The video above is where you know David Liebe Hart from. If it isn’t, you’re either a frequent visitor to his puppet shows outside of the La Brea Tar Pits or a huge fan of The Junior Christian Science Bible Lesson Show.
Liebe Hart is a living Tim and Eric meme, but he’s a performer, first and foremost. He’s on tour, backed by musician Adam Papagan and a full punk rock band, playing his original music (but not the ‘Awesome Show, Great Job!’ stuff … Tim and Eric are “owned by Time Warner” so it’s illegal for them to do those songs, he helpfully informs us). The best thing about Liebe Hart and his band is that he’s not playing a character — that guy you see talking to a weird fox puppet about alien pleasantries is a shoot. He sold me a mix CD featuring a Whitney Houston tribute with tracks including “Michael Likes To Smoke His Weed” and “All My Friends Like Cats.” From his “more details” page:
After a stint in Vietnam, Liebe Hart moved to Los Angeles in the 70’s, where he claims to have been roommates with Robin Williams, passed over for jobs by Garry Marshall, and abducted by aliens (all frequent song topics of his)
Austin is full of performers, bloggers, networking hopefuls and stans right now. David Liebe Hart may be the realest man in town.
The best part of David Liebe Hart Band’s performance (besides the act coming across as the most sincere possible Wesley Willis) was knowing who else was sharing the stage that night — bands like the heavy as balls Rusted Shut and ‘S U R V I V E’ (with spaces between the letters like that) whose entire SXSW bio reads, “4 people, 12365763 synthesizers.” And here’s this earnest guy singing desperately about his troubles with AT&T’s customer service while a punk band rattles off in the background.
If ‘Tim and Eric’ are the nightmare version of TV, maybe the night at The Jr served as the nightmare version of SXSW — and just like Eric Wareheim making a weird noise and looping it infinitely for no reason, I can’t seem to stop watching.
Now I’ve got to wander around Austin until I run into the “I wanna meet that dad” guy.
