1001 Albums You Must Hear Before You Die: 61. The Monks – Black Monk Time (1966)

 

Having made claim for the past six or seven albums, if not more, about how the musical sound of the decade is becoming more produced and sophisticated, here comes a remarkable little oddity. 

I’d never heard of The Monks, or, as they style themselves on the album cover “monks”. They were a group of American servicemen stationed in (West) Germany, and got together to make the kind of music that they wanted. Although it’s not the Punk Rock of the late Seventies, this is most certainly “punk” in the sense of feeling home-produced, raw and uncompromising, and also often violent in tone – the glorious “I Hate You”, for example, is a million miles away from happy love song stuff, or even the tragic ballads of Country and Folk where people may die, but they do so because they love too much. 

The drums provide a pounding backing, often, such as Monk Time, like the ticking of a particularly big clock, other times like a thumping heartbeat. There’s little in the way of clever fills. Over the top, fuzzy distorted guitar and jarring organ, and the tortured screaming vocals of, I assume, lead guitarist Gary Burger.  

I’m getting Dead Kennedys, I’m getting PJ Harvey, I’m getting Stooges, but most of all I’m getting Jack White/White Stripes; it’s that kind of thing, but long long before that style of music really took off. Gloriously mad stuff and a delicious whiplash from the California sound.  

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