Har Mar Superstar is a man you should hate with a passion. To put it bluntly, he’s diminutive and pot-bellied with a balding mullet and probably has serious body odour (you really wouldn’t want to get too close). In fact, he’s a particularly nauseating specimen of a man and certainly doesn’t look as young as 26 (his supposed age).
Nevertheless, inexplicably, all the ‘ladeeeez’ love this self confessed ‘sex-god’ from Minnesota. Maybe it’s his ability to portray egocentric rock-star sexism with his belly hanging over a pair of pink leopard skin y-fronts; or it’s that his pelvic hip-thrusting is reminiscent of Elvis in black leather; or maybe its because he has the balls (disconcertingly on display) to be up there. Whatever that magic quality that Har Mar has on stage is, it’s put him well on his way to becoming a serious crowd drawer.
This is in part thanks to a shrewd endorsement of Vladivar Vodka with its “Some People Have Just Got It” strapline, and his genius cameo as ‘dancin’ Rick’ in the remake of Starsky & Hutch in 2003. In fact, Har Mar is drawing the masses to his gigs despite having no serious commercial success with his music.
Despite the Liquid Rooms being stuffed to the gills and what you might have read about the show in other festival papers, the show certainly didn’t deserve five stars. In fact, I’m not sure it deserved the 3 out of 5 I’m actually going to give it. “Why?”, you ask. Because it was formulaic. The crowd were there to see Har Mar in his pants and for him to sing H.A.R.M.A.R (the tune from the Vladivar advert, actually very good) and Har Mar knew it. So that’s what he did. So three stars.
It wasn’t all his fault though, as the crowd weren’t there to hear the 80s electro/funk set he performed (showcasing songs from his two albums - Kill Rock Stars and You Can Feel Me), they were there to see a little fat man in his pants.
This looks set to change however, with his forthcoming single DUI (Dialling Under The Influence) released on the 23rd August 2004 and, god-forbid! an appearance for the teenyboppers on CD:UK. The single, an ode to drunken dialling, is backed by ‘little miss no label’ Holly Valance who, along with Kate Moss (who snogged him!) is jumping on the Har Mar band wagon to get herself a new record deal (allegedly). I told you all the ladeeeez love him!
The real question is whether Har Mar Superstar believes in his own joke, or after two years of dancing in his pants he’s getting a little jaded with the image described by many a reputable journalists as Ron Jeremy/Beck/Jack Black/fat prince/white Stevie Wonder (to name but a few). Unfortunately, unless Holly Valance can propel him to number one with DUI, the prognosis for people actually buying a Har Mar album doesn’t look good.
3/5
Kate Hopper
