Beth (00:00)
I definitely enjoyed shooting wrestling. thought that was really fun.

Russ (00:03)
Ha ha ha.

Beth (00:05)
Pretty similar to taking photos of people on stage where they're moving around. Here you're waiting for them to stand on the ropes and then fly.

Barry (00:19)
Welcome back to another edition of the What Podcast. I'm Barry. That's Russ. Joining us is our bicostal correspondent, Beth. How are you, Beth?

Beth (00:29)
Bye, doing well, thanks.

Barry (00:31)
We're going to talk a little bumper f Bumbershoot. We're going to talk a little CaveFest. We're going to talk a little Shaky Knees. we're going to be a little bit all over the place. We're going to get some tips from Beth, who who was just at Bumbershoot in Seattle, but you're gonna be joining us in Pelham next month, correct? So I'm gonna get some I wanna

Beth (00:50)
Yeah, correct. Yeah.

Barry (00:53)
get some more camping. We got some taco tank camping tips last week. This week we're gonna get a little bit from Beth who has to travel.

literally cross country to come to

Beth (01:03)
Yeah.

Barry (01:03)
a cave in Pelham, Tennessee. So I'm

Beth (01:06)
Mm-hmm.

Barry (01:07)
excited about all that. Speaking of CaveFest, we have two tickets. The What Podcast has two tickets to give away to CaveFest, which is October tenth and eleventh in Pelham. We will be there, Beth will be there, the dudes will be there. Most of Camp Nut Butter or Camp Never Not Great. We haven't quite settled on a name. Russ, tell us how people can win these tickets.

Russ (01:31)
subscribe to the What Podcast here on YouTube. make sure you like this video and just leave a comment. Tell us who you want to see, tell us who you're gonna bring, and that's it. We'll we'll pick a winner. we're running this on YouTube, Instagram, Spotify, TikTok, all of the above. So lots of

Barry (01:52)
Yeah.

Russ (01:52)
ways to enter and win.

Barry (01:54)
We'll try to pick a winner next week, within the week, and let you know so that you have a couple of weeks to plan and prepare. Because we really do want you to to come, not just win, but also show up. and like I said, we're gonna talk a little more CaveFest here at the end, because there's some news coming out of that this week that dropped. and so we'll talk about that here in a little bit. But right now

I think we want to talk a little bit. Bumbershoot, because Beth, you got to go. credentialed

Beth (02:25)
I did.

Barry (02:27)
on our behalf, right? Which is really, really cool. Got to go and and be a credentialed photographer. I think I was saying before we started that I was looking at the lineup and this is a really good one. I'm I'm glad you went. I'm glad we're talking about this one because it's it's a festival similar to others.

But really, really heavy on the arts. so I I'm I'm anxious to hear your report. So tell us all about it.

Beth (03:00)
Yeah, so it's a city festival. I listened to kind of to follow up on your city festival discussion from last week, City versus Camping. So it's in Seattle Center, which was built for the Seattle World's Fair in 62. Started as a festival called Bumbershoot in 73, but actually started a couple of years before that and just starting to get it together.

It expanded to 10 days at one point. So I think it's been as long as 10 days. They've tried all different things. So 10 days, two weekends, multi-day. It's now down to a two-day festival, but really successful, sold out. I heard that they dropped the prices to the same as 2005 prices for this one. So

Russ (03:52)
Wow.

Beth (03:52)
I think it was only about 150 for the weekend, which is...

Pretty good for that caliber artist. And two big stages and then a smaller stage for the music, but also fashion district, animation. There is wrestling, there's skateboarding. I shot some wrestling and some roller derby. And yeah, it's a multi-arts festival.

Barry (04:22)
I was gonna ask. I if if we'd a thought ahead I would I would have signed you up to join in that roller derby. I know you'd have been game. But we'd have put a GoPro on a helmet. Put you out there

Beth (04:29)
Yeah, yeah, mean, you know. Yep, if I had time, definitely.

Russ (04:31)
Yeah.

Beth (04:34)
I was pretty busy as usual, but yeah, was really fun to watch.

Barry (04:40)
busy, which as we know did a couple of weeks ago, talking about Bonnarooo, you shot what, like six what was it? The one day sixteen? Was it sixteen acts in one day? It was

Beth (04:49)
I can't remember. Yeah, it was lot.

It's funny because I have this stuff in my acting memory and then it goes when I do the next festival and then

Russ (04:59)
Mm-hmm.

Barry (05:00)
Yeah, yeah.

Beth (05:00)
you have to just kind of make the space for other things. But it was a lot.

Barry (05:04)
So how'd you approach this one?

Beth (05:06)
This was a little bit simpler because it's a pretty relatively small area. mean, this is where the Space Needle is. So you see the Space Needle throughout the day, but it's not in the festival grounds.

And you can just kind of run back and forth between the two major stages and then try to get over to the smaller stage, which I did a couple times in a different part of the grounds. So that was kind of my strategy is just to run around a lot. They really

Russ (05:34)
Hmm.

Beth (05:36)
took care of the media. We had kind of our own dedicated area where you could run and drop stuff and go back and forth. But it was just pretty nonstop 12-hour days both days.

Barry (05:49)
What was your

Beth (05:49)
Which is fun.

Barry (05:49)
list going in? Were you I think you said you tried to get some bands that had either been to Bonnoroo or you think might be or so what was your thinking?

Beth (05:57)
Yeah. Yeah.

Barry (05:59)
Wha how did you plan this one?

Beth (06:01)
So just the headliners were Death Cab for Cutie, which is one of my favorite bands of all time, although I have

Russ (06:06)
yeah. Mm-hmm.

Beth (06:07)
seen them and shot them before. And then Turnstyle, which obviously we saw it at Bonnarooo. De La Soul, I had never shot before. I'm sure they've been at Bonnarooo at some point, but I did get to see them. And then Bikini Kill was my number one band that I just have never had a chance to see. I think they were at Shaky Knees.

last year year before, something like that. Anyway, Bikini Kills, a big deal, Olympia band, Riot Girl. So that was really cool to get to see them. Orville Peck, again, I'm sure has been at Bonnarooo at some point.

Russ (06:48)
I believe he has, if not, was supposed to be, 'cause I think he might have been on one of the canceled lineups.

