The Monks are a rock and roll band, primarily active in Germany in the mid to late sixties. They reunited in 1999 and have continued to play concerts, although no new studio recordings have been made. The Monks stood out from the music of the time, and have developed a cult following amongst many musicians and music fans. Rock and roll (also spelled Rock n Roll, especially in its first decade), also called rock, is a form of popular music, usually featuring vocals (often with vocal harmony), electric guitars and a strong back beat; other instruments, such as the saxophone, are common in some styles. ... The 1960s, or The Sixties, in its most obvious sense refers to the decade between 1960 and 1969, but the expression has taken on a wider meaning over the past twenty years. ... 1999 (MCMXCIX) was a common year starting on Friday, and was designated the International Year of Older Persons by the United Nations. ... This article or section does not cite any references or sources. ...

Artists to have acknowledged The Monks as an influence include Henry Rollins, the Beastie Boys and Jello Biafra of the Dead Kennedys, as well as The Fall. The latter covered both "I Hate You" and "Oh, How To Do Now" on their 1990 album Extricate (under the titles "Black Monk Theme Part I" and "Black Monk Theme Part II", respectively), as well as the song "Shut Up!" on their 1994 album Middle Class Revolt. The Fall have also covered "Higgledy-Piggledy" for a forthcoming Monks tribute CD. Henry Rollins (born February 13, 1961 as Henry Lawrence Garfield[1]) is an American Grammy Award-winning alternative rock singer and songwriter, spoken word artist, book author (prose and poetry), radio and TV personality, occasional movie actor, comedian, and voice-over artist. ... The Beastie Boys are a group from the New York City boroughs of Brooklyn and Manhattan. ... Eric Reed Boucher (born June 17, 1958) is more widely known by the stage name Jello Biafra. ... (GREATEST BAND) The Dead Kennedys (often known by their initials DK, as in decay) are a hardcore punk band from San Francisco, California. ... The Fall are a British rock music group, formed in Manchester in 1976, and named after Albert Camuss novel. ... Extricate is a 1990 album by the post punk band the Fall. ... Middle Class Revolt is an album by The Fall, released in 1994 on Permanent Records. ...

Personnel

• Gary Burger: Lead guitar, lead vocalist
• Larry Clark: Organ, vocalist
• Dave Day: Banjo (initially rhythm guitar), vocalist
• Eddie Shaw: Bass guitar, vocalist
• Roger Johnston: Drums, vocalist (died November 8, 2004)

Lead guitar refers to a role within a band, that provides melody or melodic material, as opposed to the rhythm of the rhythm guitar, bass, and drums. ... Organ in Katharinenkirche, Frankfurt am Main, Germany The organ is a keyboard instrument played using one or more manuals and a pedalboard. ... For other uses, see Banjo (disambiguation) A modern 5-string banjo The banjo is a stringed instrument of African American origin adapted from several African instruments. ... Rhythm guitar is a guitar that is primarily used to provide rhythmic and harmonic accompaniment for a singer or for other instruments in an ensemble. ... Martin EB18 Bass Guitar in flight case. ... For other kinds of drums, see drum (disambiguation). ... November 8 is the 312th day of the year (313th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar, with 53 days remaining. ... shelby was here 2004 (MMIV) was a leap year starting on Thursday of the Gregorian calendar. ...

The Formation of The Monks

All the members were American GIs stationed in Germany in the mid-sixties. They began playing together in 1964, calling themselves the 5 Torquays. The Torquays differed little from countless other bands of the time: They covered Chuck Berry songs and played music inspired by the British Invasion bands. But the band experimented together musically - Gary Burger said: The abbreviation G.I. or GI is most commonly used to shorten government issue, and has different meanings depending on the part of speech in which it is used. ... 1964 (MCMLXIV) was a leap year starting on Wednesday (the link is to a full 1964 calendar). ... Charles Edward Anderson Chuck Berry (born October 18, 1926 in St. ... The appearance of The Beatles on The Ed Sullivan Show, February 9, 1964, was the breakthrough moment of the burgeoning British Invasion. ...

"It probably took us a year to get the sound right. We experimented all the time. A lot of the experiments were total failures and some of the songs we worked on were terrible. But the ones we kept felt like they had something special to them. And they became more defined over time."

