Kiki & Herb

I've been hearing about them from some New Yorkers on a mailing list for years, didn't really understand what they were about until they started getting more press recently. apparently they've covered some Geraldine Fibbers songs, which is pretty cool.

Tricia Romano did a nice feature on them for SW as well: http://www.seattleweekly.com/features/0425/040623_music_kikiandherb.php

It wasn't till I saw a full show at Fez in New York in '99 that I 'got' them. Kiki launched into a traumatic story - apparently true - about an American couple who didn't feel their child was quite 'right', so their evangelical pastor suggested the child should literally be reborn. The wrapped the child inside a roll of carpet - 'Mummy, I can't breathe" - and pushed it through the long, airless tube, in the belief it would emerge a better person. The child died. Suffocated. "Ah well," said the pastor, "God obviously didn't want your child to live that way."

Kiki followed that up with This Woman's Work, or something, and I was wracked with sobs.

I've since seen them maybe five or six times, though I've never quite captured that same feeling. The best thing about them, for me, is Kiki's stories. Each new show brings a new instalment to her life story. We hear a little bit more about her kids, and get tantalising clues about just how her daughter Missy died.

But their recent shows seem to concentrate more on the songs - and the same bloody songs over and over. Fox in the snow, foxinthesnowfoxinthesnow....

I bought their first album, but - well - without the visuals, without the back-story, you're left with a drunken harridan butchering songs, accompanied by cocktail piano.

Whatever did happen to Missy, anyhow? That's what I want to know.

dude, that was totally the plot of an episode of CSI. except it was a psychiatrist, not a pastor, and she was suspected of having an affair with/molesting the kid before they figured out the circumstances of the death. or maybe that's just a common story/urban legend.

What little I've heard of Kiki and Herb was...okay. Maybe I had to be there.

There was a show a while ago at which Coco appeared in a flashback, played by Kathleen Hanna. And I was present at a show where Monica Lewinsky was in the audience. Once Kiki spotted her, well, things got awfully entertaining.

Ditto. I was at the Carnegie Hall show, and since the album is only missing the sight of Kiki's flailing flapper jig -- and her lying passed out on the stage during Herb's British Sea Power cover -- it should be a fine reproduction of the experience.

---Yes. It is a little faggy. Their version of "I'm Not Waiting" beats S-K's, easy. Kinda makes the orig more fun to listen to.

They fake it so real they are beyond fake, a performance of utter heartbreak and, if not redemption through, at least the simple comfort of, enduring love so utterly convincing that whether or not it's ironic is completely beside the point. That only makes it more genuinely moving.

Love the live set, but can't imagine what it would be like to only hear it without having the experience of their show to map it to.

Note: If you've been on the ILX po-pomo thread, they may offer a sufficient answer.

here's exit music (for a film): http://s26.yousendit.com/d.aspx?id=1HBNSXBC9ZLUN11PSZGI8O35KT

OMG OMG OMG New Year's Eve show in SF 12/31!!11!!1!

(I'm sorely tempted by the SF show, even if I'll be the only straight guy in the room.)

I still treasure the story about how Kiki tried to be Noel Gallagher's groupie.. fucking best story told at a concert ever.

I played the live album's "Institutionalized" for a friend of mine who'd never heard them before, and didn't tip her off... and of course the setup is such that it just sounds like Kiki babbling about her familial relations at first, and then something about the general outline of what she's saying seems vaguely familiar, and before you know it, wham: "PUT ME IN AN INSTITUTION!" "INSTITUTIONALIZED!" My friend didn't stop laughing for about three minutes.

In contrast to gyps, I have the album but haven't even played the whole thing (maybe cuz I was at the show).

Among the new (to me) adds to the repertoire:

The Indelicates - "Waiting for Pete Doherty to Die"

Now I just have to figure out if it translates to record well...

But I bet someday people are going to trade recordings of K&H live the way they do with Bill Hicks or Andy Kaufman recordings now.

gr8 seeing you forks! Did you have anything to do with our ticket snafu getting cleared up? I wasn't sure.

I didn't recall how elaborate K&H's version of "I Was a Maoist Intellectual" is ... the Chelsea boys were baffled.

Also, it's important to know that ass cancer trumps leukemia.

Hey dude, glad you made it out!
Yeah, a thoroughly awesome evening... but LONG!

but at least Ju8t1n was relatively s0b3r!

I think I saw them go 3 hours at least once at Fez.

Defeated for a Tony by a DUMMY!

That's too respectable for them anyway.

that shit was not right. I thought they were joking for a hot minute!

That was that bullshit.

Shoulda pull'd a wu-tang. kiki and herb is for the babies!

Get ready London:

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v284/mjh8888/Kiki%20and%20Herb/SBE2front.jpg

thought this was a thread about peaches & herb for a second

Carnegie Hall again in December as well.

live DVD available Jan. 2:

http://www.playbill.com/news/article/113510.html

Funny thing was I saw Kiki introduce Borts Minorts at a show in SF this past Saturday. Kiki was great, Borts Minorts was not.

Variety review of Wed night @Carnegie Hall (I skipped):

http://www.variety.com/review/VE1117935649.html

"If there's a sniper in the audience, I ask only that you kill me now," pleaded Kiki. "Don't make me go through this whole show just to shoot me later."

wtf, identifying "If You Were Born Today" as a Jimmy Eat World song?

Boy, I would've loved to have seen that.

wtf, identifying "If You Were Born Today" as a Jimmy Eat World song?

Alan Sparhawk somewhere goes NOOOOOO

I saw them at the Opera House in Sydney for so cheap (esp. considering the insane price of tickets for them in SF the last time around), but strangely the show was almost EXACTLY the same as the one I saw New Year's Eve two years ago.

What little I've heard, I've liked. So where do I start if I want to hear more?

profile in nymag - http://nymag.com/print/?/arts/popmusic/features/justin-bond-2011-5/

just downloaded dendrophile, hadn't heard anything about it. it seems good. different thing than k&h, but good songs and s/he sounds great.

Kiki'll be having some fun this weekend:

http://gawker.com/5875978/introducing-your-guest-golden-globes-tweeter-justin-vivian-bond

Justin is such a fucking rock star.
I see Kenny perform at least once a month.

going to see justin bond @ REDCAT tonight, first time ever! i'm excited

Justin Vivian Bond begins a yearlong 'retro' at Joe's Pub!

http://www.villagevoice.com/music/mx-justin-vivian-bond-returns-to-joes-pub-with-tranniversary-triumph-7585114

forks, when yer feelin better maybe we could go see the Julie London thing.

spring reunion in NYC

http://m.playbill.com/mobile/news/article/kiki-and-herb-announce-spring-reunion-at-the-public-363221

joe's pub is having a nightly lottery for the shows if yer desperate

gonna catch one of these, pretty hyped

kenny lookin all moses

http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2016/04/25/kiki-and-herb-reunite

Kiki sez

"The neoliberals vs. the neofascists—I'm just happy that I've lived to see this spectacular bipolar moment."

a 2016 show free online for a few weeks

https://publictheater.org/productions/season/fall-2020/kiki--herb-seeking-asylum/

Ah jeez, shoulda revived this thread earlier for their new tour! I think most of the shows have already most sold out on presale. (Got my SF tix just now, yay.)

It's back!

https://kikiandherbwilldieforyou.bandcamp.com/album/do-you-hear-what-we-hear

And they're back!

https://linktr.ee/kikiherb

(The tour last year was a damn treat.)

Kiki is now a MacArthur Genius:
https://www.macfound.org/fellows/class-of-2024/justin-vivian-bond