The Witzard

The Internet really is a never-ending Twilight Zone -esque worm hole of a place sometimes; case in point, just last night, after returning home from rollicking Sweat N Soul -filled a Har Mar Superstar concert in the depths of Philly around 1-1:30am, I wasted nearly an hour aimlessly Googling covers from Sean Tillmann 's one-time touring mate and fellow Tillman(n) , Father John Misty ... starting with two unabashedly ironic Taylor Swift in the vein of Ryan Adam 's 1989 covers and ultimately, ending up at a sparse SiriusXM cover of Nirvana 's "Heart-Shaped Box." Somewhere down the seemingly endless sonic worm hole I created, I stumbled upon @fatherjohnmisty 's sprawling, wonderfully executed renditions of widely-known Leonard Cohen , The Arcade Fire, John Lennon , Rihanna, and most recently, Nine Inch Nails classics. Former Fleet Foxes drummer and ironic "rockstar" Josh Tillman unexpectedly covered NIN 's breakout anti-pop hit, "Cl...

While I wouldn't exactly go as far as to automatically mislabel Har Mar Superstar 's most recent album, Bye Bye 17 as "Blue-Eyed Soul" or anything resembling lazy new age Neo-Soul genre tags, frontman Sean Tillmann probably owes more to guys like Justin Timberlake , Mayer Hawthorne, and Robin Thicke than he would probably ever willingly like to admit. Tillmann's latest music video/single was directed by frequent Strokes collaborator Warren Fu , who's previously worked with long-time frontman Cult Records founder Julian Casablancas ; at it's core, "Restless Leg" is a charming, yet vaguely disturbing video centered around an interesting man-on-puppet pseudo-love triangle, which was co-directed by contained Viva La Puppet puppeteer Michelle Zamora . No matter how you may feel about a little tasteful man-on-puppet action, Bye Bye 17 is a very easily accessible album, chock-full of white boy Soul-Funk/R&B; something to the effect of mid...

While well-groomed "heart-throb" types like Justin Timberlake and Robin Thicke are busy concocting smooth baby-making Future R&B , lone scantily-clad showman Sean "Har Mar Superstar" Tillman 's bringing the Ron Jeremy to old school-sounding Soul-Funk/R&B . Har Mar Superstar 's been doing his thing for the past 10-15 years now and has toured or worked with a wide variety of underground/mainstream talent: Ben Lee , Fabrizio Moretti (The Strokes), Father John Misty , Britney Spears , Neon Neon , Beth Ditto, Jennifer Lopez , and Drew Barrymore. "Lady, You Shot Me" were supposedly crooner Sam Cooke 's last words, which now effectively doubles as Bye Bye 17 's lead single, of sorts. Julian Casablancas' newly-formed Cult Records quietly unleashed the 10-track album a little while back on April 23rd. Bye Bye 17 feels like Har Mar Superstar's first honest attempt @ some tried-and-true LEGIT R&B music and while I...