I Desperately Need to See This Movie. You Do Too. I'm a Monk, You're a Monk, We're All Monks.

It's beat time, it's hot time, it's Monk time.


 

It's telling to me that the American Jon Spencer identifies the Monks with primal Rock n' Roll, while the Germans tend to pick up on elements like the pulsating, mechanical rhythms of the Monks which link them to electronic and industrial music. This is why Julian Cope identifies the Monks as the "missing link" between American R&R and German experimental kosmiche musik in Krautrocksampler. I discovered the Monks through my interest in '60s garage-rock, but they've always sounded closer to The Velvet Underground than The Sonics or any of the Nuggets artists.

. . . 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 you're 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. 
- Julian Cope, Krautrocksampler