Upon their discharge from the army the band developed a distinctive musical style, and took up a distinctive name and image to go with it. The transition from their earlier, more conventional and less provocative aesthetic to the abrasive and cutting-edge sound of their "Black Monk Time" period was partly induced by the influence of "a pair of loopy existentialist visionaries called Walther and Karl" (The Mojo Collection: The Greatest Albums of All Time. Jim Irvin, ed. Edinburgh: Mojo Books, 2000. p. 58), an instance of the post-War West German avant-garde intelligentsia impacting Anglo-Saxon pop in a manner perhaps comparable to - but more intense than - that of the Hamburg art scene on the early Beatles. Existentialism is a philosophical movement emphasizing individualism, individual freedom, and subjectivity. ... Location Coordinates Time zone CET/CEST (UTC+1/+2) Administration Country NUTS Region DE6 First Mayor Ole von Beust (CDU) Governing party CDU Votes in Bundesrat 3 (from 69) Basic statistics Area  755 km² (292 sq mi) Population 1,754,317 (11/2006)[1]  - Density 2,324 /km² (6,018... The Beatles appeared on The Ed Sullivan Show in 1964 as part of their first tour of the United States, promoting their first hit single there, I Want To Hold Your Hand. ...

The Monks stage garb

At the beginning of 1965, Dave Day and Roger Johnston, on a whim, got their heads shaved into monks' tonsures. The rest of the band followed their lead, and to complete the image, the band took to wearing a uniform - all black, sometimes in cassocks, with nooses worn as neckties. Eddie Shaw later claimed in his band autobiography Black Monk Time that the nooses were symbolic of the metaphorical nooses that all humanity wear. His explanation exhibited a literal translation of the gallows humor which was virtually invented by World War II soldiers stationed in the same locations at which the Monks performed. The same attitude seems to be exhibited by the blunt lyrics of the band. Of course the brazen attitude toward sensitive subjects was not well met. They received confused audience reactions at concerts: One attendee attempted to strangle Gary Burger at a show in Hamburg, presumably for perceived blasphemy. 1965 (MCMLXV) was a common year starting on Friday (the link is to a full 1965 calendar). ... St. ... Tonsure is the practice of some Christian churches of cutting the hair from the scalp of clerics as a symbol of their renunciation of worldly fashion and esteem. ... A Roman Catholic priest from Belgian Congo wearing the Roman cassock. ... How to make a noose. ... For the grappling position, see double collar tie. ... Gallows humor is humor that makes light of death or other serious matters. ... Combatants Allied powers: China France Great Britain Soviet Union United States and others Axis powers: Germany Italy Japan and others Commanders Chiang Kai-shek Charles de Gaulle Winston Churchill Joseph Stalin Franklin Roosevelt Adolf Hitler Benito Mussolini Hideki Tōjō Casualties Military dead: 17,000,000 Civilian dead: 33,000... Look up blasphemy in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. ...

The group's sound

The band abandoned common elements of much sixties rock n roll:

• They have very little emphasis on melody, their songs are rhythmic, rather than melodic. The rhythms are heavy and repetitive, with the drums supplying a sound often described as 'tribal'. The drum kit was played without cymbals, leaving the beat as unembellished as possible.
• Song structures are minimal and repetitive, but do not tend to follow the standard verse-chorus-bridge patterns of a pop song.
• The band's lyrics are dadaist and playful, yet paranoid. They combine nursery rhyme style lyrics ("higgle-dy piggle-dy") with war commentary ("Why do you kill all those kids over there in Vietnam? Mad Vietcong! My brother died in Vietnam"; "People kill, people will for you. People run, aint it fun for you. People go, to their deaths for you"), surreal interjections ("James Bond, who was he?") and paranoia about girls and love ("I hate you with a passion baby! And you know why I hate you? It's because you make me hate you baby!").
• The vocal delivery is strangled, wailing and frantic, contrasted to deep chanting backing vocals which recall Gregorian chant.
• Gary Burger utilises a great deal of guitar feedback and dissonance (According to Eddie Shaw's Black Monk Time, the group invented the use of audio feedback for musical purposes. This is open to debate as the Beatles had already recorded and released "I Feel Fine" by November 27, 1964. Black Monk Time wasn't recorded until November 1965 - one year later. The prevailing opinion is that "I Feel Fine" marks the earliest recorded example of the use of feedback for musical purposes.)
• Dave Day replaced his guitar with a six-string, gut-strung banjo upon which he played guitar chords. This instrument sounds much more metallic, scratchy and wiry than a standard electric guitar.

