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Band of the Week: The Monks

Resident sound-nerd Tom Killingbeck thumbs through reams of musty vinyl so you don’t have to. Here are his weekly recommendations…

Monday 8 November 2010

#01: The Monks

Who: Gary Burger, Eddie Shaw, Larry Clark, Roger Johnston and Dave Day.

When: 1960’s.

Where: Germany.

Why: The Monks stand as one of the most meteoric and idiosyncratic groups of all time; a scorching flash in the pan releasing one colossal, efficacious record then disappearing into the netherealm from whence they came. Made up of American ex-GIs stationed in Germany, and conceptualised by existentialist gurus Walther Niemann and Karl Remy, The Monks tore apart the R&B rulebook with jackboot rhythms, industrial cadences and freaky free-jazz improvisational mid-song cataclysms. Billed as the ‘anti-Beatles’, they lived up to their name with tonsure haircuts, black cassocks and noose-neckties becoming their de rigueur uniform.

Far from being merely aesthetically bizarre, the band’s music eclipsed their maverick image – as Gary Burger accidentally left his guitar against his amp the band started playing along with the feedback, hence the predominance of ear-splitting gnarled noise rattling through many of their compositions. Along with Burger’s fuzz savagery (which it’s claimed a young Jimi Hendrix took notes from) Dave Day’s inspired choice of a six-stringed gut-strung electric banjo as his weapon of musical deconstruction added a bullish abattoir clank to an already fearsome arsenal of instruments. With groovy tribal rhythms, thick, greasy freeform organ playing and contrasting martial/melodic vocal lines, the effect was quite unlike anything that had gone before. http://nouse.co.uk/2010/11/08/band-of-the-week-the-monks Archived 11 Dec 2018 00:51:37 Nouse Web Archives Band of the Week: The Monks Page 2 of 3

Hoovering speed and spouting both anti-war polemics and Dadaist nursery rhymes, The Monks are lumbered with the before-their-time cliché that hangs around many proto-punk groups. The thing is, even now no-one’s caught up with them; while devotees such as Mark E. Smith of The Fall or Jello Biafra of the Dead Kennedys have both tried to follow suit, they’ve never come close to re-capturing The Monks’ apocalyptic war-machine rhythm and blues. Welding Goyan avant-garde noise horror and modal jazz to a meaty beat carcass while still keeping the kids dancing, The Monks belong in a very select gang of groups that can scare the shit out of you, make you think, and will you to break your legs boogieing at the same time. If only more military service ended in results like this…

Influences: Little Richard, Bo Diddley, Chuck Berry, The Rattles, The Fugs.

Influenced: The Velvet Underground, Jimi Hendrix, Can, Black Flag, The Fall.

Sample Lyrics: ‘Pussy galore’s comin’ down and we like it / We don’t like the atomic bomb.’

Which Record: Black Monk Time (Polydor, 1966)

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One comment

groove68 8 Nov ’10 at 9:57 pm

documentary about the Monks

http://www.realeyz.tv/en/lucia-palacios-dietmar-post-monksthe-transatlantic-feedback_cont1265.html

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