Our friends at Cafe Von Kleef in Oakland are hitting the extreme edge of fun on March 4 with this new show happening right on the little stage (seems amazing, don't it?)

The two Philadelphia-based brothers who stepped right up in 2007 and created The Squidling Bros. Circus Sideshow, emerged with quirky, unforgettable monikers fitting their one-of-a kind traveling extravaganza. “Matterz Squidling The Impenetrable Music Man” and  “Jelly Boy The Clown Squidling” put a fresh, cutting edge, 21st Century rock ‘n roll, dare-devilish and burlesque spin on the classic American sideshows that accompanied traveling circuses in early 20th Century - the era when the Ringlings merged with Barnum & Bailey. 

The internationally successful show just wrapped a six-week, 22 show U.S. tour and heads back to Europe in early 2012 for performances in several cities; from Berlin and Austria to Switzerland, Holland, Slovenia and Croatia. But like the 80-100 shows it performs annually, there’s nothing conventional about the venues the sideshow plays with its small, traveling crew of performers featuring “Betty Bloomerz” and “Penguin” - a classic ‘freak (and proud of it!) covered in tattoos and huge body piercings.

Whether they’re playing small dive bars, art spaces, mid-size theatres or (as they did recently) the Theatre Bizarre Halloween celebration at the Masonic Temple in Detroit, one of the performers’ favorite jaw dropping stunts is “aerial flesh suspension.” Other stunts include innovative approaches to fire arts, ladders of machetes and comical routines that defy possibility with nails and tubes up the nose, tennis rackets, needles and sharp objects.

Over the past few years, the Squidling Bros. Circus Sideshow has performed with Primus, Exploited, Prodigy, The National, Circus Contraption, Rev Horton Heat, Mudvayne, Suicide Silence and Merle Haggard. It also has appeared at the Ink N Iron Fest, Bohemian Carnival with the Vau De Vire Society, Sweden Metaltown 2009 in Gotenburg, The Coney Island Rockabilly Festival 2008-10, The World Steam Punk Expo Detroit 2010, Sweden’s Pedal to the Metal Tour 2009 and Opatijske Barufe 2011 in Croatia. 

You gonna be there? So will we.