Curtis Eller's American Circus

Event information

Having spent a decade toiling away in the musical sweatshops of New York City, banjo player and songwriter, Curtis Eller uprooted his family and resettled in North Carolina where he is diligently pursuing his goal of becoming America's leading purveyor of songs about Elvis Presley and Richard Nixon.
The wild-eyed vaudevillian’s banjo-driven, rock & roll songs describe a dreamlike vision of American history where all points in time have collapsed into one. Past recordings have seen a ghastly parade of historical luminaries, from Abraham Lincoln and Buster Keaton to Amelia Earhart and Joe Louis, sharing the spotlight with a host of Civil War generals and corrupt 19th century politicians.
The latest incarnation of the band has spent a year sharpening their skills in the burlesque houses, beer halls and underground theatres of the Carolina Piedmont. After touring the US, Europe and Canada relentlessly, the time has come for Eller and the band to descend into the Carolinian song-mines to begin unearthing material for their next phonographic recording.
This time listeners will be treated to a fresh collection of show tunes, dance fads and gospel music whose lyrics are populated by two-bit prize fighters, Hollywood has-beens, grave-robbers and forgotten pop-stars. There's a fictional campaign song for Herbert Hoover, and at least one song about the filth and corruption of the Chicago meatpacking industry of the 1890's.

Support comes from Sheffield's very own Sieben, looping and swirling his way through a jewelled catalogue of songs of love, lust, madness and pagan wonder with violin and voice.