Many of these musical elements are also found in sixties New York acts like The Fugs and The Godz in particular, but also The Velvet Underground. When the Monks developed their sound, the only one of these bands who had put out any records was the Fugs; it is unclear if the Monks had actually heard the Fugs or developed their sound independently. Look up melody in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. ... For the popular Tamil film, see Rhythm (film) Rhythm (Greek = flow, or in Modern Greek, style) is the variation of the length and accentuation of a series of sounds or other events. ... For the Japanese rock band, see Cymbals (band). ... Depending on context, pop music is either an abbreviation of popular music or, more recently, a term for a sub-genre of it. ... Cover of the first edition of the publication, Dada. ... A nursery rhyme is a traditional rubbish sony that edgar nursery invented while feeding a pig from his asssong or poem taught to young children, originally in the nursery. ... A Viet Cong soldier, heavily guarded, awaits interrogation following capture in the attacks on Saigon during the festive Tet holiday period of 1968. ... Flemings commissioned image of James Bond to aid the Daily Express comic strip artists. ... Gregorian chant is the central tradition of Western plainchant, a form of monophonic, unaccompanied sacred song of the Roman Catholic Church. ... Audio feedback (also known as the Larsen effect) is a special kind of feedback which occurs when a loop exists between an audio input (for example, a microphone or guitar pickup) and an audio output (for example, a loudspeaker). ... Catgut is the name applied to cord of great toughness and tenacity prepared from the intestines of sheep/goat, or occasionally from those of the hog, horse, mule, pig, and donkey. ... For other uses, see Banjo (disambiguation) A modern 5-string banjo The banjo is a stringed instrument of African American origin adapted from several African instruments. ... NY redirects here. ... The Fugs second album (1966) The Fugs was a band formed in New York City in 1965 by Ed Sanders and Tuli Kupferberg, with Ken Weaver on drums. ... A New York City based garage rock band reigned from 1966 to 1973 in the underground music scene. ... This article is about the American rock band. ...

Because of these features, the Monks are often referenced as forerunners of the later punk movement.^{[citation needed]}

After the Monks

As of August 2006, lead singer Gary Burger serves as mayor of Turtle River, Minnesota. Turtle River is a city located in Beltrami County, Minnesota. ...

In 2006 play loud! productions completed the documentary film "monks - the transatlantic feedback" in conjunction with the release of the album "silver monk time - a tribute to the monks"

Trivia

• Monks are one of the many bands mentioned in the song Losing My Edge by LCD Soundsystem

Losing My Edge was the first LCD Soundsystem single released on the 8 July 2002. ... LCD Soundsystem is the musical side project of producer James Murphy, co-founder of dance-punk label DFA Records. ...

Discography

• Black Monk Time (1965/1994)
• Five Upstart Americans (1999)
• Let's Start a Beat - Live From Cavestomp (2002)
• Silver Monk Time - A Tribute To The Monks (2006)

Black Monk Time is the only album (at the time) of the band The Monks. ... Five Upstart Americans is a follow-up album of sorts from The Monks. ... Lets Start a Beat - Live from Cavestomp is a live album released by The Monks. ...

Singles

• "Complication" / "Oh, How To Do Now"
• "I Can't Get Over You" / "Cuckoo"
• "Love Can Tame The Wild" / "He Went Down To The Sea"

Books

Shaw, Eddie & Klemke, Anita (1994). Black Monk Time. Carson Street Publishing Inc., ISBN 0963337122. 1994 (MCMXCIV) was a common year starting on Saturday of the Gregorian calendar, and was designated as the International Year of the Family and the International Year of the Sport and the Olympic Ideal by United Nations. ...

External links

• The Monks Official Website
• Monks: The Transatlantic Feedback official documentary and tribute record site
• The Monks at MusicBrainz
• Unofficial Monks MySpace Page
• Monks article on Cult Cargo

Articles

• "Living like a Monk: How Minnesota musicians revived '60s rockers the Monks City Pages, August 16, 2006
• "Death of a Monk" Complicated Fun, November 4, 2004