Barry (06:51)
Yeah.

yeah, that's what I'm

Beth (06:54)
Yeah,

yeah. And then continuing on with that, so Blood Orange I didn't see at Bonnarooo this year, so I made sure to see him at Bombershoe and he was, because everybody talked about how great he was at Bonnarooo.

Barry (07:09)
Right.

Russ (07:10)
Yeah.

Beth (07:11)
And he was, other Bonnarooo bands, so guess you say D-Spitz. I still don't know how to pronounce D-I-Spitz,

Barry (07:19)
I know.

Beth (07:19)
D-Spitz, D-Spit, anyway.

Russ (07:20)
Mm-hmm.

Beth (07:22)
They're incredible. I did get to see them at Bonnarooo, but I didn't get into the pit fast enough because they were the very first band, I think, two years ago. yeah, I know David Bruce had kind of talked about them and said to definitely see them. And so I did get to see them at Bomber Shoot and they were incredible. Also Bonnarooo bands, had Paw Paw Rod was either

Russ (07:51)
Mm-hmm.

Beth (07:52)
this year, maybe on the schedule or one of the canceled times or so did get to see him. I think you'd really like him. It's kind of a soul guy. Kind of, I guess that's how you describe his music, but very energetic on stage. I think we'll see more of him coming up. And then Goldie Boutilier, don't know how she says that either. If it's the

Barry (08:19)
That was yeah, I saw that one earlier. I was like, Yeah, I bet that's boutelier. That course

Beth (08:23)
I was like, is she French? Is she French-Canadian?

I need to look up. I think she's based in LA, but...

Barry (08:29)
If anybody's gonna get it wrong,

it's me, so it it's it's probably pronounced Smith.

Russ (08:32)
Yeah. Let's yeah, we'll we'll get into that later, yeah.

Beth (08:32)
Yeah, we'll just, we'll just, no. I know

I try to look these things up ahead of time, but you just can't get everything that you need or remember everything. I'm sure I've looked it up before, but she was at Bonnarooo this year. And I also didn't see her at Bonnarooo this year. So I wanted to make sure to catch her here. And then Joey Valance and Bray.

who seem to always

Russ (08:59)
Mm.

Beth (09:00)
be on the lineup. And I think they are always one of the ones that gets canceled or is up against somebody.

Russ (09:08)
Yeah, yeah.

Beth (09:10)
I just always remember seeing them on the line up.

Barry (09:13)
So City Fest means you you stay off site, you Uber in, you walk in, you you know, whatever, you park and but talk about the layout a little bit. Is it a like a a grassy park or concrete? w what's the what's it like?

Beth (09:32)
I'd say it's a mix of both. It's actually a really interesting site because it is a lot of the World's Fair structures in that area. Not included, but around the Festival grounds are the MoPOP Museum, which is a museum of pop culture that has science fiction movie stuff as well as a lot of music stuff in it. And there's the Pacific Science Museum.

think that's what it's called, that still has some structures from World's Fair. And they are still working on an indoor stadium that has been under construction for a while, but you have Climate Pledge Arena. So all these things are bordering this kind of square park and KEXP, the KEXP building. So it's a mix of concrete and grass, but mostly grassy in the...

the field part where the stages are. It's kind of an interesting main stage. Some of the performers remarked on it that it goes up in a hill and then it kind of drops. So you can't see the whole crowd behind that unless you're off to the sides and looking down on it.

Barry (10:50)
Okay.

Beth (10:51)
So that's kind of an unusual feature.

Russ (10:54)
Ha.

Beth (10:55)
But everything, you know, and you would be a little concerned about that because they did have

Turnstile that has really wild crowds, know is known for that and it seemed like You know safety is always the key and they were able to keep that safe. So Yeah, nice nice layout a lot of room to walk around it was sold out both days plus the weekend pass

Barry (11:20)
What's the what's the n what's the number?

Beth (11:23)
Don't know looked it up they haven't released it so

Barry (11:26)
twenties, forties.

Beth (11:28)
I would guess based on, they used to have up to 250,000 when it was a 10 day. And so I'm thinking they're counting the single day numbers. So

Russ (11:35)
Hmm. Yeah.

Barry (11:37)
Sure.

Beth (11:39)
maybe, maybe 40.

Barry (11:41)
Okay.

Beth (11:42)
It's not the same size grounds as Bonnarooo, but it is more packed in and they don't need to make room for camping. So I really,

Russ (11:50)
Right.

Beth (11:50)
I really don't know.

Barry (11:51)
How about getting in and out?

Beth (11:54)
Well, I was very fortunate once again. I kind of have a knack for making really good friends. So I have friends who live in Ballard in Seattle. These are the same friends I went to Solid Sound with. they, my friend John gave me a ride to and from.

Barry (12:13)
Yeah.

Beth (12:14)
He gave me a ride there, dropped me off where I needed to be. And then, like I said, we had a nice media room where we could leave some stuff.

And then I just walked down the hill to the

Barry (12:24)
Nice.

Beth (12:25)
bar and met them after. And, you know, they had tater tots ready for me and, you know, just kind of recap the day and then headed back to their house. Free places to stay, free tater tots and really good

Russ (12:33)
What could be better? Tater tats waiting on you. Yeah. Yeah.

Barry (12:35)
Yeah.

Beth (12:39)
friends. So yeah, it was, they didn't go to the festival this year, but they are festival veterans who kind of understand the whole thing.

Barry (12:45)
Yeah. I'm never gonna

apologize for doing things making good that was being Shaky

Beth (12:50)
Make good friends. Yeah. Yeah.

Russ (12:51)
Absolutely, yeah.

Barry (12:53)
Knees as we talked about last week. Yeah, my

Beth (12:55)
Yeah.

Barry (12:56)
my best friend from forever dropped me off at the gate and picked me up and then we went to dinner, so I get it.

Russ (13:02)
Yeah,

Beth (13:02)
That's

Russ (13:02)
but did he have tater tots for you? Okay, all right. Well, give give and take, I guess, yeah.

Beth (13:02)
awesome. It's so easy. Yeah, really.

Barry (13:04)
He didn't have tater tots, but he did have a little bourbon, so we'll go one Exactly. Priorities.

