The Monks / Demo Tapes 1965 (CD)

Description

2007 reissue – compilation / 12-page booklet

Munster Records/Play Loud! Productions (pl-03)

Tracks 1 to 10 originally produced and recorded by The Monks in September 1965 at Tonstudio Bauer in Ludwigsburg, Germany.
Tracks 11 and 12 recorded by The Five Torquays (pre-Monks band name, same line-up) in April 1965 at Herbert Scherer Tonstudio in Heidelberg, Germany.
Track 13 recorded for the dbl-CD Silver Monk Time – A Tribute To The Monks in 2006.

1965-American GIs based in Germany

Format: CD (Digipack)

#Ref: MRCD-278/pl-03

Release date: 2007

Release notes

Yes, the legendary band the Monks, responsible for one of the most fabulous records of 60s (Black Monk Time). This is a totally pro studio recording that preceded the album. Here you can find earlier versions of most the album best songs. In this record we have also included two tracks of The Five Torquays (The Monks before changing names and shaving their heads), and one track of the Monks Tribute record Monk Hop by Jason Forrest. Listen up, jerk, it’s black Monk time all over again! This record collects the 1965 demos by the Monks, that storied, proto-punk garage rock platoon comprised of five renegade American GIs stationed in Germany. These sessions aren’t really that raw by today’s standards (or compared to, say, Stooges bootlegs), but they are grimier and more cavernous than the band’s crucial, lone album, the 1966-issued (since reissued) Black Monk Time. Considering the year and the locale in which they were created, the songs on this archival effort are pretty damn bold. Dig singer Gary Burger’s mental-ward sermonizing or his gnarled, no wave-ish guitar solos. Feel the primal pulse of his buddies’ burbling bass, cheesy-cum-sinister church organ, silly electric banjo and tubby, tom-heavy drums. The Monks, whose Reeperbahn-fueled delusions inspired them to shave tonsures into their heads and wear robes, played the most brilliantly stupid, stripped-down music of the day. They were the self-proclaimed anti-Beatles — unmelodic, rhythm-based, simplistic and anything but cute. Just listen to the way Burger growls, “Baby, I hate you!,” and you’ll get the message, loud and clear. “…the earliest document of their minimalist past…it veers from psychotic nursery-rhyme relentlessness…to distorted psychofolk….a fascinating blueprint for the true deranged genius of BLACK MONK TIME…” MOJO

Tracklisting

1 Monk Time 2:22 / 2 Love Came Tumbling Down 3:01 / 3 Boys Are Boys 1:50 / 4 Space Age 2:39 / 5 We Do Wie Du 2:41 / 6 I Hate You 3:59 / 7 Pretty Suzanne 3:46 / 8 Higgle-dy-piggle-dy 4:10 / 9 Hushie Pushie 2:57 / 10 Oh, How To Do Now 2:53 / 11 There She Walks 2:37 / 12 Boys Are Boys 3:05 / 13 Monk Hop 2:10