At this blasted moment in history, with its military porn and civilian beheadings and popular entertainments that make the escapist extravaganzas of previous war-torn eras seem like Proust (Busby Berkeley wouldn't have allowed Paris and Nicole to mop up his vomit), there are few opportunities for citizens to feel grateful--lucky, even--to be living in this godforsaken century. As always, art helps, and those artists who seize the convoluted present most entrancingly--the Missy Elliotts and Stephin Merritts and Quentin Tarantinos--grant their audiences the exquisite pleasure of work that knows its place in history and feels like it couldn't have existed any moment before now.

Like those name-dropped above, Justin Bond and Kenny Mellman--best known as their lounge-act alter egos Kiki & Herb--have an uncanny grasp of their mission. "We wanted to do cabaret," says pianist/arranger Kenny Mellman. "But there was this unwritten rule that cabaret meant Cole Porter, Gershwin, anything but contemporary." In defiance, Mellman and Bond filled Kiki & Herb's repertoire with whatever the hell they felt like. The duo's premiere number was Jim Steinman's "Total Eclipse of the Heart"; since then, the Kiki & Herb songbook has expanded to include compositions by Radiohead, Wu-Tang Clan, Patti Smith, Daniel Johnston, Chumbawamba, Spiritualized, Suicidal Tendencies, REO Speedwagon, and countless others, all delivered in the psychodramatic coo/shriek of Justin Bond's burned-out-and-boozed-up Kiki, accompanied, extravagantly, by Kenny Mellman's Herb on piano and backing vocals.

On purely musical terms, Kiki & Herb shows can be astonishing, thanks both to the promiscuous repertoire and the duo's formidable musicality, without which their shtick might stall at the level of camp. But what propels Kiki & Herb into the stratosphere--and leaves their growing legion of fans in tear-streaked hysterics--is the duo's dark-as-death backstory, which the increasingly gin-soaked Kiki laces between numbers. "Ladies and gentlemen: People die. That's all you need to know," offers Kiki as an introduction, moving on to explicate her meeting with Herb (as children in the 1930s, both were placed in a Western Pennsylvania home for the retarded) through highlights of the duo's triumphantly tragic career.

The result is a singular brand of theatrical madness that appeals as much to the rock crowd as it does to theatergoers. No one who sees Kiki & Herb will ever forget it, and anyone who fails to see them this weekend at On the Boards is an idiot.