For one night and one night only, the good people of Reykjavik will be treated to a musical extravaganza from two greats of the Capital’s queer comedy scene, Jono Duffy and Kimi Tayler. We’re talking two hours of live covers, terrible costumes, jokes, out-of-breath dancing and a healthy sprinkling of Eurovision magic – all in the name of crappy acapella singing.
What brought the two of you together?
“Well we’re both queer comedians and for the longest time we were the only ones so we became close pretty quickly. We also have a lot in common because Jono is more of a lesbian than a gay man.”
What was Crapapella’s genesis?
“We thought comedy was over because of Covid so we started a band. Neither of us play instruments very well and have both done stuff like this in the past. One day while Facebook chatting we came up with an idea for a project where we do a Eurovision song together using only our voices and see if it was entertaining. Two days later we released our first video and a band was formed.”
What drew you to the noble art of crappy acapella singing?
“It is a noble art indeed. It’s hard to explain. We just love making sounds. We’ve been on a bunch of road trips together and we noticed pretty early on that we’re the weirdos who are singing the instruments in the song instead of the words. It was one of those ‘When doves cry moments’ where we were like ‘I thought I was the only one.’
What we really love about Crapapella though is that we think it shares a whole new love of music. So many people have always dreamed of performing music or being in a band but aren’t great a playing instruments. What we hope to do with Crapapella is show people that you can love music however way you want to, and you can perform it even if you’re really mediocre.”
What’s you’re favourite thing about the show?
“The fact that we’ve been able to do an incredibly high concept work of art on an absolute shoestring. Yep it’s art, we’re real artists now, where’s our Grima Award?”
Describe your relationship with the little show known as Eurovision.
“The song contest and us – it’s an unhealthy relationship. To us it’s gay Christmas. Kimi’s mother says it’s not natural and we weren’t born this way. The movie… it was ok, obviously we love Ja Ja Ding Dong, but Jono finds it hard to get past the fact that Will Ferrell’s eyes are really close together.”
What’s next? We’re hoping for a Crapapella Eurovision bid.
“If we’re being honest, Crapapella as a project can’t do Eurovision because you’re not allowed voices in the backing track. You can do it acapella but we couldn’t have our vocal symphony. But you never know, we might learn to play some more instruments that can’t actually be played on the stage, or maybe even just become friends with a producer to make us a sick beat (you listening Daði?). But for real, it’s something we would love to do one day.”
Crapapella will take place tonight at 20:00 at Tjarnarbíó. Tickets cost 3000 ISK and are available at tix.is.
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