The Monks Pt II
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Marcus? Yeah? Have you ever started a music history podcast series to talk about your favorite bands and maybe learn some new bands and just get into discussing music and the dynamic of band histories only to end up spending all your time watching a 24-part series of Cold War for said music history podcast? Let's say you're like, I want to think about and talk about music. But I spent like a month...

It was longer than a month. Maybe more. On the Cold War. For this part. Yeah, for this part individually. It was incredible. The house was nothing but Cold War, Cold War. I thought I was living with Robert McNamara. I went on Redbubble to find some Cold War clothes. You get Cold War merch. I did. I got a Checkpoint Charlie shirt.

Welcome to No Dogs in Space, ladies and gentlemen. My name is Marcus Parks. And I'm Carolina Hidalgo, not a historian. Not a historian, but a Cold War enthusiast, surely. Let's get into The Monks Part 2. So when we last left The Monks, they'd agreed to work with two German ad executives named Walter and Carl, who saw the band's heavy, feedback-riddled music as the future of rock, which they believed would help make The Monks the so-called anti-Beatles.

But after recognizing the musical potential of the monks, the ad executives took it a step further into where else but the realm of image.

They dressed the boys in matching all-black outfits, complete with ropes for neckties and the sort of haircut one associates with an actual monk, you know, the shaved little tonsure on the crown of the head. It was, however, somewhat ironic that the band had all left the army because it wasn't their bag, only to get another job where they all had to wear uniforms. But their experience in the army, the conformity of it, is what made the monks one of the most unique rock bands in history.

See, none of the members of the Monks really like the same sort of music. Lead singer Gary Berger was a surf guitarist influenced by country. Drummer Roger Johnston liked jazz and country. I heard he also liked swing. Yeah. I mean, he was a drifter of sorts, so apparently he also drifted in and out of music genres as well. And also, I think swing is kind of a drifter soundtrack. Like, you know, Pennsylvania 8-5000? That's a drifter song, but a happy one. Yes.

Organist Larry Clark, he liked green onions. Banjo player Dave Day, he loved Elvis. And bassist Eddie Shaw actually played jazz trumpet prior to learning the bass.

But the point is that none of these guys would have joined and stayed in the same band had it not been for their circumstances. If they'd been in America, they would have found jazz guys, country guys, rock guys. But because they had all been stuck on an army base that they legally couldn't leave unless given permission, they took what they could get.

Therefore, when their individual styles were broken down to their simplest elements and they all got mixed together into a wall of equal parts, what came out the other side was this.

Those fucking hot pipes. Those hot pipes ain't getting any cooler. I like it. It's got a little bit of exploding plastic inevitable to it. You know what I mean? Like it's got something fun and funky and you don't know where it's going to go next. No, not at all. Actually, I faded it down right before the really crazy guitar part came in. But if you want to check that out, go and look at that performance on YouTube. It is on YouTube. It's a live performance.

That clip is from a German TV performance. It's very cool to see. You actually get to see the monks in their heyday. You get to see them performing all in one line. Nobody's in front. Nobody's in back. It's just a fucking wall of sound. Yeah, that's the one where they were told by Walter and Carl, like, don't smile. You know, like, act hard or something. Like Cold Stone kind of deal. But then they showed up and like, the hell with it.

hell with it I'm on TV this is great why would I not smile you are monks monks are very serious people if you don't want to be a serious person that's fine but you can't be a monk okay no we're gonna be monks anyways yeah they said fuck it

But that show, which the monks were performing, that was a standard teenage bandstand German TV performance. It's a bunch of kids dancing around. But the kids in that crowd, they were, to put it into a word, confused about what they were hearing. Because they didn't know how to dance to it, right? They really didn't. Like, no one in the crowd, like you can, it's a live performance.

The kids are hearing the same music that we're hearing. And for some reason, they can't get the beat. They don't know what to do with it. Because the beat is dead. Long live the hop. Goddamn right. That's the thing. That's the beginning. We talked about that at the end of part one is just the hop, the kind of slam dancing, moshing, the future of what happens with music, live music particularly. Very much so. I mean, these guys are doing it 10 years before anybody else even thinks about it.

But while most of the audience members who were shocked by their appearance and sound did so in stunned silence, others overreacted.

