NO JOKE

Tim Heidecker talks ‘Live in Boulder,’ the joy of bad stand-up, and what makes his Very Good Band so very good

BY JEZY J. GRAY

If you’re a millennial of a certain age and persuasion, the unhinged anti-comedy of Tim Heidecker has likely shaped your cerebral cortex into knots that will never untwist. Alongside collaborator Eric Wareheim, the duo’s Adult Swim breakout Tim and Eric Awesome Show, Great Job! was the backdrop to many stoned dorm-room late nights for a generation of weirdos during its original run in the late2000s. Beaming to earth a surrealist swirl of sweaty celebrity cameos and characters through the gauze of a ’90s public-access infomercial fever dream, the groundbreaking sketch show was once described fondly by its creators as “the nightmare version of television.”

It also helped create what once seemed an unlikely celebrity out of Heidecker. In the years since Tim and Eric broke the brains of America’s undergrads, the 47-year-old performer has appeared as an actor on the big screen in contemporary classics of comedy (Bridesmaids), arthouse horror (Us) and big-budget superhero fare (Ant-Man and the Wasp), with recurring turns on beloved streamers like Netflix’s I Think You Should

Leave with Tim Robinson and the 18th century send-up Our Flag Means Death

But Heidecker’s creative drive doesn’t end in front of the camera, or behind the podcast mic of his longrunning call-in show Office Hours and cult-favorite On Cinema. The Pennsylvania native is also an accomplished recording artist, with half a dozen studio albums to his name. His latest, High School, is a straight-faced and tender-hearted collage of adolescent memories, from camping-trip heartbreak (“Chillin’ in Alaska”) to troubled friends who never made it to the other side (“Buddy”). Heidecker’s new record finds him settling in as an emotionally affecting songwriter with razor-sharp powers of observation and melody — a far cry from the bleeding-edge experimental comedy of his early sketch days, but not so far removed as to dampen the singular sense of humor that brightens the corners of his airtight poprock arrangements.

Now comes Live in Boulder , Heidecker’s first live album, recorded during an August 2022 performance at the city’s iconic Boulder

Theater — a retrospective full-length of original songs, backed by a fourpiece ensemble billed as The Very Good Band. While last year’s performance opened with a stand-up set in character as the boarish hack comedian from his debut 2020 special An Evening with Tim Heidecker , the recording sticks to the music with 12 high-energy renditions of barn-burning earworms and breezy piano ballads that might not feel out of place in the discographies of rock’s great smirkers like Warren Zevon and Randy Newman. And that’s no joke.

Boulder Weekly spoke with Heidecker ahead of the album’s vinyl release on June 24 via Spacebomb Records. The following has been edited for brevity and clarity.

I had a blast at your Boulder show last year, and I’m guessing you did too. Why did you decide to release it as your first live record?

It’s kind of a process of elimination, where you record a bunch of shows. In some of them, the mix wasn’t great. Some of them, the performanc- es weren’t as great. And so it kind of came down to a few, and I really wanted the record to feel like it was one night — not just kind of a compilation of shows. And the Boulder show was, I think, maybe the secondto-last of the tour. So by that time, I don’t know if you felt it, but everything was clicking and it sounded good. It just checked all the boxes, and it was just a particularly good night.

I understand you arrived in Boulder after a long night on the road. What was the experience like when you rolled into town?

We had been on the road for almost a month: living in the bus and having a great time, but feeling a little ready to go home. The drive the night before was from Kansas City, so it was a big haul, an overnight drive. … I got up and got off the bus [in Boulder] and it was this crisp, beautiful sunny day. And my first thought was, “Oh man, I think the bus crashed somewhere in the Rockies and we’re dead. I’m in heaven.” It was a real second of that feeling: like, “Oh my god, this place is beautiful.”