Black Monk Time

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Black Monk Time
Studio album by The Monks
Released	March 1966
Recorded	Nov 1965 in Cologne, Germany
Genre	Protopunk/Rock
Length	48:54
Label	Polydor
Producer(s)	Jimmy Bowien
Professional reviews
All Music Guide link

Black Monk Time is the only album (at the time) of the band The Monks. Produced by Jimmy Bowien, and recorded November 1965 in Cologne, Germany. Released March 1966 by Polydor in Germany. Reissued in 1994 on Repertoire Records. Described in the mid-1990's by Julian Cope as a "lost classic" (Krautrocksampler: One Head's Guide to the Great Kosmische Musik - 1968 Onwards. 3rd ed. Head Heritage, 1996. p. 6), the album has since been reissued more than once, and has gained a broader, albeit still underground, appreciation and fame. Of the album's raw style, and the context of its production, Cope writes:

... 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 your [sic] 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. They wrote songs that would have been horribly mutilated by arrangers and producers had they been back in America. But there was no need for them to clean up their act, as the Beatles and others had had to do on returning home, for there were no artistic constraints in a country that liked the sound of beat music but had no idea about its lyric content (Krautrocksampler: One Head's Guide to the Great Kosmische Musik - 1968 Onwards. 3rd ed. Head Heritage, 1996. p. 7).

[edit] Track listing

1. "Monk Time" – 2:42
2. "Shut Up" – 3:11
3. "Boys Are Boys and Girls Are Choice" – 1:23
4. "Higgle-Dy-Piggle-Dy" – 2:28
5. "I Hate You" – 3:32
6. "Oh, How to Do Now" – 3:14
7. "Complication" – 2:21
8. "We Do Wie Du" – 2:09
9. "Drunken Maria" – 1:44
10. "Love Came Tumblin' Down" – 2:28
11. "Blast Off!" – 2:12
12. "That's My Girl" – 2:24

CD bonus tracks

1. "I Can't Get Over You" – 2:42
2. "Cuckoo" – 2:41
3. "Love Can Tame the Wild" – 2:38
4. "He Went Down to the Sea" – 3:03

• All tracks written by Burger/Clark/Day/Johnston/Shaw.

A 1996 reissue on the Infinite Zero label included three additional bonus tracks on top of the four above:

1. "Monk Chant" [Live] - 1:59
2. "I Hate You" [Demo Version] - 3:24
3. "Oh, How to Do Now" [Demo Version] - 2:39

UK post-punk band The Fall has covered four of these songs: "I Hate You" and "Oh How to Do Now" (on their 1990 LP Extricate), "Shut Up" (on their 1994 LP Middle Class Revolt) and "Higgle-Dy Piggle-Dy" (on the forthcoming Monks tribute compilation Silver Monk Time).

[edit] The Monks

• Vocals/Guitar: Gary Burger
• Organ: Larry Clark
• Drums: Roger Johnston
• Bass guitar: Eddie Shaw
• Banjo: Dave Day

LINKS Black Monk Time article on Cult Cargo