Curtis Eller’s primary instrument is the banjo, but you’ve never heard a banjo make sounds like his.
Within his highly ballistic brand of folk rock, Eller’s instrument has the menace and edge of an antique straight razor. His songs somehow manage to be both mournful and anarchic, evoking a sepia-toned, blood-specked Americana, with titles like “1890,” “Wirewalkers & Assassins,” and “Hartford Circus Fire.” His records sound like ghost transmissions from a radio station that never was.
And at club gigs, he usually ends up atop the tables, high-kicking the light fixtures.
So far as anyone has been able to tell, Eller, 48, is the world’s first and only alt-history punk banjo star. Eller’s music isn’t punk rock in the genre taxonomy sense, but rather in its DIY spirit and emphasis on live performance; on transmitting voltage directly to the audience. His backing band, the American Circus, is an informal collective that includes musicians from both sides of the Atlantic. That’s because Eller tours in Europe at least once a year — as he has since 2003, when he hopped a flight to England, with his banjo as carry-on luggage, and discovered that Europeans are keen on an American fringe-folk sound.
