Great Googa Mooga Festival Makes Food the Top Billing

Credit: Superfly Presents.

Ladies and gentlemen, we've reached the point in popular culture where food is more of a draw than famous rock stars.

The New York Times pointed out today that the musical acts of this weekend's Great Googa Mooga festival in Brooklyn, NY, are but a footnote to the delicious mounds of food and drink that will be doled out to attendees. Oysters. Burgers. Beer. Meat on top of meat. (Instead of a Skee-Ball tent, this festival has Hamageddon pavilion, where pork fiends can "worship at the aromatic altar of bacon.")

Organizer Jonathan Mayers, who launched the Bonaroo and Outside Lands music festivals with his company Superfly Presents, said it's time for food to get top billing.

"While food and drink is in the spotlight, the music compliments it," he told ABCNews.com.  "We definitely have a lighthearted, whimsical point of view with how we're going to present this."

That's reflected Googa Mooga's choice of musical acts. In one corner, you have The Roots, whose drummer Questlove is launching a line of fried chicken and catered eats called Questlove's Food. In another, Hall & Oates, one half of which (Daryl Hall) won a Webby award for his out of the box online video series that puts him in the company of diverse musicians.

"We look at these like kind of great big art projects," Mayers said. "You're seeing the passion and crossing of different interests."

That spirit is in the name. Mayers came up with the Great Googa Mooga after flipping through his collection of records with his partner.

"We found 'The Great Googa Mooga,' which came from an old New Orleans singer named Lee Dorsey," he said. "It meant holy cow. Kind of like great balls of fire. And that's what we're about, fun."