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Cabaret Articles
Queens of Cabaret
Evening Standard (London), Feb 3, 2005 by John Lyttle
Justin Bond and Kenny Mellman turn up for our interview at the
Soho Theatre and immediately apologise for being tired. Small
wonder. In the past 12 months the American duo have supported
the Scissor Sisters on tour, shot a documentary film, completed
a run of sold-out concerts at New York's Carnegie Hall, recorded
a CD and are now about to appear at the Bloomsbury Theatre in
a show titled Kiki Herb: Losers In Love, just in time for Valentine's
Day. For Bond and Mellman are indeed the notorious Kiki Herb
and that would suck a lot of energy from anyone.
Why notorious? You'd really have to have caught them in any
of their three previous appearances in London to understand.
Kiki Herb are what live comedy acts should ideally always be
about control and loss of control, the balance between artistic
order and evoked chaos. You'd simply have to see the 40-year-old
Bond in red sequins and Pomeranian wig as the selfish, alcoholic,
sixty-something chanteuse Kiki DuRane, baiting the crowd at
the Vauxhall Tavern or aboard the HMS President and listen to
her bark her way through a bizarre back catalogue of everything
from Kylie's 'Can't Get Out You Out of Head' to (God help us)
Gil Scott-Heron's 'The Revolution Will Not Be Televised' via
Nirvana's 'Smells Like Teen Spirit' or the Wu- Tang Clan's 'Ghostface'
to understand why we're not talking about just another drag
act.
Imagine, for instance, if Dame Edna suddenly announced that
bridesmaid Madge had been gang raped as a young girl. That's
what Kiki confidentially tells us about her equally drunk and
decrepit 'gay, Jew retard' pianist Herb as he bangs all sorts
of strange noises out of the keyboard. The delusional diva also
tells us how they met 'In a government-run facility for the
mentally challenged in Western Pennsylvania' and after her third
bottle of Canadian Club shares (well, slurs) the story of how
her seven-yearold daughter, Coco, fell off a yacht in Monte
Carlo and drowned: 'I ask you, ladies and gentlemen, where the
hell can a kid go on the deck of a boat?' All merriment stops
dead.
Then begins again as Kiki staggers centre stage and invites
someone in the audience to kill President Bush.
Imagine Lily Savage encouraging the overthrow of Tony Blair.
As Bond jokes, 'If we have you heading for the exit, that's
good. That means we've done our job.' It speaks volumes about
the zeitgeist that disgust brings big fans.
Kiki Herb are very famous among the famous. The likes of Lou
Reed, Kevin Costner, Radiohead and Debbie Harry hotfooted it
down to those Big Apple boltholes where piano bar meets the
avant garde, and gifted the boys with the sort of underground
reputation money can't buy.
Surprisingly, they say, the only star not to get the in-joke
was Madonna.
She hired Bond and Mellman for her 39th birthday party and then
proceeded to act more like Kiki than Kiki. 'She heckled me'
Bond says dismissively. 'She's Madonna she had to be the centre
of attention.
And the soul singer D'Angelo kicked me on the leg when I put
a drink down on his table. He ripped my stockings and made my
shin bleed. I went for him and had words with her. Not that
I was ever a fan. I had one CD of hers and I went straight home
and had the pleasure of throwing it out of the window.' A shame.
The upside is that Bond says British audiences get Kiki Herb's
confrontational cabaret in a way Madonna clearly doesn't. 'Well,
you have a mainstream tradition of drag. I was discussing it
with Paul O'Grady and Julian Clary recently.
I guess Paul and Julian are always going to be seen as non-
threatening because the British are used to panto and music
hall. There's an intellectual and social context here that we
don't have in the States. There it's more one dimensional. They
always have to get over the fact that it's a man in a dress.
But if they come in with lower expectations to Kiki Herb, trust
me, they leave with a broader understanding.' That broader understanding
also applies to the artists who show up to check out what Kiki
Herb have done to their material a borrowing considered both
an honour and a test of nerve in certain hip circles. Mellman
says no performer has ever complained to his face claiming Marc
Almond's joy in their jittery version of his 'A Lover Spurned'
as the standard. Kiki Herb don't do dick jokes and they don't
do pop anthem parody either.
Poignancy is what they're after when Kiki tries to revive her
faltering fortunes by doing music for young people. 'We respect
the songs. I think of them as collage. It takes thought to get
the Wu- Tang Clan, Pulp and Britney Spears to talk to one another.
Kiki sings them because they mean something to her.' 'Listen,'
Bond interrupts, 'tell him what Stephen Sondheim said about
our Carnegie Hall concerts. Go on.' Mellman squirms but eventually
obliges: 'Sondheim said it was the best formed musical he'd
seen in 10 years.' Bond picks up the story. 'During the show
I was so worried because there was this guy sitting near Sondheim
laughing hysterically and throwing his arms about and generally
being an asshole and I thought, 'Oh God, he's showing off because
he's sitting near Stephen Sondheim.' Turns out I shouldn't have
been embarrassed because it was Stephen Sondheim.' Bond claps
his hands: 'Isn't that great! That's the effect Kiki and Herb
have on people. Tell your friends.' Kiki Herb: Losers In Love,
Sun 13-Wed 16 Feb, UCL Bloomsbury Theatre, 15 Gordon Street,
WC1 (020-7388 8822).
(c)2005. Associated Newspapers Ltd.. Provided by ProQuest Information
and Learning Company. All rights Reserved. |