Beth (13:08)
Yup. Yup. Well, yeah, right?

Right.

Barry (13:19)
Hey guys, we would love to hear from you. Please write us a comment below. Drop us an email at comments at the what podcast.com or leave us a voicemail at 423-667-7877. All right. Let's go back to the arts thing. Did you get over there to to that? And and I it's fascinating to me because they actually, if you look at their website, the the arts are an entire their own calendar. And

Beth (13:47)
Mm-hmm,

Barry (13:48)
Even more.

Beth (13:48)
yeah.

Barry (13:48)
I mean it's it's extremely populated every day from one to eleven with seven rows of events. from

Beth (14:01)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Barry (14:03)
the fashion district, the recess district, so geodesic domes, comedy, and video rama. So do you get over that way much?

Beth (14:13)
A little bit. I'm really trying to do this with festivals because when you're covering a festival, you want to get the feel of the overall festival. But as a person who is really into the music, it's really hard to do other things when you're trying to catch all the music also. So I did run around a little bit. really, I definitely enjoyed shooting wrestling. I thought that was really fun.

Russ (14:39)
Ha ha ha.

Beth (14:41)
Pretty similar to

taking photos of people on stage where they're moving around. Here you're waiting for them to stand on the ropes and then fly. So that was fun. And I did walk around in the fashion district some too. There was some really cool stuff there.

Barry (14:58)
I guess I bring it up because and Russ, I know you're trying to get down there to Hulaen, but having several guests on talk about the arts is a big topic of these events. a lot of people have sort of lamented the fact that Bonnarooo I don't know that they've gone away from it, but it's certainly not as seems like it's a shift. I don't know how to describe it, right?

Russ (15:27)
Yeah,

it's not gone

Beth (15:27)
you

Russ (15:28)
away, but it definitely doesn't feel like it's a a priority like it used to be.

Barry (15:33)
Well, to me the shift has been they've been doing less and relying on like group camps to do things. So that's

Russ (15:41)
Yeah. Yeah.

Barry (15:42)
what I mean by a shift, you know. for people who don't know, and for all those folks who've heard me talk about our history and background, I won't relitigate it all too much as Brian likes to say.

Russ (15:56)
Yeah.

Barry (15:58)
but back in the day out in camp they used to d have art

installations. things like the one I can remember that really kind of stuck out to me was basically just like yarn. They put

Beth (16:11)
Mm-hmm.

Barry (16:12)
clotheslines basically up. Big big, you know, large area and then strung yarn, colored yarn and everybody could go and remo r redo it and change it around and it would really

Russ (16:25)
Mm-hmm.

Barry (16:26)
depending on the time of the day and your your

self medication where you were the day. I cause I remember we were there and somebody offered us LSD and we were like, no, we're working and I'll never forget this kid's face. He looked at me like, that sucks for you.

Russ (16:48)
Yeah.

Barry (16:49)
The disappointed in his face was like,

Wow, man, what a drag. And they were like, No, no, we're good. Anyway, they used to do

Russ (16:57)
Yeah.

Beth (16:58)
Yeah.

Barry (16:59)
a lot of things like that. and like I said, I it just seems to me like in the over the last decade or so that kind of switched to let people do their own things. But going back to this, we've heard from a lot of people

That's part of what they love about going to certain festivals is that it has this extra, this art element, right? So yeah.

Russ (17:22)
Mm-hmm.

Beth (17:22)
Mm-hmm, yeah. Right.

Yeah, it makes it feel like a very Seattle festival. And that was one thing that was cool for me because I'm not from the Northwest. I'm from Maine, which is actually where I am now. I'm visiting my family. But I'm not from the Northwest, but I've lived there for nine years. And I'm starting to get a sense of what the Northwest is about and kind of what we like to focus on. And it is a very...

almost like outsider arts culture is what it always was. There was always a lot of kind of unsanctioned, uncommercial art all over the city. And that's what led to grunge becoming what it was.

Russ (18:06)
Right.

Beth (18:07)
Because it was just a lot of people just doing things, know, just trying things and making art out of whatever they felt like, zines and stickers and, you know, whatever. So I think that Bomber Shoe

It's really nice to see that they, especially as a festival with that long a history, it's nice to see that they're still preserving some of those traditions of what it was in the beginning and maintaining that even as it's getting a lot of the same bands that we see at other festival lineups.

Russ (18:36)
Yeah.

Barry (18:37)
That's what I was gonna add. You said it makes it feel very Seattle, but it also makes it it gives

Beth (18:42)
Yeah.

Barry (18:42)
the patron that unique experience that we heard

Beth (18:45)
Mm-hmm.

Barry (18:46)
going back to Jeff Cuellar talking about when the the boutique well, first of all with Bonnaroo, which was huge, you know, the eighty thousand, and then we started seeing the ten to twelve thousand boutique festivals and I can remember Jeff telling us, people want to feel like they've ha experienced something unique.

not just seeing XYZ banned, which you can do almost anywhere, but they want something extra, something different, something that they when they leave feel like, Well, I got something that no one else got. and that's that's

Beth (19:20)
Right.

Barry (19:21)
where this art element can can really contribute to that, right?

Beth (19:26)
Right, and that was also at Bonnarooo. Remember, it used to be you go to a festival because you would see people collaborate with each other that you would never see anywhere else because they were

Barry (19:35)
Sure.

Russ (19:36)
Mm-hmm.

Beth (19:36)
all there at the festival and it was always possible for them to just kind of cross-pollinate. So I was thinking about that when we were talking about, or you were talking, I think about the Super Jam and why that's still important because that's something that you're only going to see in that one place

Russ (19:52)
Right.

Beth (19:52)
at that one time, you know? And so it's...

I think that's really important.

Barry (19:58)
So how many and I probably should ask this at the beginning, how many festivals have you done, will you have done this year?

Beth (20:07)
This year, I, it depends on when you, when you start. but starting with Bonnarooo, we'll say start with Bonnarooo.

Barry (20:14)
Okay.

Beth (20:15)
I did Bonnarooo, Solid Sound, Pickathon, my local festival Tarboo. I did Bumbershoot, feel like I might be missing something. And then this coming weekend, when I get back from Maine, I'm just doing this last little trip before I go back to teaching in the fall. cause we're

Russ (20:35)
Mm-hmm.

