The Monks : Black Monk Time

This is a reissue of the first album by the group of former U.S. G.I.'s with the tonsure haircuts who baffled audiences in Germany with their droney garage rock with weird lyrics and noisy guitar parts. The album has been available in "semi-legit" form on CD for years, but now we get a nice reissue with six bonus tracks. This band were certainly unique, and they remain one of the few groups to inspire bands like The Fall and formed a definite link between garage rock and punk rock. The album was produced by Jimmy Bowien (not Jimmy Bowen!), recorded November 1965 in Cologne, Germany, and released March 1966 by Polydor Records in Germany. I found some great quotes about recording this album from singer Gary Burger in an interview at www.electricroulette.com, about the tracking which happened "very late at night after a gig in Koln. The sessions were tiring because we'd played our gig and now were starting the recording around 4:00 AM in the morning. We did the band tracks in a very large studio. We were spread out around the room and it was difficult being in musical contact with one another. I think we eventually moved closer together to ease the problem. Our producer, Jimmy Bowien of Polydor, was a very cool guy and we all liked him and his terrific enthusiasm for the project. Except for the vocal overdubs it was all done in one tape pass." Also issued is The Early Years: 1964-1965, a collection of recordings done before this album. www.lightintheattic.net -LC