Kiki and Herb | |
|---|---|
| Origin | New York City, New York, United States |
| Years active | 1989 (1989)–present |
| Labels | Mr. Lady, Evolver |
| Past members | |
Kiki and Herb (Justin Bond andKenny Mellman) are anAmericandragcabaret duo. Bond portrays Kiki DuRane, an aging,alcoholic, femalelounge singer. Mellman portrays hergay, male pianoaccompanist, known only as Herb.
Despite Bond and Mellman being middle aged, their Kiki and Herb characters are, according to their elaborate fictional biographies, more than eighty years old. Both performers live inNew York City, but the pair have performed fromSan Francisco toWashington, D.C., as well as Europe.
The act alternates between musical numbers and long, seemingly inebriatedmonologues by Kiki. The musical numbers, oftenmedleys, draw on an enormous range ofpopular music, fromBroadway musicals toNirvana and fromBritney Spears toREO Speedwagon. Kiki and Herb have also covered songs bySuicidal Tendencies,The Mountain Goats, andButt Trumpet.
Bond and Mellman began performing together in 1989, and created the characters of Kiki and Herb in the early 1990s in San Francisco.[1]
Between 1995 and 1996 Kiki and Herb appeared regularly at "Cowgirl Hall of Fame" in Greenwich Village, where they honed their show and built their fanbase. Among the devotees wasJohn Cameron Mitchell, who later included Bond in his 2006 movieShortbus.[2]
In 1998, the duo appeared at the firstGay Shame event, held atDUMBA in Brooklyn, and are seen briefly in the documentary shortGay Shame '98 byScott Berry.
In 1999, they performed weekly inHave Another at theFez and received their firstNew York Times review.[3] Their first album, theChristmas recordDo You Hear What We Hear?, was released in 2000. In 2001, they received anObie Award for the showKiki and Herb: Jesus Wept.[4]
The duo appeared in a cameo role in the 2004 feature filmImaginary Heroes, released that year bySony Pictures and starring, among others,Emile Hirsch,Jeff Daniels, andSigourney Weaver. Kiki and Herb appear at a Christmas party attended by the main characters and perform an excerpt from "Tonight's the Kind of Night", the final track from their Christmas album. The same year, Kiki and Herb gave a "farewell" performance at New York City'sCarnegie Hall.[5]The one-night-only showKiki and Herb Will Die for You featured several celebrities, includingSandra Bernhard,Isaac Mizrahi,Jake Shears,Michael Cavadias, andRufus Wainwright; the recording of the show was released as the two-disc albumKiki and Herb Will Die for You: Live at Carnegie Hall. After the performance the duo worked on other projects; Bond moved toLondon to studyscenography, while Mellman worked in New York.
Their hiatus was short lived. In 2005, the duo reunited forThe Resurrection Tour of select U.S. cities. A European tour followed, which included a sell-out run at theEdinburgh Fringe Festival. Also in 2005, two films about the duo screened at festivals:Kiki and Herb Reloaded andKiki and Herb on the Rocks.
In the early summer of 2006, Bond and Mellman announced that Kiki and Herb would make theirBroadway debut that August. After a handful of preview performances at the Wilma Theatre inPhiladelphia,Kiki & Herb: Alive on Broadway debuted for a four-week run at theHelen Hayes Theatre on August 11. Reviews were mostly favorable, including a glowing assessment byBen Brantley of theNew York Times. For Brantley, Kiki "suggests some wondrous hybrid ofMarianne Faithfull,Elaine Stritch,Patti Smith andKitty Carlisle Hart," her vocals "radioactive with an angry sorrow, ecstasy, and cosmic fatigue" in which "the point is never the prettiness of the voice but the history behind it and the passion to endure that vibrates within."[6]
The duo began a run of Sunday-night shows atJoe's Pub in New York City in January 2007, and toured the United States withThe Year of Magical Drinking in the Spring and Summer of that year.
On May 15, 2007,Kiki and Herb: Alive on Broadway was nominated for aTony Award for "Best Special Theatrical Event"; theNew York Observer predicted the duo would win,[7] but they did not.[8]
Following a world tour, the duo returned to Carnegie Hall on December 12, 2007 with the holiday show "Kiki and Herb: The Second Coming."
Their concert DVDKiki and Herb: Live at theKnitting Factory was recorded in 2007 and released January 2008; in addition to the performance, the DVD release included bonus clips from performances by Bond and Mellman in 1993, 1999, and 2005.
Their March 2008 performance at Perez Hilton's 30th birthday party would be their final show for many years.[9]
In September 2015, Justin Vivian Bond and Kenny Mellman announced the return of Kiki and Herb with a new show,Seeking Asylum! atJoe's Pub from April 21 to May 6, 2016.[10][11]
For years, Bond and Mellman maintained a meticulous backstory for their characters, one made official on the Kiki and HerbMySpace page and their official website. This involved the characters meeting as children in a mental institution before becoming a jazz act in the fifties, beginning a long and chequered career mixing periods of success and misfortune. The shows were supposedly part of their comeback trail, and they would perform songs supposedly from throughout their career (which were actually anachronistic covers). Between songs Kiki would tell anecdotes from her life, including her friendships with Billie Holiday and Grace Kelly, and the details of her various relationships, whilst drinking heavily and often having on-stage rages and breakdowns.
However, in "Alive on Broadway," they introduced the notion that the fictional backstory may bemeta-fictional—Kiki spoke of the duo actually being thousands of years old, implying that some of her previous stories were, at least in part, lies told by the character. After the Broadway show, Bond and Mellman consistently included this twist in their shows' monologues—Kiki will talk about knowingJesus "in the Biblical sense," hanging around withMarie Antoinette, and even romancing a youngAdolf Hitler.
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