Friday, May 19, 2006

The Monks 'Oh How to do Now'

If you haven't heard the Monks - 60s mavericks active in West Germany - then watch this clip.
And then Boys are Boys and Girls are Choice or maybe Complication their most famous song. They sort of operated in a parallel world to anyone else in the 60s by being unselfconscious and totally original.
In order to persuade you to become Monk devotees I copied and pasted this description of their music from the Wiki on them - it's a pretty good read. I had never heard the Monks until a couple of years ago and I was quite shocked that they'd been so ignored.
The group's sound
The band abandoned many accepted musical norms of 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 angry 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"), incomprehensibly 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).
Dave Day replaced his guitar with a
banjo upon which he played guitar chords. This 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.
Because of these features, they are often referenced as forerunner of the later punk movement.

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