I will kill you!

Jesus. Translated to English, this man was saying, I will kill you. Yeah. No, no, we got that. Was that just, you got that from fucking context clues? Saigon. It was rough. It gave Martin Sheen a heart attack. And this guy keeps saying this while he's walking towards lead singer Gary Berger, and

bassist Eddie Shaw meanwhile he's not going to let that five note groove die so he played interference by trying to block the intruder with his hips and with the neck of his bass guitar but the guy started swatting the bass away knocked a couple of pegs out of tune and did they tell him just please keep

in time as you're saying this shit. Yeah. And so the whole time, Gary Berger also, he's not stopping singing. He's still singing I Hate You With a Passion Baby. And finally, security guards stepped in and they dragged the guy off stage. And he also never stopped saying, Ich werde dich toten. Ich werde dich toten. I think, um,

Maybe it took many decades for a term called PTSD to come out because you see some American GIs on stage and all of a sudden it's helicopters and mist and you're no longer in a club. It's only 20 years after World War Two. Who knows what this guy saw in 1945?

But to that point, I mean, whether it was personal to this audience member or not, one of the main tenants of the monk style was tension, which only mirrored what they've been feeling for years as a result of living in Germany during the Cold War. Yeah, that is one of the most badass times and places to me. It's very Casablanca.

It really is. Yes. So, OK, remember, the threat of nuclear war between the U.S. and the Soviet Union was at a boiling point in the early 60s. So the intensity is being felt right in Germany where the monks are stationed. Of course, with that intensity, there's confrontations.

And I remember there was a tank standoff between the U.S. and the Soviet Union. And then the Berlin Wall went up. It's like these communists and capitalists just can't get along. In October 1962, the Cuban Missile Crisis happened. OK, you see, Khrushchev, he was a leader of the Soviet Union at the time. He thought it'd be a real fun idea to send loads of nuclear weapons to a small Caribbean island just right there.

miles away from American shores. The Americans, they found out about the Soviet nuclear weapons in Cuba during a spy plane recon mission. So they freaked the fuck out. Of course. President Kennedy, his brother Bobby, who was practically a president deputy at that time. Yeah, he was president junior. Yes. They were like, do we deal with this with aggression or diplomacy?

I don't know. It was 13 days of hell of not knowing if the world was going to survive this. And that's the moment where all five monks, all American GIs at this moment, were awoken to screaming sirens. They had to jump out of their beds and into gear like, now, now, now, now, now, because DEFCON 3. And we're almost at DEFCON 2. Yeah. Yes. You know what DEFCON 1 means?

It means kiss your ass goodbye. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Grab your ankles. It means we're dead. Yes. So, okay. So remember, this is 1962. The whole Cuban Missile Crisis thing happening. Before the guys even met each other, much less started the Torques and the monks. But they all still had similar experiences that week. Yeah, they're just all on the same base. Yes. Coleman Casiano. Yeah, because some of them were...

Some of them were artillery. Others, you know, they're all over the place, right? So some of the monks were convoyed to the East German border, while others, like Roger, were sent to a strategic location between the two mountains called the Fulda Gap. That's where the American tanks were ready for the communists to come over the hill, basically. That is a very big, like...

Plane area like not plane. I mean like the planes. No you have a plane a large flat surface I read about this. This is how they got Napoleon the third the Fredo of the Napoleon Anyway, I might my history. I seriously I went all the way back I need to learn the entirety of the unification of Germany to learn and how they divided and reunited again Yeah, there was definitely a time in our home where it was like it's Habsburg week

Okay, I know, I know. I'm sorry, everybody. Let's get on with it. Let's get on with it. Okay, so Eddie, the bass player, he sat in a foxhole with a rifle strapped to his back all night and had to deal with the army chaplain dropping by to ask him if he had any sense to confess because it might be your last chance. Yeah. Yeah, boys. These are boys 18 to 22 years old. So they're men, but they're also boys. You know what I mean? So now as history tells us, Khrushchev died.

did pull the nuclear weapons out of Cuba, but with the understanding that the U.S. must never invade Cuba and they had to pull their weapons out of Turkey. You know, it was a whole big to-do, I guess. I don't know, to say the least. That's why I'm never going to write anything on the Cold War. What a big to-do.