Beth (20:36)
on the quarter system.

So that next weekend is an EDM festival and a Bluegrass festival at the same time. So I am definitely doing as

Russ (20:47)
Ha ha ha.

Beth (20:48)
above so below, which is the EDM festival, but the Bluegrass festival is one that I shot last year and that's at my venue, the Lantern. So I might try to run back and forth a little bit. I will see.

Barry (20:57)
Yeah, well watch out Watch out for those bluegrass

festivals. They can get out of hand.

Russ (21:04)
Yeah.

Beth (21:03)
Yep, yeah, they can go late, but so can EDM. So I don't know. They're pretty much in direct conflict with each other. Yeah, yeah,

Barry (21:09)
Those people can go cray cray.

That's fun. Compare Yeah. Compare

Beth (21:13)
true. They can. They're in the trees forever. They just stay there, you know.

Barry (21:19)
and contrast. What how are they how are they the same? How are they different?

Beth (21:24)
I mean, Bonnarooo is our festival, right? That's just always going to be home to us. It's funny, this morning, my parents were kind of setting me up at my dad's home office here, and we were talking about it. And my mom accidentally called it the What Now podcast. So I was like, OK,

Barry (21:42)
All right. Yeah, well that's whew.

Beth (21:45)
the What Now podcast, sounds, that's... Exactly. Exactly.

Barry (21:46)
That's actually really good.

Russ (21:47)
That's that's actually a really good rebrand for us, yeah. Yeah.

Barry (21:53)
Little Freudian,

Beth (21:54)
So, yeah,

Barry (21:54)
but that's that's good.

Beth (21:56)
yeah. So for the next two years, I guess we're the What Now podcast and we're just gonna do a bunch of other stuff.

Russ (22:01)
Yeah.

Barry (22:02)
That's funny. I'm glad you mentioned your mom, because I just gotta say David

Bruce, you mentioned him earlier, sent us a text

Beth (22:08)
Mm-hmm.

Barry (22:09)
that his mom had watched our episode that he was on a couple of weeks ago and kind of called

Beth (22:14)
Nice.

Barry (22:15)
him out, I guess, and said, Did you know that you said the F word? And he said, Yeah, I learned it from you. I just it was so fun. That's awesome. Hi, mom and dad. Hi, Mrs. Bruce. Thank you for listening.

Beth (22:22)
Yeah, my parents are big fans of the show too. So shout out to my parents from, know, yeah.

Russ (22:22)
Yeah.

good. Hello.

Beth (22:31)
Yeah, Bonnaroo is kind of our crown jewel, right? That's our big one. Everything else stems from that. I, you know, I think I talked last time I was on the podcast about how it's really nice to be able to

try some new things. I think Russ said that last week also, that this is an opportunity to get to try some new things. And also, if you want something to exist and be successful, support it while it's still here. While you still have this option, right?

Russ (23:00)
Absolutely. Yeah. Yeah, if there's

any way to turn a Bonaru cancellation into something positive, go do something that you've never done before. Use it as an opportunity

Beth (23:09)
Yeah.

Russ (23:10)
to to experience something you otherwise wouldn't have. I agree.

Beth (23:13)
Mm-hmm, absolutely.

Barry (23:14)
Yeah,

yeah.

Beth (23:16)
And keeps it fresh for us, but I love all of them. What I love is the culture of it. You go in, you figure out where the stages are. At first, everything is confusing and new, and pretty quickly you figure it all out. for me, I make friends with new photographers. We're all comparing notes. I love that aspect of it. But for others,

you're going back and you're seeing the same people when you go to the same festivals. And that's the hug and howdy. That's

Russ (23:47)
Mm-hmm.

Beth (23:47)
the great thing, as you say. That's what I'm sad about with Baneru, that there are people that I only see there, and I won't get to see them in 2027. Done.

Barry (23:57)
Yeah, for sure.

Russ (23:58)
Yeah.

Barry (23:59)
I will say, and and Russ can back me up on this, we probably had more conversations in the last month, month and a half about how to go forward, the the you know, to the what now.

Beth (24:11)
Mm-hmm. So what now?

Russ (24:14)
Yeah.

Barry (24:14)
I I have to say we've been very busy,

Beth (24:16)
He

Barry (24:17)
and it's very encouraging. It's not like, you know, we felt feels like somebody turned the lights off and it's over. It feels like

Beth (24:24)
Mm-hmm.

Russ (24:24)
Yeah, no, it's

it's surprising in a in a good way, like how much

Barry (24:27)
Yeah.

Russ (24:28)
new things we're we're exploring and talking about and that maybe

Beth (24:31)
Mm-hmm.

Russ (24:32)
have coming up otherwise that wouldn't if we just stuck to the same cycle of of Bonnarooo. So yeah, it it's it's encouraging.

Barry (24:40)
Absolutely. All right. anything else about Bomber Chute? I guess I mean we should say thanks to the guys who worked with you and made that happen for sure. Awesome.

Beth (24:49)
Yeah. Yep. Beautifully

Russ (24:50)
Yeah. Shout out to

Bumbershoot.

Beth (24:52)
run

festival. Went great. Great crowd. Great bands. Love the lineup. Would love to shoot it again. yeah.

Barry (24:58)
Weather was good.

Beth (24:59)
Weather was excellent. Yeah, it rained briefly, but you know, we can deal with that in Seattle. It definitely wasn't a long, sustained situation. and the other great thing about that, those grounds is the armory is open. The armory is like a food court. So that's open still.

which means that you do have a place to get in out of the rain and buy kind of, all the prices were pretty good, but they had their normal food court with all those offerings. So that was great.

Russ (25:27)
Nice.

Barry (25:28)
That was one of the neat things about our Moon River Festival here in Chattanooga is it was in a park right next to basically a trendy shopping district. so you could get a you know, a bite to eat and shop, a lot of art shops and places like that. So it had that and that was very intentional. That's why they put it there. They wanted that downtown feel. You could feel like you

Beth (25:53)
Mm-hmm.

Barry (25:53)
were in the festival, but then you could also feel like you were

you know, in downtown Chattanooga experiencing a really, really cool part of town.

