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Artist News Releases
Monks albums to be reissued
By CMU Editorial | Published on Monday 19 January 2009
Light In The Attic Records has announced that it will reissue two albums by garage-psych pioneers The Monks later this year.
The band’s sole album, and possibly the best album to come out of the 60s (he said, opening a can of worms), ‘Black Monk Time’, and a compilation of early recordings, ‘The Early Years: 1964-1965’, will be released – in the US at least – in remastered form on CD, vinyl and download with bonus material on 14 Apr.
Formed in 1964, the band was comprised of five American GIs stationed in Germany. Initially calling themselves The Five Torquays, they were influenced by British bands of the time, but quickly became more experimental, with rhythm guitarist Dave Day switching to banjo, and all five members shaving their heads like monks, donning cassocks and hanging nooses around their necks.
The band claim to have invented the use of guitar feedback for intentional effect, and to have influenced Jimi Hendrix to do the same. Although not widely known, many artists, including The Fall, Beastie Boys and Chicks On Speed, have cited them as an influence.
The band reformed in 1999 and have continued to play shows, although drummer Roger Johnson died in 2004 and Dave Day died last year.
Watch the band confusing the kids on German TV in 1966 here.
