Monty Banks: Lizard king

An earnest lounge performer? Meet Monty Banks

By Newt Briggs

It would be easy to dismiss Monty Banks as a kook--a gussied-up souse pining for an era that died with fedoras and the term "Daddy-O." For the last decade, the Tacoma, Wash. native has been thumping his electronic keyboard and crooning jazz standards--always searching for that elusive "six-nighter Strip gig" but usually settling for cruise ships and holidays at shady juke joints like the Double Down Saloon.

"I don't think it's really about wanting to go back in time," Banks says. "I just like things that are good. I don't want to sound cranky, but it hardly seems like anything's required to write a pop song anymore. It's kind of like, `Boom-boom-boom, you've got a nice ass.' That could be a number one hit if it were marketed correctly."

Banks, on the other hand, longs for the days when tunesmiths like George Gershwin and Cole Porter could enchant audiences with nothing but clever words, romantic melodies and a curl of cigarette smoke. "The songs are so good I almost have to sing them," he says. "It's like sometimes you can go to a thrift store and buy something for $5 that's actually better than something you could buy brand new for $100. People used to care about stuff more."

It's an unexpected position for a playwright and performance artist who once toured Canada performing "Buck Duke's Wild Sex Show"--a carnival-inspired magic show where he "turned the audience into freaks" who did "amazing stunts." Before that, Banks, who has received grants from the National Endowment for the Arts and the Jerome Foundation, starred in the "Boffo the Clown Show"--a one-man production that saw him dress like an evil clown and play the piano accompaniment to his own silent movies.

But Banks is 100 percent legit when it comes to his lounge act. Unlike Richard Cheese, whose tongue-in-cheek revisions of Top 40 singles smack of smug hipster irony, Banks always plays it straight, punctuating his act with just the right amount sarcastic stage patter. "Those kind of performers are actually dumping on the music," he says. "It gets boring. It's like listening to the same joke over and over again."

Banks figures he knows "about 500 or 600 songs," but says he never relies on a set list. Rather, he monitors the crowd, constantly tailoring his show to the vibe in the room. It's a skill he learned as a novice magician, plying his trade in front of the alternately skeptical and dumbfounded kids in his neighborhood. Banks must have been good; he invented a few tricks that magicians use to this day, including the "bubblegum-bubble-out-of-the-hand illusion."

"I just kind of know the different songs that go with different moods," Banks says. "Certain types of people know certain types of songs, and I can tell by the way they talk, the way they move, what they're wearing. After doing this for so long, I can tell what people want to hear just by looking at them."

At the Double Down on Christmas Eve, Banks will serve up a delirious mix of "old-school Vegas swing standards" and "a few twisted holiday tunes"--the perfect complement to a turkey dinner scrounged from the dumpsters behind the Hard Rock Hotel. Besides "You're a Mean One, Mr. Grinch" and a cover Elvis' "Santa Claus is Coming to Town," he's not exactly sure what he'll play--or even which of the High Rollers will show up--but one thing's for sure: He'll be drinking Maker's Mark with ginger and a lemon wedge. In fact, he'll be drinking a lot of them.

"I definitely get pretty lubed up during a show," Banks says. "I grew up around that. I grew up around things where everybody drank like mad. Not that my personal life is falling apart or anything. I ride the line between the functional alcoholic and the heavy social drinker."