Russ (25:59)
Yeah. V

very very walkable,

Beth (26:02)
Mm-hmm.

Russ (26:02)
very open to exploring. If you if you stepped out of the festival for a few minutes, yeah, you could go to a restaurant, to a bar, a shop, any of that. It's it's pretty cool.

Barry (26:12)
Yeah.

Beth (26:13)
Yeah.

Barry (26:14)
All right. Well, let's take a quick break and we will come back. We're going to talk a little bit of Shaky Knees because Russ will be there next week. And then we're going to talk a little bit more about CaveFest. And I want to get Beth's tips. Russ and I kind of gave ours last week about going to CaveFest, but we don't have to travel across the country. So we're gonna hear about what that's like. All right, so we'll be right

Beth (26:35)
Yeah.

Russ (26:35)
Yeah.

Barry (26:37)
back.

All right, and we're back. thanks, Beth, for going and sharing that with us. sounds like a really fun, fun event for a lot of reasons. But

Beth (26:52)
Yeah. Yeah.

Barry (26:54)
another one coming up and it's next week. Russ, you'll actually be there. I went last year and thoroughly enjoyed it. Went Saturday and Sunday to Shaky Knees, down in Atlanta. what are you looking forward to this year?

Russ (27:11)
I really like the grounds like we mentioned last time. the park is just laid out so well. That they've got the the A B stages, the two main stages. There's several smaller stages to go to. I'm just looking forward to being back in Atlanta too. I mean we talked about, you know, City Fest versus camping, but you know, there is a lot of advantages to a city fest because there is so much to do in Atlanta. all kinds of stuff, you know, after the festival 'cause, you know, it does close down after the last ban. But yeah.

Looking forward to that. looking forward to Wu Tang Clan, Gorillas, Veil the Prodigy, like you mentioned last week. We got roasted for that. turnstile. Yeah.

Barry (27:53)
Like I said, if anyone can screw it up, it's gonna be me.

Beth (27:57)
I know.

Russ (27:58)
Turnstyle, like we mentioned, they're gonna be there. Fontaines DC is another one I wanna see. geese again. So yeah, it's gonna be great.

And it's sold out. I don't know if if that happened recently, but yeah, they've totally sold out.

Barry (28:13)
Yeah. Yeah, that's good news for festivals.

Russ (28:17)
Mm-hmm.

Barry (28:17)
I'm glad to have heard that. Glad to hear that. and that like we kind of mentioned just before the break, it being a downtown type of thing in a city festival, it is kind of fun when you can go out either before or after. I know last year with my buddy we had a great tie to went to a great tie restaurant for dinner and then the ne next morning walked.

couple of blocks and had a great breakfast. kinda near the Jimmy

Russ (28:45)
Yeah,

Barry (28:45)
Carter Memorial Library. So it's

Russ (28:47)
Mm-hmm.

Barry (28:48)
kinda cool to see that part of Atlanta.

Russ (28:51)
Yeah, a buddy of mine also lives in Atlanta and we met up and he took us to a brunch spot one morning and it was great. So we definitely wanna go and do that again. yeah, lots of lots of stuff to look forward to.

Barry (29:04)
Yeah. All right. and then next month, as we've said many times, CaveFest, October tenth and eleventh. not typically what I would say is my type of music, but absolutely love the caverns. Love Todd and Jeff. I'm super excited about camping in October.

as opposed to the middle

Russ (29:33)
Mm-hmm.

Barry (29:33)
of June, you know, next to the gates of hell in the heat.

Beth (29:39)
Yeah.

Russ (29:40)
Yeah.

Barry (29:43)
and as we said before, I I'm really looking forward to seeing Gillian and David Rawling, Dean Welch, the John Pryne eightieth birthday celebration. And

Russ (29:53)
Yeah.

Barry (29:54)
it's a strong lineup. we've got thanks to Jeff, we've got some interviews lined up.

With some of these acts that are coming. So I always hate to kind of mention it because things happen and schedules change, but very excited about what we think might happen in the next couple of weeks with some of those interviews. And I don't even know how if we get as many as we're trying, you guys might get three or four in a day. So

Russ (30:19)
He threw a bunch to us. Yeah.

Barry (30:22)
very excited about it. but as I teased before, Beth, you're coming across the country. You've been there before, you've been to the caverns.

Beth (30:30)
Yeah, this will be my

third. This will be my third CaveFest.

Barry (30:34)
So kinda walk us through it's probably pretty similar to when you come to Bonnoroo, right? Especially since it's literally ten minutes ten minutes away

Beth (30:44)
Yeah.

Barry (30:45)
as the crow flies. But what is a travel like for something like this?

Beth (30:51)
Yeah, it is pretty similar because I've talked about I do have some stuff there. And I also want to say, and Elisa talked about this too, that we want to help other people facilitate festival going because

Russ (31:06)
Mm-hmm.

Beth (31:08)
I get so much benefit from people on the ground in these different locations and I really very much appreciate it.

We definitely are happy to return the favor if people are coming out this way for festivals. you know, everybody

Barry (31:21)
That's cool.

Beth (31:23)
has, they have too many clothes, you have too many t-shirts, right? We get a new t-shirt every event we go to. So if you have any kind of friend in the area, if you make a friend in the area, just having a box or a bag with a few things makes a huge difference. I just flew to Maine with a backpack and just a...

shoulder bag because I have a lot of stuff here. Obviously, I'm at my parents' house, so I'm able to store stuff in their attic. if you can do anything like that or if you can't, bring old clothes that you can just throw out at the end of a trip,

Barry (32:03)
Mm-hmm.

Beth (32:04)
things that are kind of on their last legs. If you're not a sentimental person like me and are capable of throwing things out, then the jeans with holes in them.

or they're just on the edge or, you know, t-shirts like that. So that at least you don't have to fly back with all this stuff. I've talked about Bonnarooo that you just want to plan it like a backpacking trip if you don't know anybody at a festival when you're going and you're flying and you don't have a car. That just treat it like you're going backpacking and look up, if you haven't done colder weather backpacking, just kind of look up the things that would help to

facilitate that. You know, we're not trying to spend a lot of money for each thing to kind

Barry (32:49)
Right.