So the U.S. got out of that one fairly unscathed. But the next year, in November 1963, President Kennedy was killed in a motorcade in Dallas, Texas, to which Roger, who was from Texas, said, of course it had to happen in Texas. Goddamn Texas.

That's not my quote, but I wrote it down for fun. It's not your quote, but goddamn Texas. It does absolutely give, it encapsulates as a Texas patriot myself. You are a Texan, yes. Yeah, yeah. It's like, goddamn it, Texas. Like, it is, that's just, you feel that, you hear it. And still to this day, I feel, goddamn it, Texas. It's like, why don't you come over or something? I don't want to come over. Did you see that?

Among other things. But the thing is that, you know, the Cuban Missile Crisis that happened, the missiles went in, the missiles went out, and all the monks, like, they've been on Coleman, Kiserny, nothing happens, but they just spent 13 days going like, motherfucker, is something gonna happen? Are we gonna fucking die? I don't fucking know, man. Yeah.

Oh, man. And then Kennedy dies. Yeah. Right. I mean, there's at this point, they're practically they're the torques at this point when Kennedy is shot and killed in 63. And they're also like, I think we're going to war now. Well, at that point, they were more concerned that we were going to war than during the Cuban Missile Crisis. Absolutely. Because if the Soviets were going to take advantage of America's vulnerability anywhere. Well,

or any time it was going to be now and in Germany. Right. That's because we're sharing a cabin, a summer rental with the USSR. And that's and that's what's happening. So but again, that actually ended up not happening. Right. So everyone remember that did not happen. But what the boys didn't know was that Kennedy, before he died, had escalated America's involvement in a little place called Vietnam, which would come to partly define the career of the monks and, you know, America in the 20th century. Right.

However, the monks were conflicted about America's involvement in the war. Because remember, they were like, what, boomers? Yeah, absolutely boomers. Yeah, they're boomers. You know, they trusted their government because after all, they've been heroes just 20 years before. Gary's dad was a World War II war hero. He got to kill Nazis. Americans are heroes, right? You know, freedom lovers.

and everything. Oh, yeah. But with more information about Vietnam coming out, it slowly dawned on the monks that America wasn't always the freedom-loving good guys that they wanted it to be. Nope. And that's when Walter and Carl asked the monks to express their opinions in a song. Yeah, Walter and Carl, they're managers. Absolutely. Yes, no, not random guys. Ha ha ha.

No, their management team, right? They're like, okay, why don't you take these thoughts and why don't you put them in these new songs, these new monk songs? So, okay, guys, what do you think about Vietnam?

I don't like it. Great. Write that down. OK, good. Right. And now let's write the music. OK, make it heavier. Yes. Heavier, heavier now. Go. OK, good. And then the guys are like, yeah, but how do we explain that Americans dying for a questionable reason feels unjust and that the U.S. government may not reflect the real interests of its people? Also, we're former military and we're American living in a foreign land that used to be our enemy. And everyone's looking at us real funny right now. How do we put that together in just a few words?

Well, it's complicated. Complication! Complication! People kill! Complication! People, people riot! Complication! Complication! To the death!

This is what happens when the U.S. government trains you to kill and you make music. It's wonderful. Yeah, it's great. I mean, and that does it just brings it all down to just such a simple fucking thing. It's complicated. And with songs like complication, the monks were after all, they were writing anti-Vietnam War protest music. They were writing songs that were going to make people very upset if they were paying close enough attention. But that's not to say that the monks were a protest band. Far from it.

See, they weren't writing complex, well-informed folk songs like Talking Vietnam Blues by Phil Oakes, which is like a fucking history report. Nor were they writing stuff like, you know, Tong Paxton stuff like this one that he wrote in 1965. I like it. Yeah, I love this song. Actually, it's very cool. It's the softer side of protest. It's very measured. It's very thoughtful. Let's take a listen.

I got a letter from LBJ It said this is your lucky day It's time to put your khaki trousers on Though it may seem very queer We've got no job to give you here So we are sending you to Vietnam Lyndon Johnson told the nation Have no fear of escalation I am trying everyone to please Though it isn't really war We're sending 50,000 more To help save Vietnam from Vietnamese

It's good. It's great protest music. It's very clever, I'd say. It's very well informed. It's got a point. Stop lying, Johnson. That's my song. Stop lying. Stop lying to us. It's full of irony. It's got everything that you want in a protest song, especially a folk protest song. But the monks on the opposite side, they came in as horrible.

