Interview with Circus Contraption | Sound Authors Radio

November 11, 2008

Dr. Kent: What a song! That’s a tune by Circus Contraption called Elephants on Parade. Circus Contraption is a non-profit collective of more than a dozen physical performers and musicians. They come out of Seattle Washington and their music is extraordinary. I haven’t seen the act, but the music is amazing. I’ve got a couple guests on the show; one is Kevin Hinshaw and the other is David Crellen and they’re both from Circus Contraption. I guess David is not answering but we have Kevin on the line. Welcome to the show.

Kevin Himshaw: Hey, how are you doing?

Dr. Kent: I’m great. Tell me a little bit about this Circus Contraption. What is this? When I stumbled across it, I thought it was just music but it turns out it’s a whole theatrical work. Tell me about it.

Kevin Himshaw: Yeah it’s true. It’s a beast with many heads. So yeah, people will come across it in many different ways. But the group started and it’s now in its tenth year. It’s a small troupe of about 13 of us based in Seattle, Washington that yeah has been performing circus arts and music and in various ways for those ten years. So yes, if you come to see one of our full productions, you’ll see jugglers, acrobats and aerialists, puppetry, some clowning, all intermixed with more theatrical elements and we have like a six or seven piece live band that accompanies the whole thing and plays live original music for all of our shows.

Dr. Kent: That’s what I love is I heard the music and said man, these guys know how to play. There’s an element of Tom Waite’s, there’s an element of the real circus in there. What inspired the music? The acting? What am I not seeing onstage when I’m listening to the music?

Kevin Himshaw: Well, I mean yeah, there’s elements of the surreal and the physical performance and musically there’s certainly some Tom Waite’s influence and Danny Elfman and kind of the Tim Burton type things sometimes. From the music side, we have many members of the group who’ve written music over the years so we pulled musical influence from all over the place too. It ends up being a pretty interesting mish mash of things that somehow manage to hold together despite their disparate origins.

Dr. Kent: Tell me about what these, what your events are like? How does it happen? How does it hold together?

Kevin Himshaw: Well, I mean it varies. I typically think some of our biggest productions we’ll put together like a two hour full-length theatrical production. That’s more like going to a circus themed theatre than say going to Barnum & Bailey Circus Show but you have all the performers and musicians there for that and we usually do that run for awhile. We’re based in Seattle but we’ve taken that show on tour and have gone to New York to do it off Broadway a couple of times and I hope to do that again.

We’re taking kind of a variety version of that to push through a few of our shows through November. So that’s one thing that we’ll do. Right now we’re doing a series of weekly cabarets that are a mix of performers from our own group and performers we know who are here based in Seattle. It’s actually a pretty thriving circus community or we’ll put together a variety cabaret show each Friday night involving the acrobats, aerialists or whoever we get to come in and play music for them and stuff. So we’ll do that and we put together a super scary Halloween show for Halloween, which is the tradition of our theatre. There’s always a variety of things we can do.

Dr. Kent: I have a couple of questions for you. One of them is, I had the pleasure of hanging out with a fellow named A.J., who was the original Ronald McDonald, but he grew up as a carny. He grew up as the son of a man who owned a traveling circus and he told many stories that really turn heads. He’s working on a book and there’s so many ideas I mean talk about the carnival atmosphere. What it used to be like at a carnival.

Kevin Himshaw: Well let’s see, what can I say about that? I think we try to draw on some of that you know. We had done some of our shows and tried to create some of that before the show that midway feeling of you just walk in the door and you’re overwhelmed by the sights and smells and walking through the games.

We would have games for people to play as they came in. its certainly one of the things that people associate with the sort of seedy underbelly aspect of the fact that you’re going to see the show and be entertained by these people. But there’s something rather unsavory about the characters involved and so that aspect is kind of important to this and its something we seem to convey I think sometimes in our group. Whether or not that’s us in real life or not.

Dr. Kent: You yourself, Kevin Hinshaw, I guess your name is Camelio on stage?

