Elliott's Eccentricities- Silly Circus by Silly Circus Band

Some musical instruments aren’t meant to be used. The recorder, for example, is pretty much only used to teach toddlers how to read and play music; I don’t know of any composer/band/music act that has ever used one in earnest. The Theremin is similar, though it kicks complete ass, it is used sparingly. A whole slew of whistles and noisemakers fall under the category of sound effects and are barely used in music. The king of the non-instruments is one that everyone has played and no one has enjoyed listening to, the kazoo.

“Oh but Elliott” you might say, “jug bands use them all the time and Barbara Stewart played a kazoo at Carnegie Hall”. Well congratulations, not only do you know how to use Wikipedia but you also have a knack for being a killjoy. Please stop reading this article and go back to fact checking YouTube comments where you belong. Are the killjoys gone? Yes? Good, now I can get back to kazoos.

The universe has several constants, the speed of light, the permittivity and permeability of free space, and the fact that no one likes the kazoo. Its only purpose is to be given out in cheap goodie bags at children’s birthday parties to annoy the crap out of all adults in earshot. It is not a musical instrument; no one in their right mind would disagree, let alone use a one in a song. Of course this is “Elliott’s Eccentricities” and no one here is in their right mind. This week features the one band that proves the universe wrong by using a kazoo and using it well, the Silly Circus Band.

I must admit that I did not discover the Silly Circus Band, Eric deserves full credit for that. Several weeks ago Eric was reading a movie blog that he follows from time to time when he saw a bizarre post. The blogger happened to be in Germany and saw the Silly Circus Band performing and decided to film them. They kept repeating “Silly Circus Band” so he googled it and found their myspace/bandcamp page. What he found impressed him so much that he told me to feature them.

At first I doubted him and refused to check them out because admittedly, the band’s name is stupid. There was no way that a band called the Silly Circus Band could possibly make music that wasn’t complete garbage. However one day he forced me to listen to them and I was astounded. It is quirky, different, and somewhat insane, yet still really enjoyable to listen to. To my surprise I found myself humming along to their tunes and actually enjoying myself. “Elliott’s Eccentricities” was created to discover and share bands like SCB.

I have search all over the web (the top page of Google search results) for information on the Silly Circus Band and found almost nothing. The band has myspace, facebook, and bandcamp pages that each contains very little information (in German). However from what I have seen and read, the band is full of crazy people. Their front man either wears a terrifyingly tight jumpsuit or a bathrobe in every video/photo I have seen of them; the blogger said he wears the robe all of the time, not just on stage. He also does this terrifying little step that I think he considers dancing. The rest of the band consists of guys in short shorts, trench coats, and shades and girls with ridiculous dyed red hair. I got a particular kick out of this Facebook post (translated into English by Google translate).

 “A small correction for your band info: the television tower at Alexanderplatz is called "television tower" and the space AROUND the "Alex". The tower is not "Alex". Yes? Just as the penis is not "man" but is "penis" and the man is all around "man". Logical, right?”

The band might be certifiably crazy, but their music, oh man their music, is really enjoyable. I would describe it as insane German folk. It features a lot of acoustic guitar, drums, vocals, accordion, and flute. Sometimes it will randomly breakout into a form of melodic-rap a la Dan Bejar. It is surprisingly diverse, some songs are very fitting of their name, Silly and upbeat, but other songs sound serious and sad (check out the song Mannomann). I am really sad I don’t speak any German (and that I can’t find any lyrics to translate) because I really want to know what they are singing. However, their best track by far is their self-titled Silly Circus, which if you might have guessed from the intro to this article, features the kazoo.

On the eccentricity scale ranging from 1 to 10
1- I play the kazoo
10- I played the kazoo at Carnegie Hall
Silly Circus -6/10

Silly Circus opening reminds me a lot of the intro to Men at Work’s Down Under, also known as one of the best 80’s one hit wonders. Both songs feature a bit of percussion followed by a kickass flute intro. The flute line in Silly Circus is then interrupted by a kazoo of all things. Normally such trolling would throw me into a fit of rage, but the kazoo sounds good. SCB used the kazoo’s few strengths and minded its many weaknesses. The kazoo has an interesting timber and is rhythmically flexible, yet doesn’t have a lot of musical range and gets annoying fast. The kazoo riff (I am so happy I got to write those words next to each other), doesn’t try to do much; it follows a simple melody. Yet it makes up for it by creating a very pleasing rhythm that compliments the flute and drums well. By placing the kazoo with the flute and using it sparingly, SCB is able to balance the obnoxiousness of the kazoo and actually make it enjoyable to listen to.

Yet the kazoo is not the only thing going on in the song, underneath it is a folk song that is quite catchy by itself. The vocals are also great, they shift between pure singing, melodic-rap, and spoken word to create a really interesting rhythmic pattern. It makes German sound like a really lyrical language in a way that I haven’t experienced before (though admittedly I don’t listen to a lot of German music). I wish I spoke German so I could understand what they are saying, I am sure it is fantastically silly.

Check out more by the Silly Circus Band on their bandcamp page HERE.