German TV: The Monks (1965)

[JSngry]

http://classicshowbiz.blogspot.com/2009/04...monks-1965.html

[Chalupa]

That's amazing. Thanks for sharing.

[Big Beat Steve]

If you understand German, then read this:

http://www.spiegel.de/kultur/musik/0,1518,619377,00.html

Strange thing about this, though:

In my younger collecting days in the 70s I did do a bit of collecting of British and German 60s beat music (as an extension of my interest in true 50s r'n'r/rockabilly) and grabbed a bit of documentation on that era too, but somehow all the sources on the music of that (by the 70s) not that distant past failed to mention the Monks and their vinyl legacy whereas others that overall were just as much a flash in the pan with limited record releases (but maybe a little bit less oddball) did get mentioned. And this was not the only case where bands of the mid-60s that must have a fairly sizable cult following never made it into the written documentation or record reference works of that era.

Strange ... makes you wonder why the music writers of the 70s had such a selective and skewed look on that 60s era though it had only recently come to an end. Was it really so that whatever came along in the 60s OUTSIDE the beat/brit rock mainstream PRIOR to the advent of psychedelic rock, hard rock, folk rock, blues rock, "kraut rock" and whatever else started mushrooming 1968/69 just was off the radar of the music scribes?

Edited April 24, 2009 by Big Beat Steve

[mikeweil]

I was right there in front of a TV set when this was broadcast for the first time! I thought they were crazy!

In retrospect, this was punk way before its time ...

IIRC they were all G.I.s based in Germany and pretty much a local phenomenon, never performing in the USA - probably disbanded after service.

Well the Spiegel story tells the LP didn't sell - and that was about it. Their music wasn't very accomplished - only that Brit band, The Troggs, could play less chords on their instruments. But the Monks had style!

That girl moderating, Uschi Nehrke - 'bout half of Germany's male teens wanted to marry her!

[Big Beat Steve]

"Punk" before its time sounds a bit like it, from what I've seen in more recent rebroadcasts of the 60s b/w Beat Club shows (HR3 ran some a while ago). Maybe really too far ahead of their time, considering that U.S. garage punk bands of the 60s went largely unnoticed - especially in Europe - between the last vestiges of rock'n'roll, Brill Building pop, Motown, 60s Brit Beat and the rock acts starting up c.1968.

Lack of accomplishment, on the other hand, is something that might be said of other bands of those 60s. But sometimes raw energy, spontaneity and immediacy make up for all that.

And as for "LPs that didn't sell", isn't is exactly those items that are sure to fetch TOP money among collectors of the genre and give cult status to the artists (not least of all in jazz collector circles too? )

Edited April 24, 2009 by Big Beat Steve

[Hoppy T. Frog]

Mark E Smith of the Fall was touting the Monks back in the 80s, and covered two of their songs on "Extricate" (1989) but they remained largely unheard until a mid-90s CD reissue on Henry Rollins' short-lived Infinite Zero label--that's when I was finally able to hear them.

Infinite Zero was rad--they also issued on CD for the first time very early Trouble Funk recordings, the middle two Gang of Four albums, and Devo.

[JSngry]

I mean, ok, things start off normal garage-band-y enough, but then that banjo comes in with a cross-pocket that just puts it someplace else altogether.

I heard a clip of the studio version of this son on AMG and it did not get into the place that this one does, not at all.