Beth (32:49)
of get ready for each event because there are costs associated with even getting there. But there are a few things you can kind of have on hand to like I'll bring a raincoat and a puffy layer so that I don't have to bring a full winter coat, but I can have the sort of puffy later that gets really small.

and then a raincoat, which I might need anyway, and that's my outer shell. So just backpacking

Russ (33:18)
Yeah.

Beth (33:19)
stuff like that.

Russ (33:19)
yeah, layering up that's a that's definitely a backpacking thing and it's a good tip because

Beth (33:23)
Yeah.

Russ (33:23)
yeah, instead of one big bulky coat, yeah, you can have several smaller

Beth (33:26)
Hmm.

Russ (33:27)
layers and just adjust to if you need to wear all or just one or just have, you know,

Beth (33:31)
Yeah.

Russ (33:31)
the outer layer if it rains. Yeah.

Beth (33:34)
Yeah.

Barry (33:35)
And if you do have to bring a lot or feel like you wanna bring a lot, the addition of these lockers, I I can remember when that those first sort of showed up thinking, Who's gonna spend all that, you know, extra money or why are charge that's just a money grab type of thing. But then I think Rush, you and some folks shared one, I don't remember where, it might have been at Shaky Knees, and talked about how convenient yeah.

Russ (33:58)
Maybe it's shaky. it's

yeah, worth every penny. I mean it's yeah, you you see it as kind of a well, this is another way they're getting more money out of you, but it really is convenient to have a place securely to store stuff like that. And yeah, if you can split it with somebody and share the cost, it's even better. They're not huge lockers,

Beth (34:18)
Yeah.

Russ (34:19)
but it's it's big enough to store, you know, jacket, a few extra things, so yeah, I think it's worth

Barry (34:26)
thought about it, but to your point, Beth, in that case, you maybe it's you, you know, store a a long sleeve t-shirt or pants that you don't mind if you can't go back. Like if you leave it there

Beth (34:38)
Mm-hmm.

Barry (34:38)
Saturday and Sunday's rained out and you don't have to go back, you know, try to get back in to retrieve your your favorite coat, you can just walk away and leave it, type of thing. So something to consider.

Russ (34:51)
Mm-hmm.

Beth (34:52)
Yeah.

Barry (34:54)
yeah, so there's that.

and it is October, so we're probably going to see different weather. Could be hot, hot in the afternoon and

Beth (35:04)
Mm-hmm. Range, yep.

Barry (35:07)
and rain and then cool, cold at night even. but it does help for you to have friends. and you've probably done this enough. I know Russ camps all the time, and I I don't, but I have purchased things

that I know I can use more than once. Like, I mean, I I sprung for the a really nice cot several years ago. it's a pain to lug around 'cause it's huge, but

Russ (35:38)
Mm-hmm.

Barry (35:39)
it's awesome. Yeah. Yeah.

Beth (35:39)
Sleep is golden. Yeah, she can get good sleep. That's that's the real key to

Russ (35:41)
Yeah. Yeah. If

Beth (35:44)
a festival.

Russ (35:44)
if

you have to prioritize anything, yeah, sleep and comfort are your two biggest biggest things. You'll get the most benefit from yeah, lugging around a big cot like that.

Barry (35:55)
Cot, good

chair, and

Russ (35:58)
Mm, mm-hmm.

Barry (35:59)
a good tent that will keep you dry and maybe a a tarp. if you you know, for us, that type of thing that doesn't take up too much space in your vehicle. but you know, it sits in a pile. I know where it is, and when I'm ready to go, it it goes in the back of the truck. So

Russ (36:17)
Yeah.

Beth (36:18)
Yeah.

Russ (36:18)
I I'm planning an upgrade in the bus. I've working on installing this diesel heater that I got. So hopefully by CaveFest I'll have that up and running. Yeah.

Beth (36:25)
Mm. Nice. Yeah.

One thing I want to make sure to mention, too, that you may not think about if you're traveling for festivals is allergy medicine.

Barry (36:36)
Yeah.

Beth (36:36)
Because when you, especially for me, I got really sick at, I mean, just really bad allergies at CaveFest the first year I went. That if you're on a plane and then you're in a new environment and it's different flora,

Barry (36:54)
For sure.

Beth (36:54)
And

also you're standing by a campfire

Russ (36:55)
that's right. Yeah.

Beth (36:56)
all day. I completely lost my voice the first year I went to CaveFest. So

Barry (37:00)
Can I can believe that.

Beth (37:02)
don't forget the allergy medicine. Even if you don't normally have allergies, if you're suddenly on a plane and then placed into a new environment like that, it's good to have

Russ (37:11)
Mm-hmm.

Beth (37:12)
all the things in case you get sick. I also, bring little bone broth packs, like chicken bone broth that you can get at Costco.

So include that with your Liquid IV for a festival like this in the fall especially, because it does get cold at night and you know.

Barry (37:32)
And as as our our buddy Brian learned, keep those meds in their original prescription bottles or boxes or whatever. Don't don't don't buy the little weekly mind reminder thing 'cause they're gonna throw away. likely. I I don't think security at CaveFest was too, too tough, but i in any case you should do that whether no matter where you're going.

Russ (37:57)
It's not too bad, but yeah, you

you don't wanna risk

Beth (37:59)
Yeah.

Russ (38:00)
anything getting thrown out. Especially if it's

Barry (38:02)
Yes.

Russ (38:02)
a prescription, yeah.

Barry (38:03)
Exactly. Something that you have to have and you've traveled.

Russ (38:06)
Mm-hmm.

Barry (38:07)
yeah. So keep that in mind. I go if it's your first time the the Walmart has the dollar aisle, you can, you know, get a dollar shampoo and toothpaste and a brand new toothbrush and deodorant, whatever. You know, you're gonna spend under ten bucks for basically what you need. and that way you're not carrying a huge bottle of

Beth (38:31)
camp.

Barry (38:31)
shampoo

with you or whatever, and you're not spending a whole lot. And if you don't use it, keep it in the pile for next year or the next event.

Russ (38:39)
Mm-hmm.

Barry (38:39)
So

Beth (38:40)
Mm-hmm. Yep.

Barry (38:42)
food. this one's a little different, Russ. I haven't e I didn't ask you last week. do you do the trucks, the vendors, or do you bring or a little bit of both? Cause we always talked about Bonaru.