Kevin Himshaw: Yeah, that’s me onstage.

Dr. Kent: And you are a clarinetist, pianist, accordionist, composer, treasurer, webmaster, director of small packages according to your website. What does this group mean to you? What is this all about?

Kevin Himshaw: Well, its been I mean a group that I’ve been a member of the group for over eight years now so its something I wanted to do as a little side project that had a way of taking over my life but it’s a really fun, interesting group of people who are able to tap into this darker side of entertainment that I think people enjoy and particularly right now.

So it’s a fun, yeah, its I’m not sure what the best words are to describe it but it seems to be one of the things where if people normally hear the circus then there’s an association with you think of kids, animals, elephants, and ring masters and that’s not us. We’re a different version of that; we’re not that type of circus. It’s more adult and we do some performances for kids but it’s always been aimed at an adult audience.

You know, kind of the red velvet curtains, candles on the table kind of feeling so that you can anyway. It’s that, there’s something that it taps into that I think people enjoy because it’s a little less wholesome than you think of a traditional circus being.

Dr. Kent: Apparently you also have a PhD dissertation. Are you Doctor Hinshaw?

Kevin Himshaw: Technically, I’m Dr. Hinshaw yes. I have a PhD in computer sciences. That’s my other life. I lead kind of a split life.

Dr. Kent: Wonderful. Well it’s really a pleasure speaking with Kevin Hinshaw of circus contraption. I’d like to play another song here and hopefully we’ll have a minute to chat afterwards. I’ll play the whole song. Would you rather hear Raining Pianos or We’re All Mad?

Kevin Himshaw: Oh I say go for We’re All Mad.

Dr. Kent: Talk about that song for one second.

Kevin Himshaw: Oh, this is one written by one of our key main songwriter/singers right now. So this is the first track off our most current album, definitely written from I think he and some friends were having darker visions of where this world is headed and I think that was the inspiration beyond the song.

Dr. Kent: It’s a song called We’re All Mad from the album Grand Traveling Dime Museum by Circus Contraption. Here we go.

[Music 51:04 – 54:22]

Dr. Kent: What a song from Circus Contraption, the song We’re All Mad. Kevin Hinshaw is my guest on the show; we’ve got about a minute left. Tell me about that sound and about the show. Is this something you want to keep going? What’s your plan?

Kevin Himshaw: Oh I mean it’s something we’re hoping to keep going. We had a new full length show we did earlier this year that definitely was a hit. That’s coming up as to kind of where we’re going next. I think we’re planning on trying to bring that in February or so of next year and run it here and hopefully try to get that out on tour. So that’s something we’re looking forward to.

Dr. Kent: The sound is just extraordinary to me. I’m a huge fan of Tom Waites, a huge fan of Out Jazz and the funny thing is that there almost seems like there’s a little bit of metal in there. There’s almost a little bit of folk music. Its fascinating sounds coming out of that album.

Kevin Himshaw: Well thank you very much. I think we’re able to tap into a variety of styles and pull them all together.

Dr. Kent: Well it’s been an honor speaking with Circus Contraption. Their website is circuscontraption.com. The newest album is Grand Traveling Dime Museum. I wish I had the chance to check them out when they come to New York. I’m going to do my best. It’s been an honor speaking with Kevin Himshaw. We’ll see you next week on Sound Authors. It’s been a real pleasure speaking with Erica Ferencik, author of Cracks in the Foundation. That’s a book about real estate and about the comedy; her character is selling an outhouse.

The second guest we had on the show was Nuala Gardner, she’s the author of A Friend Like Henry and we talked about autism and all of that. In the political season, autism has come up between the candidates; it’s a fascinating story, it’s already an international bestseller.

My third guest was Richard Singer, author of Daddy, What is Success? And more interestingly of course wants to break the Guinness book of world records record for the quickest run across the country in 46 days. My last guest was Circus Contraptions Kevin Hinshaw, the clarinetist, composer, treasurer and much more. Be safe, we’ll see you next week.

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