Here’s a scenario for a movie; a bunch of American G.I.’s in Germany form a band for fun and profit, only they quickly abandon the idea of playing frat-rock hits, opting instead to play primal counterculture tunes about anger and hatred while dressed in monk’s robes and shaved skulls…nah, nobody would believe it. Except that it’s true.

In all of rock and roll history, has there ever been a freakier band concept? These guys flew in the face of all that was reasonable, or even acceptable. Most audiences hated them, feeling threatened by the confrontation of their very existence. Once, an audience member attacked lead singer Gary Burger and attempted to strangle him for ‘blasphemous’ lyrics, but it’s just as likely that the primitive, pounding rhythms could have incited such violence.

How these guys ever got signed to Polydor Records is beyond my comprehension, but I’m really glad they did. Otherwise, history would not have acknowledged that such a thing as the Monks could have existed as early as 1966. Talk about a band that existed outside of its appropriate timeframe – the Monks would have been provocative in 1986, no less 1966. As a point of reference, this music was made 11 years before the Sex Pistols debut. Quite simply, this band is a historical anomaly, difficult to explain in the context of the time but nonetheless quite entertaining.

The songs featured on this album were not spontaneous creations but rather the result of years of hard work and experimentation. The impetus for abandoning Chuck berry covers for more provocative fare came from a pair of art-damaged German existentialists who saw potential in creating an ‘anti-Beatles’ – not in the simple Rolling Stones sense of allowing the press to paint them as bad boys, but rather in a more complicated, existentialist sense of alienating and sometimes frightening their audience. The band plows into every track with a conviction that borders on insanity, because they were convinced that nobody really listened anyway.

It represented the ultimate dilemma of existence; singing English lyrics to a German audience that disregarded their message, making it even more poignant that so many of the songs exude bile for society. In short, the Monks were an enigma, wrapped in bacon. In 1965, it only served to confound anyone who heard it, but generations later, our societal cynicism allows us to enjoy the Monks at face value. Go figure.

March 1966 - Billboard Charted: Did Not Chart