Performance artist/singer-songwriter Justin Bond has attracted a cult following with his manic, bitter, booze hound drag character, Kiki, who warbled bizarre song medleys in an edgy, close to-a-breakdown style. Bond retired that character in 2008 and his last Rrazz Room performance focused on gender-fluid pagan ritual music — with powerful results.

With this show, he seems have returned to the Kiki character minus the alcohol filter. Framing the squeaky clean, upbeat good time music of women of the ’70s with absolutely random wacky stories, Bond segues from song to song with a seemingly spontaneous stream-of-consciousness lunacy. But it’s all thoughtfully calculated and hilariously conceived. All of the songs ring a memory bell for his audience and Bond plays with that familiarity and tweaks it with his straight-faced camp sensibility and wild comic flair.

“Ticket to Ride” (the Carpenters’ version) is slowed down to exaggerate the sadness of the lyric, but it’s all done in silly faux emotion. “You’re So Vain” is performed after an intro about falling in love with narcissists who add to his character’s low self-esteem issues. The between-song banter is as ludicrous as his delivery of “Delta Dawn,” “Angie Baby” and “Different Drum.” Some of the songs are songs as straight covers and this is where the show loses the edge it’s developed. Bond is a unique showman/woman and you buy into the ridiculous world he inhabits. You never know what’s coming next, but you gleefully go along for the ride.

Steve Murray
Cabaret Scenes
March 14, 2010
www.cabaretscenes.org