By Chris Kocher
Growing up in a rough South Philly neighborhood in the 1960s, Joziah Longo often found solace in two things: music and his own active imagination.
Friday nights at the Longo home meant parties in the basement, with various relatives and friends arriving with their instruments and performing raucous impromptu sets late into the night.
Then, “every weekend, we’d travel to New Jersey – which was the Promised Land for somebody from South Philly – to visit relatives who had moved there and had yards and stuff,” Longo said in an interview. “On the drive there, the radio was on in the car, and my family knew the words to everything – we all just sang with the radio all the time.”
That sense of family, an eclectic grab-bag of musical styles and a little Mummer magic are infused into every show from Gandalf Murphy and the Slambovian Circus of Dreams, the band for which Longo is the songwriter and lead vocalist. Since forming in 1998, they have built a loyal fanbase through the Northeast folk circuit as well as bigger venues such as the Philadelphia Folk Festival.
The Circus’ roots stretch back, appropriately enough, to The Ancestors, a New York City-based prog-metal band in the 1980s and early ’90s. Its members included Longo (acoustic guitar), wife Tink Lloyd (cello, accordian, flute and theramin) and Sharkey McEwen (lead guitar and mandolin). When that band dissolved after attention from major labels, band members took a break of several years before re-forming with a more folk-rock sound and an extra-long moniker that mixes larger-than-life grandness with a touch of self-effacing silliness, much like the music itself. Along the way, they recruited computer game designer and former bar-band drummer Tony Zuzulo to complete the quartet.
Pinning down the Circus’ sound is a tricky thing. An early reviewer called them “hillbilly Pink Floyd,” but that captures only a small slice of what they’re capable. A typical set starts with band members shambling onstage and Longo offering some down-home folksiness – then they’ll launch into songs that range from uplifting epics to folk/country tunes to cheeky jangle-pop. “Desire,” a plaintive invocation for renewed hope in a troubled world, can be followed by the funky roots-rock of “Moondog House” or by “Circus of Dreams,” which Longo often introduces as “a tip of the hat to those early folk pioneers, The Who.” After teaching folks how to yodel, the band may launch into “Flapjacks from the Sky,” a soaring seven-minute piece about UFOs and their connections to a higher power. Then the chugging “Trans-Slambovian Bipolar Express” – from their fourth studio album The Grand Slambovians, released last month – invites audience members to their feet.
Their distinctive blend of sounds – knitted together by Longo’s inviting baritone and McEwen’s versatile guitar skills – feels instantly comfortable and familiar, like a half-remembered melody hidden in the subconscious. The band borrows musical vibes from sources such as Bob Dylan, The Beatles, Jimi Hendrix, David Bowie and Hank Williams, but listeners never get the idea that Longo and company are stealing – merely trying to harness the same kind of power.
While the Circus has released three other acclaimed studio albums – 1999’s A Good Thief Tips His Hat, 2004’s double disc Flapjacks from the Sky and 2008’s The Great Unravel – it’s the live experience that produces some truly spine-tingling moments. Even beyond the music is its message of universal oneness and of recapturing the innocence of our childhoods. Amid the humor, there’s a lot of awe and wonder packed into the Slambovian hymnbook, which is sorely needed in today’s troubled world.
“I remember a few times when I was having an amazing experience in the show, and I looked around the stage and realized that because of our relationship with each other, we formed a sort of prism where we became a conduit,” McEwen says. “It’s way beyond us, and I figured that out a long time ago.”
In recent years, twins Chen and Orien Longo – sons of Joziah and Tink – have been added to the lineup. Although Chen has left the band for art school, Orien continues to add texture to the Circus’ live sound with bass, keyboards and percussion.
“There’s a dynamic to having people who are really close on a subconscious or conscious level who love each other,” Lloyd said. “It’s like taking a two-dimensional thing and creating something not only three-dimensional but four-dimensional.”
This summer has proven to be a busy one. After several tours of Great Britain in the past few years, the Circus made its debut at the famed Glastonbury Festival at the end of June. Last month saw the release of their fourth studio album The Grand Slambovians, which includes songs first played in April at Philly’s Theatre of Living Arts. The title track, a foot-stomping existential hoedown, sets out the band’s inclusive philosophy: “We are all the royal peasants / we’re the daughters and the sons / we’re the children of the Maker / we’re the Grand Slambovians.”
Longo points to the Circus’ energy and positive message for its attraction to new fans: “More and more people have been coming to our shows because they feel hope in our shows. We’re a bit of a pie-in-the-sky band, but when you’re carrying boulders up hills and still you find hope, people want to buy a piece of that.”
