Har Mar Superstar combines singing and stripping in sexy solo show

Erin Randolph

It’s not your typical R&B show. It’s a slow stripping session that ends when he’s parading around in a pair of briefs. It’s a 5-foot tall, stocky little man who swaggers about on stage slyly crooning sexy lyrics like, “Hypercolor tells me where my baby is hot. ‘Cause I can see her sweatpants getting dark in the crotch.”

Harold Martin Tillman, or Har Mar Superstar, will bring his one-man dance party to the Maintenance Shop on Monday.

Har Mar ended a tour with The Strokes on Sunday, and will join Incubus on tour starting Tuesday.

So how did this Minnesota native get noticed by Incubus?

“People I know played them the album and they got into it,” Har Mar says. “They eventually asked me to go on tour with them.”

Har Mar has caught the attention of other stars. Kelly Osbourne invited him to be her date to the MTV Video Music Awards in August. Har Mar met Osbourne through friends, and she asked him to be her date.

“The show was pretty boring, but I just went to the green room where the bar was free. I didn’t really watch it.”

Har Mar, with his sexual, sensual live performances, was banned from playing at the Minnesota State Fair this past summer. Apparently, the heat Har Mar generated with his smooth gyrations and soulful lyrics was too much for a family crowd, the organizers thought.

“I was dancing around in my underwear and they thought it was offensive,” Har Mar says with a laugh.

“After the first one they asked me to wear my pants for the second one and I said no. They paid me not to play.

“I didn’t think it was offensive. My family was there,” he says.

Har Mar doesn’t play to a typical R&B crowd. Touring with a wide range of bands, most of them independent, has garnered him a diverse crowd following. However, Har Mar’s tongue-in-cheek take on music fostered by artists like R. Kelly and Prince isn’t always well-received.

“If the crowd turns on you, it’s even more fun. I’ll call an entire city a bunch of retards and make fun of their culture,” Har Mar says. “Or like when you see a bunch of pimpled high school kids, where I’m like, ‘You know what? You’re ugly and you’re stupid and nobody’s ever going to like you.’ I tell them that and they get mad.”

Well-received or not, Har Mar’s shows are a spectacle to be seen. Never quite sure what’s going to happen next, show-goers should be prepared for anything.

Har Mar only has one piece of advice: “Be ready to party and have a good time.”