Un post para Ramoncín. v.5

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'. Compare Drone music for the Western and Eastern roots of this music style. Prior to The Monks, Little Richard had written Long Tall Sally in 1956 around one single note, very similar to drone music. The Monks' focusing on rhythm rather than melody also was reminiscent of 1950s R'n'B, compare especially Bo Diddley beat, and the rhythm-based styles of musicians such as Ray Charles, The Champs (see Chicano rock), Sam Cooke, and The Shadows. The mastering The Monks received, resulting in a very archaic, raw and aggressive sound, was very similar to that of contemporary, more successful German band The Rattles who were signed to the same German Polydor label as were The Monks.

· Song structures are minimal and repetitive, and 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, ain't 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, although both lead and background vocals of The Monks are reminiscent of the Shout-and-fall modal frame typical for 1950s R'n'B recordings such as by Ray Charles, Little Richard, and others.

· 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. It's been claimed by Burger that Jimi Hendrix caught their act in London and paid special attention to his use of feedback and the newly developed Gibson Fuzzbox along with the Wah-Wah Pedal. Perhaps the most notable aspect is that Burger eschews playing chords and scales in favour of free form bursts of improvised noise. The Monks published their album, and a little bit later The Velvet Underground and other noise rock groups would soon adopt a similar style of playing.

· 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.

Because of these features, the Monks are often referenced as forerunners of the later punk movement. Their use of improvisation, noise and motorik rhythms (as well as their geographical location) has also led to them being cited as the godfathers of krautrock.


Julian Cope:

... NO-ONE ever came up with a whole album of such dementia. The Monks' Black Monk Time is a gem born of isolation and the horrible deep-down knowledge that no-one is really listening to what your [sic] saying. And the Monks took full artistic advantage of their lucky/unlucky position as American rockers in a country that was desperate for the real thing. They wrote songs that would have been horribly mutilated by arrangers and producers had they been back in America. But there was no need for them to clean up their act, as the Beatles and others had had to do on returning home, for there were no artistic constraints in a country that liked the sound of beat music but had no idea about its lyric content.