Thank you.

Instead of clever wordplay and oh-how-dro points of view like you often got in folk songs at the time, it's mostly the Phil Oakes stuff, which is often described as quote-unquote humorous, all the Monks had to say was, stop it, I don't like it. The Monks' version of protest music was a nervous sledgehammer of the id, fearful and almost cartoonish. And this was especially true in Monk Time, the lead track to their debut album. All right!

Let's go, it's beat time, it's hop time, it's monk time. The army, what army? Why do you kill all those kids over there in Vietnam? My dear Kong, my brother died in Vietnam. Who is he? I remember my ears. Pussy galore is coming down, we like it. We don't like the atomic bomb. What's your meaning, Larry? You think like I think. You're a monk, I'm a monk, we're all monks. Everybody, let's go, it's beat time, it's hop time, it's monk time now. Yeah, play!

OK, so you see, that is not subtle. Stop it. I don't like it. We don't like the what army? We don't like the army. Why are you killing all those kids in Vietnam? And so that was a line where Eddie Shaw, the bassist, he stopped there and he's like, I'm not comfortable with that.

I know we're all activist monks at this moment right now when we're talking about Vietnam, but I'm not comfortable with that. I'm former GI. You guys are all former GIs. And what he was trying to explain was that, yes, these feelings are complicated, but we don't want to shit on our fellow soldiers who are going there because they're trained and they're following orders. Yeah, and they got friends in the Army. They are those guys. Their friends are being taken to Vietnam every single week when this is happening.

Yeah, when he says my brother died in Vietnam, it's not his literal brother, but, you know, figuratively. They had friends who died in Vietnam. Absolutely. So that's why when Eddie said, I'm not comfortable with that lyric about why do you kill the kids in Vietnam? Someone added, why don't we add mad Viet Cong to kind of just maybe muddle it up a little bit more and also make it like a both sides issue or something. Or like, why does anyone have to kill anyone? And it just made it a lot more, I guess, interesting.

Eddie accepted that and he was like, I can go with that. Yeah, it's fine. But unfortunately, that...

its own confusion sometimes did end up in weird situations. Like one time they did a show, I think in Mannheim, Germany, where it was at a GI bar and they decided to play the song. And it was, I read it, it was during the show, but I think it was after the show, this drunk American GI just wanders back into their dressing room and just starts screaming like, who's

Who sang that song? And grabs Gary and is like, I was just in Vietnam. I'm in Vietnam. I saw my friends die in Vietnam. How dare you write this song like we would kill little children and stuff. It was just a very awkward conversation just going across. He's like, did your brother die in Vietnam? I'm like, no. Marcus said her.

It was not a literal brother. We just have, you know, our brother in arms. Figuratively. And then the guy, the drunk guy who seemed like he was just going to pummel them all, just kind of just started crying. Yeah. And he was sobbing. And he's just like, I don't know, man. And he just kind of walked away. And it was just a sad scene because that scene,

That would happen. People would react, especially American GIs. A lot of them were very supportive. But once in a while, you'd get one that probably went through a lot of crap. Obviously, they were in the literal shit. That man was horrifically traumatized. Absolutely.

Absolutely. And I know Eddie mentioned it, I think, in an interview or in his book where like many decades later, like in the 90s, he was like at a bar and, you know, he was talking to another, you know, GI, like a veteran who was like, yeah, well, I was a nom. And and then I was in Germany and then I saw this really stupid band.

who talked about why you had to kill all those kids in Vietnam and I just wanted to kill them. But luckily I was on a date, but man, I just want to kill them. And then Eddie just takes another swig from his beer and is like, yep. And then waits about an hour and says, that was me. And he said, well, I hated you. But call me. And that was it. So that's what happens. That's what happens. That's what happens. That's what happens.

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Now, Walter and Carl were pushing hard for the Monks to get a record deal, but they were coming up empty because the Monks were just too weird for most labels. But surprisingly, the band eventually found a home at a massive label called Polydor that was not known for taking chances.

