Last of the Showmen, a Chicago-based pop-rock quartet, fit few of the molds of showmanship
one might most readily conjure when faced with that phrase. While capable of rocking hard,
they never veer into the costumed showtime antics of a Kiss or a Guar or any other faded
metal phenom. While they appear in black suits on the cover of their slickly polished new
full-length CD, they couldn't be farther from the sort of showmanship we lost with vocal
stars Bing Crosby or Louis Prima or Barry Manilow (unless you count Clay Aiken, who has
been made over as the latter-day incarnation of Manilow). While the backdrop of the band's
cover pose on Darker Side of Light is a bright red curtain, they hardly revive
the prematurely mourned art of the stage musical. So in what sense are these guys the Last
of the Showmen?
The CD is a very carefully crafted
entertainment, and lead singer Adrian Dinu, who owns his own audio/production studio,
attempts to earn the band name by spending copious time in the studio tossing in guitar
hooks and florific detail. Live music purists may object to a comment in the press release
that accompanies the album: "They are a band that can stay in Adrian's studio night
after long night, making sure they get it right onto the recording reels. As they say in
the audio industry, tape doesn't lie. Either you have it or you don't." But I
sometimes found the songs, while appropriately hook-laden, less appealing than some of the
carefully recorded riffs and production choices. The album does seem to benefit from the
extra time.
Entertainment, as well as careful craft,
explains the name. Leading off with a set of fast, melodic modern rock tunes, the album is
heavily layered with aggressive guitars, Hammond organs and drums. There are Beatleisms,
post-grungeisms, post-punkisms, sputtering mad hard rock solos, pub rockisms, even a folk
ballad at album's close. But it's all in the service of fun, rarely in the service of
contemplation, and all positioned at the point where pop and rock merge. In that sense,
this album is a sort of modern rock update of the sort of power pop that is currently
being celebrated at the International Pop Overthrow festival. As this site's coverage of
that event recently pointed out, that festival is an attempt to revive an allegedly lost
art of power pop. Hence: the last of "those" kind of Showmen.
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