Russ (38:55)
Probably a little bit of

Barry (38:56)
I'm interrupting, but we, you know, we don't typically cook though.

Beth, the guys that you come with, the dudes from Nashville, they they bring the the Blackstone and every I mean, they do it upright, so

Beth (39:06)
Yeah. Mm-hmm.

Yep.

Barry (39:10)
Go ahead, R I interrupted you, I'm sorry.

Russ (39:13)
yeah, I'll do definitely the food trucks. they're really good at CaveFest. They've got a good food truck line up. but it also doesn't hurt to just bring something not necessarily to to cook, but maybe just to snack on at camp. just when you're sitting there relaxing just to have, you know, something to to eat, some crackers or something. And then yeah, I I do kinda lean on the dudes 'cause, you know, I they usually bring the Blackstone and

and cook up a meal, you know, at least once a day, at least breakfast, burritos or something. Although if Mike is not coming this year, I don't know if that's an option, right?

Barry (39:47)
yeah,

he screwed up and got he's

Beth (39:48)
I don't know.

Barry (39:49)
getting married, right? I mean Wow, what a rookie mistake.

Russ (39:50)
Yeah.

Beth (39:51)
Yeah, yep, he's getting married

that weekend. So I think it was unavoidable.

Russ (39:54)
Yeah.

Beth (39:57)
really, you know, he loves CaveFest, but yeah, I think they had to schedule it then. So I'm not sure how many of the guys that I usually go with are going to be there this year. We'll see.

Russ (40:06)
I know but that

sucks because that means from now on his anniversary is gonna be every CaveFest. He's never

Barry (40:11)
Yeah.

Russ (40:11)
gonna come to CaveFest again.

Beth (40:13)
I thought about that because my dating anniversary with Brian is on Bonnarooo weekend. And

Russ (40:19)
Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Beth (40:21)
the good thing is if you go with the date, it does change. So it's only going to be on the weekend for a couple days. And then you have whole week. You know, you got five more years where it's not on that date.

Barry (40:31)
Yeah. Yeah.

Russ (40:34)
Right. But,

you know, she doesn't care about CaveFest. If she wants to do something that weekend for the anniversary, you you don't have a choice. So yeah.

Beth (40:39)
Yeah, true.

Barry (40:39)
Yeah, yeah.

It's like

a a

Beth (40:42)
Yeah.

Barry (40:43)
buddy of mine surprised his girlfriend flew to France and proposed marriage in front of the Mona Lisa at the Louvre and I was like, That's the stupidest thing I've ever heard of. What are you gonna do next year?

Russ (40:56)
Yeah.

Beth (40:57)
Yeah.

Russ (40:59)
Set the expectations low early on. Yeah. Yeah.

Barry (41:01)
Yeah. Yeah.

and simple things like you can go back and watch our episode do's and don'ts or tips if you want, on on how to do Bonnarooo. Those tips are still every bit legitimate. I think one that stands out to me, and that came from you, Russ, is you know, get a good cooler, but also put a bag of ice in the cooler the night before to kind of prep the cooler so that you're not putting

Ice in a warm cooler with warm drinks or whatever, you know.

Russ (41:31)
Yeah. Absolutely,

Beth (41:34)
now.

Russ (41:35)
yeah. The more

you can pre chill before you load the cooler, the longer you'll you'll keep the ice. Not as much

Barry (41:39)
Simple things.

Russ (41:40)
an issue at CaveFest 'cause it is kind of cooler. but yeah, you still want your ice to last and stuff like that.

Barry (41:46)
Yeah, and my favorite, the best tip I learned twenty five years ago, freeze, get some bottled water. I hate doing, you know, the for the environment, the plastic, but if you freeze your bo water, bottled water and then use that as your cooler in in the cooler

Russ (42:02)
Mm-hmm.

Barry (42:03)
to keep things it doesn't get sloshy and soak your food and you also have stuff to drink throughout the weekend, so

Russ (42:10)
Yeah, and if you don't wanna

Beth (42:10)
Yeah.

Russ (42:11)
do individual water bottles, 'cause the plastic you can freeze a gallon jug, you know.

Barry (42:16)
There you go. I hadn't thought about that. That's a good one. Yeah,

Russ (42:18)
Mm-hmm.

Barry (42:20)
that's a really good idea actually.

Beth (42:21)
Just to say, as far as cooler maintenance goes, make sure that everything's packaged separately because I think we've all had that experience where as the ice melts, everything's just floating around in there. So, make sure it's all separated. But

Barry (42:31)
That's what I mean. Yeah, that's why if you if you do the bottled water, you don't get that, yeah.

Russ (42:31)
This is a good one, yeah.

Beth (42:36)
yeah, that's true. I guess you don't so much.

Russ (42:38)
Yeah, I

Barry (42:38)
Yeah.

Russ (42:39)
would also do multiple coolers. If you're bringing especially if you're bringing food, you want to keep your food in a separate cooler than what your drinks are in. 'Cause you think

Beth (42:47)
Mm-hmm.

Russ (42:47)
about your drink cooler, you're constantly opening the lid and

Barry (42:49)
Right.

Russ (42:49)
grabbing drinks. So every time you do that, you know, cold is escaping. Your food you want to be, you know, really sealed up, so so that you don't open it until you're ready to eat. So yeah.

Barry (43:01)
And again, like we've said before with Bonnarooo, plan to bring something to share with your neighbors. Meet your neighbors as soon as you get there. That's that's a big fun part of the cav the the things at the cavern have that same sort of vibe. Everybody's

Russ (43:15)
Mm-hmm.

Barry (43:16)
friends, everybody's

Beth (43:16)
Yep.

Barry (43:17)
there to have a good time and be nice and be cool and radiate positivity, though that's obviously a Bonnarooo slogan, but it's the same kind of vibe. The staff there is awesome. They're happy you're there, they

Beth (43:29)
Mm-hmm.

Barry (43:30)
want you there.

Beth (43:31)
Yep.

Barry (43:32)
the place is amazingly g beautiful. it's gonna be fun, so all right. what else? Well the news. We didn't talk about the news.

Beth (43:41)
Do we

Russ (43:42)
Yeah, you yeah.