Luckily, Polydor was impressed that the monks had an actual team. Yes, it wasn't just Walter and Carl, although they did have Walter and Carl. Walter and Carl also brought in two others. There was Gunther, who did all the graphic design stuff. Yes, his name is Gunther. And, you know, making flyers and everything for the promos. And then his wife, Kiki, she dealt with all the legal stuff, contracts and whatnot. Kiki and Gunther are great names. They're not parakeets. Okay, they're people.

Okay, so they had a team. This is Kiki. She is Gunther. They're geniuses. Yes. Anyway, so I think one of the monks said that they were the most represented band in Hamburg at that time. Because it's true. They had a literal team of people working behind them. Well, the band was finally pushed over the finish line by a German record producer named Jimmy Bavian, who'd bought the pitch that the monks would be a turning point in music history.

Bavian thought that the monks were the next page after the Beatles, which made sense at the time. The world was getting darker and more absurd every day, and it wasn't that risky to believe that the music that people were going to want was going to reflect reality, specifically the rock music that people wanted. Little did they know that popular rock music trends would end up being the absolute opposite.

A loose reading is that the public wants rock that's dark, absurd, and blunt when life is easy. Look no further than the 90s. For example, by the comparatively peaceful year of 1999... I love this rant of yours. Go ahead. Sorry. One of the biggest rock hits of the year was from a scat metal group called Kool-Aid.

Corn with a K. The chorus to that song was as blunt as it could get. Beating me down, beating me down into the ground. Feeling so sad, beating me down, etc., etc. Yes, we are playing this on No Dogs in Space. Yeah, you know, they're not good, but you should like them. It's corn. Beating me down into the ground. Screaming so sound. Beating me down.

Scat metal. I mean, that was the biggest fucking rock group in 1999, except for perhaps Rob Thomas and fucking, you know, Santana playing together. Oh, that Smooth song? I love that song. Sorry. But the point is... It's the wrong time to mention that. But the point is, the 90s were...

Comparatively smooth sailing time and by the end of the decade, rock music, popular rock music was new metal. It was ridiculous. I admit I still like it. I was in new metal bands. But, you know, it was still there. But conversely, when the world is dark...

People want rock that's lighter and happier. Think post-9-11. It's the garage rock revival. It still has a bit of an edge, a hangover, if you will, but the bluntly dark stuff took a nosedive in popularity, while rock that lightly hinted at darkness, like, for example, this song, that stuff skyrocketed. ♪

That's so Monks. Well, that's the thing. Ironically, out of the two, Seven Nation Army is basically a fucking Monk song. That is an Eddie Shaw bass line. That is a Roger Johnston drum part. That's a fucking Gary Berger guitar solo. It's all full of repetition. It's all full of tension. After all, there's a reason why Jack White was responsible for the 2017 release of a collection of Monks demos from 1967.

Yeah, that's true. He did release them on his Third Man Records label. Yeah. And it's fantastic. We have two. But to the point of Polydor having no fucking clue how rock music was going to evolve back in the 60s, the success of the Beatles had sideswiped a lot of labels just a few years before the Monks came to be. And there were still plenty of people who still didn't get the whole Beatles thing. They

Therefore, the signing of the Monks was halfway a stab in the dark. But considering how Seven Nation Army currently has 1.2 billion streams on Spotify... I hope Jack got at least $15 from that. It seems like that stab might have just come about 40 years too early. Now, before the Monks recorded their debut, they were sent to the city where Polydor Records had their base.

Yes, that sounds scary. It really means rope walk. Really? It literally means rope walk.

Because the northern part of Hamburg, it's a port city. And it's also in the northern part of Germany is what I mean. It was very industrial. You know, kind of like how Soho and everything. Everything is all warehouses and lofts. And then it becomes a big to-do. I don't know why I have to go to the beginning of Hamburg.

of history that mention these things. So let's just move around. Okay, so there are these things called buildings. God damn it. Okay, so yes, Hamburg became a rock and roll boot camp. The Beatles made it into rock and roll boot camp just a few years before the monks because the monks, they're coming into Hamburg 1965. The Beatles' time was from 1960

to 1962, right? So this is the St. Pauli section of Hamburg, the red light district. Where anything goes, it's Sin City, baby. You know what I mean? Neon lights, bars, cafes, booze, of course, clubs, sex, sex clubs. A lot of...

