Wednesday, August 19, 2009
Here's a review of a recent show that compares me to a right-handed Darryl Strawberry and says I'm funnier than Howard Zinn! I sure wish that was true.
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CURTIS ELLER @ THE DELANCEY (NYC)
“This may be an asshole thing to say, but I didn’t expect him to be so good,” marveled the next act, banjo rocker Curtis Eller, without a trace of sarcasm. And then took the show to the next level. With his banjo hooked up to a wireless transmitter, Eller refused to stand in one place, alternating between a high-kicking Dizzy Dean stance and a righthanded Darryl Strawberry crouch, running the length of the floor past the bar, playing the piano with his ass and keeping the audience riveted. There may be no better lyricist out there right now – a set of Curtis Eller songs is just about as good and accurate a look at American history over the past two hundred years as A People’s History of the United States, and it’s a whole lot funnier. Referencing Elvis twice, Nixon several times, the Triangle Shirtwaist Fire, the Las Vegas mob, Boss Tweed, doping in horseracing, Pentecostal rites and the death penalty, he ran through a mix of older songs and tunes from his most recent cd Wirewalkers and Assassins (which may prove over time to be a classic). Taking Up Serpents took a vividly literate look at how the ruling classes keep the lower ones divided and conquered; Sugar for the Horses examined the consequences of what happens when people like Boss Tweed and Elvis are separated at birth (that’s a quote). Three More Minutes with Elvis paradoxically worked equally well as wistful ballad and caustic portrayal of over-the-top idol worship; After the Soil Fails packed just about every contributing factor to the coming apocalypse into three furiously catchy minutes of, minor-key noir blues. The crowd sang along on the bittterly tongue-in-cheek Come Back to the Movies, Buster Keaton and on the gently haunting closing number, Save Me Joe Louis, Eller sinking to his knees and whispering the outro like the song’s condemned man in the gas chamber."
You can read the whole review online here:
http://lucidculture.wordpress.com/
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https://curtiseller.com
Playing Since: 1984
Experience Level: Expert/Professional
curtiseller has made 5 recent additions to Banjo Hangout
Interests:
[Teaching] [Jamming] [Socializing] [Helping]
Occupation: Banjo player, songwriter, rock & roll singer
Gender: Male
Age: 56
My Instruments:
Buckeye (no.113), Bart Reiter (Standard), Gold Star (GF-100FE)
Favorite Bands/Musicians:
Elvis Presley, Buster Keaton and Abraham Lincoln
Classified Rating: not rated
Rate this Member
Profile Info:
Visible to: Public
Created 3/6/2006
Last Visit 1/12/2025
Curtis Eller is a banjo player, songwriter and rock & roll singer. A twenty-year show business veteran, Eller and his band The American Circus have developed a devoted international following based on dynamic, highly physical stage performances and an extensive catalog of curious phonographic recordings. The iconoclastic musician has spent more than a decade relentlessly touring the club, theatre and festival stages of a dozen countries in North America and Europe.
Eller is a gifted and prolific songwriter who's banjo-driven songs describe a dreamlike vision of American history where all points in time have collapsed into one. The American Circus is diligently at work on a new full-length album on which they have augmented their indelicate, rock & roll rhythms with a tempestuous cloud of horns and an graceless choir of backsliders in their quest to bring Eller's historically evocative compositions to vivid, cinematic life.
