Having spent a decade toiling in the musical sweatshops of New York
City, banjo player and songwriter, Curtis Eller uprooted his family and
resettled in some faded, tobacco town in the North Carolina Piedmont to
begin the arduous task of assembling a new version of his band, The
American Circus. The latest version of the band is a brutish and
inelegant rock & roll outfit, known to haunt the beer halls,
burlesque houses and underground theaters of the eastern seaboard. They
specialize in banjo music for funerals, gospel tunes for atheists and
novelty dance fads for amputees. A lavish, Hollywood, dance sequence
unfolding on the floor of a Chicago meatpacking plant in 1894.
Eller's numerous compositions 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.
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