Monks: The Transatlantic Feedback

http://www.cuff.org/

http://www.playloud.org/sound/Monkstrailer.mov

And with the Conquerors in Minneapolis on Thursday at the Bryant-Lake Bowl.
http://www.bryantlakebowl.com
http://www.soundunseen.com/2006/music/enjoy-these-free-shows-at-film-screenings

I don't agree that Vietnam = Iraq, but it still sent shivers up my spine...

So if all one knows of The Monks is "Complication," where does one go from there?

as much as i like 'black monk time' i somewhat agree, at least with the recontextualising of them going a bit overboard

great article as usual, Pete

-one is by a different band with the same name
-one is an collection of Black Monk Time demos
-one is a live album recorded in 1999

Therefore, the winner is...the one that appears first on the search page, has all the reviews, and is described as a "reissue of their sole album". When researching artists you're not familiar with, try AMG instead of Amazon; everything is organized much more clearly.

Maybe listen to the album again--most of the seven or so classic songs don't take right away. Watching the videos might help:

The Monks vids from YouTube - Classic or Dud?

Otherwise just remember that people on here hate the Clash or dislike James Brown, too, so there's always room for not getting something that's plainly obviously great to my ears...

www.posteverything.com had the info.

http://blogs.citypages.com/pscholtes/2006/10/the_monks_reuni.asp

Here's that article at the top again, since the link is broken, ugh:

Living Like a Monk: How Minnesota musicians revived '60s rockers the Monks
http://www.citypages.com/2006-08-16/movies/living-like-a-monk/all

By the way the DVD is coming out on May 5th in the US:
Amazon Link

They're showing this in the cinema next to me tonight at an 11 o'clock screening with a Monks cover band on first, but I have a cold. Bah

this was on sundance last night! awesome.

I gotta see it.

Pretty depressing to see them now.

Why, because people get old?

Damn that was a pretty cool movie. I knew nothing at all about the Monks (besides their music) going into it and the general idea you get coming out is that these were totally regular guys that liked rock 'n' roll and had lots of chops and got to participate in a German Mad Scientist's anti-pop experiment. It's great cos their music is so insane yet they come across as the most down-to-earth, dorky, unpretentious people on the planet.

The only sad part of this movie for me was at the end when they were doing the reunion show and they'd interview someone who'd say 'It's funny that they are looking at all this attention they are getting now and wondering, why the big fuss?' Cos a good half-hour of the documentary is about how they basically broke up cos nobody liked their music, they got constantly heckled, wrong place wrong time, etc. If they've all resigned themselves to not making a big deal of the Monks in their new lives it's understandable since they got a lot of shit for it at the time....

I loved the section where they talk about the managers and how they'd come in and tell them to take a song down from five chords to two chords or one chord, and take the lyrics from 15 words to 3 words. I don't know if they remastered the tunes for this movie but they sound more amazing than I've ever heard.

Plus, the DVD comes with the full Beat Club and Beat Beat Beat TV performances! Plus it's on Netflix!!