Tim Heidecker & the Very Good Band with Neil Hamburger

At the start of the decade, when Tim Heidecker was still relatively new in his music career, he worked to keep his lane as a clarion and classic singer-songwriter separate from his comedy legacy. For a dozen years, after all, he had been one of the United States’ ascendant comedians, his predict-the-unpredictable chicanery alongside Eric Wareheim building a sort of misfit entertainment empire. He made funny films and serious ones, started several very successful podcasts, and spoofed both Bob Dylan and the presidential primary process. But his 2016 album, In Glendale, suggested not just that Heidecker had been in several bands and was very good at making silly music but that he was also a real craftsman, capable of capturing the ennui of encroaching middle age, no matter your acclaim. Most of his albums since, including 2020’s Fear of Death, have been warm, raw studies of life’s bittersweet underbelly.

A decade has passed since In Glendale, though, and Heidecker is increasingly comfortable letting the assorted strata of his career mix. His music has always remained funny, even if that’s not the primary aim; “Bottom of the 8^th,” a great tune about taking one’s kid to a baseball game, hinges on the mascot of the losers sweating beneath 20 pounds of fur. On tour with his actually very good Very Good Band, Heidecker sprinkles bits of stand-up in his songs, while Neil Hamburger—an early and wonderfully aggressive mainstay of the indie-rock/comedy intersection—reverses the approach. It’s a night of songs, smirks, and the places where the two so often meet.