Black Monk Time
Cool, NPR just had a bit about The Monks, one my favorite weird bands of all time. I was introduced to them by a summer intern that worked with me when I was ‘managing’ the ‘Back Room Lab’ at ARCO. The kid’s name was, and probably still is, Chuck and he was the son of one of the higher ups in the company, but I forget exactly who now. He was kind of a jerk, but he had an epic collection of CDs that he carried around in one of those huge CD notebooks, and despite being an ass he was pretty cool for those few months. Anyway, he introduced me to The Monks and I was almost immediately hooked on their sound, which I would describe as a frantic, musical insanity. It’s hard to say what drove me to like their music more, the innate appeal of noisy, pre-punk, or the fact that it drove my buddy John crazy. Initially he’d just leave the room, but after my repeated dickish stunts of playing the CD loudly he began to throw things. That’s when I let it go.
When Chuck left after the summer I was deprived of The Monks, but I quickly forgot them and moved on to other things. I would occasionally check out CD stores (remember those?) to see if they had the disc, but I never ran across it. I finally stumbled across the full album in MP3 format on UseNET, so I get the opportunity to re-listen every now and then. I don’t think I’ve ever found another fan of The Monks, and anyone I’ve ever made listen to the CD seems to be repulsed by it. The NPR story, of which I only caught the end, seemed to indicate that this was most everyone else’s response to them as well. This kind of increases the appeal of it for me, and after reading their Wikipedia page I was interested to see the bands that claim them as an inspirational source. So it was cool to hear story out of the blue on NPR referencing what I’ve always felt to be one of the most obscure bands I’ve ever heard of. Another reason why I always enjoy NPR.
Oh yeah, Chuck is also responsible for introducing me to the Squirrel Nut Zippers, another band that I enjoyed considerably, and actually got to see live twice.