Barry (43:44)
What tell us? Go ahead, Beth, before we get to it.

Beth (43:48)
I was just going

to ask if, speaking of our friends, do we know if church boners are going to be there this year? Does anybody have eyes on church boners?

Barry (43:56)
I think so. I thought so. I reached out to the church?

Beth (43:58)
Because we enjoyed hanging out with them. We enjoyed hanging out with them last time.

Russ (43:58)
Does anyone have eyes on church boners? Yeah. yeah.

Beth (44:04)
They definitely know how to camp too, so they've got that all under control.

Russ (44:06)
They do I'm assuming I'm assuming

they're going. I don't think I've heard from Sean or anybody there yet, Rick. Yeah. maybe we have. Okay.

Barry (44:13)
Rick. Yeah, for some reason I thought we'd had had that confirmed, but

Russ (44:19)
I just assume they're gonna be there, yeah.

Beth (44:20)
I hope so. I hope they're Yeah.

Barry (44:21)
Yeah.

All right. So what was the news

Beth (44:23)
Anyway, sorry.

Barry (44:24)
that came out just this week regarding CaveFest?

Russ (44:28)
CaveFest is adding a third stage. There's a third stage that's gonna be set up at the Caverns Tavern, where we hung out some last year. And they've released the schedule. So you've got your daily, you know, who's playing what. They've added, you know, a couple new artists on the people playing at this Caverns Tavern stage, so that's pretty cool. They're selling single day tickets now. So if you don't wanna come and camp the whole weekend, I don't know why you wouldn't, but you know, you could come and just

do a day at the caverns. And then they also have this Camp Caverns kids village with more kids activities. So this is a more of a family friendly type event. So if you do have kids and you bring there's plenty to do there too.

Barry (45:10)
Nice. All right, very cool. I'm excited about it. and again, you've got about a week to win those tickets. follow us, like it, like, leave a comment why you should win these. And if you're already planning on going, please come by and see us. We're pretty easy to to find. Just look for Russ's amazing bus. It seems

Russ (45:36)
Yeah. Thank you.

Beth (45:36)
Huh.

Russ (45:38)
We'll we'll be out in the you know, GA camp just like everyone else. So yeah, look for the big green bus. we'll be hanging out there all weekend.

Barry (45:47)
Speaking of, I should have said it last week, but happy anniversary to my lovely wife. We celebrated 39 years on Friday. I know, right?

Russ (45:55)
Wow. Nice. Okay.

Beth (45:56)
yup.

Barry (45:58)
Lotta people lost money on that bet. I I promise

Russ (46:00)
Congratulations. Yeah.

Beth (46:01)
Hahaha

Barry (46:02)
you.

Russ (46:04)
Ha ha.

Barry (46:05)
Pretty much everybody.

Beth (46:05)
Mm-hmm.

Barry (46:07)
But yeah, congratulations to her.

Russ (46:09)
Yeah. well

Beth (46:10)
Congratulations.

Russ (46:12)
looking ahead, we got Hulaween coming up. that's gonna be what later in October. if you're going and you haven't gotten tickets yet, use our code the What Podcast and save twenty bucks off a four day pass.

Barry (46:27)
Nice.

Russ (46:28)
yep. maybe we'll be there. I don't know. still waiting to hear. So but planning on it.

Barry (46:36)
Yeah. We need to start a campaign. Send Russ. Send Russ to Huluin.

Beth (46:40)
Send Russ to

Russ (46:41)
Please. Yeah.

Beth (46:42)
Hula.

Russ (46:42)
If you if you know anyone, yeah.

Barry (46:44)
All right, guys.

Good show. I think it was it really informative and I'm so glad you got to go to Bumbershoot. I'm so glad that worked

Beth (46:53)
Yeah, thank you.

Barry (46:53)
out. what a cool event. fun to hear about something and it because it sounded so different.

Beth (47:00)
Yeah.

Russ (47:01)
Yeah, yeah.

Barry (47:02)
really cool.

Russ (47:03)
And I want to give a shout out to Monrovia. We didn't mention this, but

Barry (47:08)
yeah.

Russ (47:09)
a local guy, well, semi local, he's from Liberia, but he was adopted and then brought over to the United States and has what grown up here, lived in Chattanooga for you know, forever. he just had a tiny desk concert drop a couple of weeks ago and it's

Barry (47:27)
Yeah.

Russ (47:28)
incredible. He's a an amazing performer.

Singer, songwriter, his band is great. He did play Bonaru, what, at least once on the Who stage two years ago?

Barry (47:36)
Two years ago the three of us went,

Beth (47:38)
Yeah.

Barry (47:38)
right? You, me and

Brian. I know we it was hotter than blazes. It was like two or three in the afternoon, but it was great.

Russ (47:43)
It was super hot, super early,

but somehow we missed that he was on the Who Stage lineup and so it was kind of a yeah, like, wait a minute. Whoa whoa whoa,

Barry (47:52)
Yeah.

Russ (47:52)
we gotta go. So yeah, we w saw him live, but he's been doing great. He's been doing shows here. and yeah, I just when it popped up that he was on Tiny Desk, I like, Whoa, this is cool. So

Barry (48:03)
Well and Isaiah Rashad, another Chattanoogan, was on did a tiny desk a couple weeks prior. So Chattanooga, Chattanooga, well

Russ (48:09)
That's right. Mm-hmm.

Barry (48:10)
represented. and shout out to Tyler Martelli, good guitar player with Monrovia. Carl Cadwell, also from here, was on the stage at Bonnarooo. I don't think he was on that tiny desk set, but I know Tyler was. So pretty cool to see some local guys doing doing well.

And if you haven't watched

Russ (48:31)
Yeah.

Barry (48:31)
it, like you said, Russ, it's a really good set. He's he's really

Russ (48:34)
It is, yeah.

Barry (48:36)
good. So cool. All right,

Beth (48:38)
yeah.

Barry (48:38)
guys. Thank you. We'll be back next week. Beth, thank you. tell your mom and dad. Goober

Beth (48:42)
Yeah, thank you.

Barry (48:44)
says hey. all right. See you guys. Bye.

Russ (48:45)
See ya.

Beth (48:46)
I will.