keep the PR team in the front of the house.
And Eugene Hutz! What a delight. I must say if you ever have a chance to sit on a phone call with Mr. Hutz, do your best to keep him on the line and talking for as long as possible. His gypsy-punk band has the distinction of actually having played in Golden Gate Park, when they drew a skinny-jeans-and-nice-shoes crowd that diversified the usual baggy-pants-and-no-shoes crowd at Hardly Strictly Bluegrass. Mostly Hutz got me wondering how I too could cultivate the lush and inviting accent of a Russian foodie-wino punk rocker.
Outside Lands is August 14th-15th in Golden Gate Park. Gogol Bordello play Saturday afternoon, Kings of Leon headline Sunday night and Maverick will be serving up pulled pork sandwiches all weekend.
