Top tracks
Listeners also bought
Other Psychedelic albums
Other California Pop albums
Put your hands on the remote! browse music »
Smashes by Zircus
view larger image
fave it Psychedelic | California Pop
17 tracks | 70 minutes
Released Sep 2002
on Racer Records
Click 
for a 30-second preview. All tracks are 192kbps high fidelity sound quality. Protected WMA $0.77 or unprotected MP3 $0.88.
listen album 30sec. shuffle buy CD review album promote album
- sample lyrics "DOWNLOAD" 02:45 Come to Me lyrics FREE 02:45 Come to Me lyrics "GIFT MP3" 02:45 Come to Me
- sample lyrics "DOWNLOAD" 04:16 Liechtenstein lyrics BUY MP3 04:16 Liechtenstein lyrics "GIFT MP3" 04:16 Liechtenstein
- sample lyrics "DOWNLOAD" 03:37 Fogtown lyrics BUY MP3 03:37 Fogtown lyrics "GIFT MP3" 03:37 Fogtown
- sample lyrics "DOWNLOAD" 03:17 Preston Sturges lyrics BUY MP3 03:17 Preston Sturges lyrics "GIFT MP3" 03:17 Preston Sturges
- sample lyrics "DOWNLOAD" 03:47 Harm's Way lyrics BUY MP3 03:47 Harm's Way lyrics "GIFT MP3" 03:47 Harm's Way
- sample lyrics "DOWNLOAD" 04:47 Love Takes it's Toll Again lyrics BUY MP3 04:47 Love Takes it's Toll Again lyrics "GIFT MP3" 04:47 Love Takes it's Toll Again
- sample lyrics "DOWNLOAD" 04:55 My Astoria lyrics BUY MP3 04:55 My Astoria lyrics "GIFT MP3" 04:55 My Astoria
- sample lyrics "DOWNLOAD" 03:31 Make Me Hollywood lyrics BUY MP3 03:31 Make Me Hollywood lyrics "GIFT MP3" 03:31 Make Me Hollywood
- sample lyrics "DOWNLOAD" 05:38 Little Thing lyrics BUY MP3 05:38 Little Thing lyrics "GIFT MP3" 05:38 Little Thing
- sample lyrics "DOWNLOAD" 05:29 Crown of Spoons lyrics BUY MP3 05:29 Crown of Spoons lyrics "GIFT MP3" 05:29 Crown of Spoons
- sample lyrics "DOWNLOAD" 02:24 I'm not Going Camping lyrics BUY MP3 02:24 I'm not Going Camping lyrics "GIFT MP3" 02:24 I'm not Going Camping
- sample lyrics "DOWNLOAD" 04:27 Clown's Blues (live kzsu) lyrics BUY MP3 04:27 Clown's Blues (live kzsu) lyrics "GIFT MP3" 04:27 Clown's Blues (live kzsu)
- sample lyrics "DOWNLOAD" 05:52 The Devil's Busboy (live, Slims) lyrics BUY MP3 05:52 The Devil's Busboy (live, Slims) lyrics "GIFT MP3" 05:52 The Devil's Busboy (live, Slims)
- sample lyrics "DOWNLOAD" 03:47 I Just Wasn't Made for These Times lyrics BUY MP3 03:47 I Just Wasn't Made for These Times lyrics "GIFT MP3" 03:47 I Just Wasn't Made for These Times
- sample lyrics "DOWNLOAD" 04:13 Caravan(live, Hotel Utah) lyrics BUY MP3 04:13 Caravan(live, Hotel Utah) lyrics "GIFT MP3" 04:13 Caravan(live, Hotel Utah)
- sample lyrics "DOWNLOAD" 02:58 Shine on Harvest Moon lyrics BUY MP3 02:58 Shine on Harvest Moon lyrics "GIFT MP3" 02:58 Shine on Harvest Moon
- sample lyrics "DOWNLOAD" 04:47 Tell Me Something Good lyrics BUY MP3 04:47 Tell Me Something Good lyrics "GIFT MP3" 04:47 Tell Me Something Good
Groundbreaking early 90's eclectic, genre-hopping San Francisco pop septet, at one time the critic and fan favorite, and recognized as the city's best live act.
Editorial review
There is no simple way to say what, exactly, Zircus is. It sounds, at any one time, like a circus orchestra, a soul collective, a funky avant-garde jug band, and an off-kilter zoot-suit combo. If we're to take "My Astoria" as standard-bearer for the aggregate, it is Public Enemy backed by a ska band helmed by Brian Wilson. The group was even once described as "a cross between a high school marching band and the junkyard ensemble from the Fat Albert Show," which is as close to accurate as anyone is likely to come. Tom Waits fronting the Mothers of Invention? The Band playing cop show themes? Penn and Teller with instruments and musical skills? The Stax house band on speed? Yes to them all. And it's not really any of those things, either. Only one thing is for certain: Besides being unclassifiable, Smashes is an explosive, exciting record. At more than an hour's length, it still manages to seem too short. There is so much to discover in the music that it literally takes dozens of listens before the record starts to grow remotely familiar. Funk riffs and Tower of Power horns run headlong into Beach Boy harmonies, film noir intrigue, ragtime, exotic gypsy-ish textures, and swing. After a hot electric blues riff opens the song, "Crown of Spoons" looks back to trad jazz, Dixieland, old-timey, and Tin Pan Alley traditions for its musical inspirations, and to Looney Toons cartoons for its lyrical ones. At other times, the band can turn beautifully eerie (their wiggy acoustic cover of "I Just Wasn't Made for These Times"), sound like Bo Diddley playing free jazz with Fats Waller ("The Devil's Busboy"), or like the Muppets all liquored up and dueting with Al Jolson ("Shine on Harvest Moon"). It is a surreal, improvisatory, haphazard melange that could have turned disorienting -- if it wasn't, instead, so fertile and inventive. Recorded between late 1990 and early 1994 but not released until 1999 -- by which time the band was already kaput -- the posthumous recording unfortunately marked the first and probably only time the band would make it onto CD. It's hard to imagine a better tribute. There has never been another record remotely like Smashes, which is reason enough to search it out. ~ Stanton Swihart, All Music Guide
Bio / Background
Their first single "My Astoria, sounds like a lost David Bowie song from ZIggy Stardust covered by the Pixies who hired Brian Wilson to write the bridge with Public Enemy delivering it. And that's just one 3 minute song. At one time produced by Art Alexakis (Everclear) and claimed to be Adam Duritz(Counting Crows)favorite band.
Zircus "Smashes" review from All Music.com
There is no simple way to say what, exactly, Zircus is.
It sounds, at any one time, like a circus orchestra, a soul collective,a funky avant-garde jug band, and an off-kilter zoot-suit combo. If we're to take "My Astoria" as standard-bearer for the aggregate,it is Public Enemy backed by a ska band helmed by Brian Wilson.
The group was even once described as "a cross between a high school marching band and the junkyard ensemble from the Fat Albert Show," which is as close to accurate as anyone is likely to come.
↓ more ↓