It's like clothes everywhere, right? A lot of frow lines. Yes, that's ladies. Ladies of the night. And also not always ladies, which is also a fun surprise. And they also had a thriving black market. You want a toe? I can get you a toe. It had a very Twin Peaks, One Eye Jacks, 3AM vibe to it, which is a great theme for a 21st birthday party, by the way, which I thought of it.

Oh my God, 21st. We're at about 41st. I want to do that next year. We're going to do that next year. Great. And in Hamburg, you could see all kinds of shady characters, right? Like drunken belligerent sailors, gangsters, people in the import-export business. And Southern Baptist evangelist Billy Graham

was there. Oh, God. Yes, all kinds of shady characters. So Billy Graham was there in 1961 when the Beatles also just got there, too. Billy Graham there was not there to play. He was there to preach about God and how great he is, I guess. I don't know, but he just ended up shouting, repent your sins! Repent your sins! Over and

And over again, on a podium at a rally that he held on the Reaper Bond, which is the main street there. I know. And also happens to be the same street where some of the best rock and roll live music was ever played. Oh, come on. Come to me. Do me a favor. Oh, come on. Come to me. Come give me a dine-a-ha. Come give me a dine-a-ha.

It

It translates really well. It's really nice. That wasn't the Beatles playing I Want to Hold Your Hand in German live, though. That was in a recording studio. But I couldn't find a really good recording of the Beatles. You can YouTube live at the Star Club in Hamburg, Germany, 1962. But obviously it sounds like you're barely in the same vicinity. So it's not that great. But I really love this German version. I love it, too. Anyway, so can we do a quick...

two minutes on the early Beatles, the silver Beatles, the shitty Beatles, what they used to call them. I don't think they're shitty, but remember, guys, remember, they're very good. They're very good. They're very good. Back here, they're getting better. Absolutely.

Absolutely. Okay, so quick two minutes. Picture it. 1960. Right when the Beatles were first forming, they had two major problems. They sucked and they couldn't find a bassist. Yeah. This is true and heavily documented. I will give you my sources at the end of this series. So guitarist John Lennon, guitarist Paul McCartney, and guitarist George Harrison all wanted to be the guitarist. No one wants to be the bassist. No one ever does. Until they practically forced their friend Stu Sutcliffe, who was an art

student to be their bassist. He wasn't a musical guy at all, but he just sold a painting and they're like, look, you have some money. So why don't you go buy a bass? Now you can be our bassist. So that solved the Beatles bassist problem. Great. But they also had a drummer problem, meaning they couldn't hold on to one. That is until they got Pete Best, who

their fourth, maybe fifth drummer that they had in three months. Yes. So but they did get Pete Best. They got him minutes before they were set to embark on a two month stint in Hamburg, Germany. This was a huge opportunity for them. The Beatles would be making almost double what their parents would make in a factory or mechanic house in Liverpool. So I know it's insane. And it was a chance to play and get good.

Like, hence the rock and roll boot camp thing. They first started their career at the Indra and then, of course, the famous Top Ten Club and the Star Club. Those are the places that they, like, learned how to make mak-show. Mak-show. Mak-show, which is basically make show. Or do it quick.

Right. So that came from the Beatles era, 1960 to 1962. The German club owners there were usually connected to the mob in some way. And the waiters doubled as bouncers. So when a 350 pound German club owner named Bruno comes up to your face and orders you to mock Schau, you better mock Schau. Yeah. Yes. Yes. You're practically a slave.

That's what I've heard. I've seen in interviews on YouTube. They're like, no, we were slaves. They were even like put in galleys. They had horrible living conditions too. Yes, absolutely. Like they all had one communal chamber pot. The Beatles. They didn't shower unless they met a woman.

and she took them home. Hamburg can be a very dirty place. It can be. And also a very violent place. Yes. And drugs. I forgot to mention the drugs. Yeah. They were everywhere. Hash, amphetamine, whatever you wanted, you could find it. Actually, the bathroom attendant lady at the Top Ten Club, an elderly woman they called Rosa, or

Oma would dole out pills of Prelladin. Oh, speed! Yes. Basically, to anyone she took a shine to, like the Beatles, or anyone who looked a little tired. You look tired, Oma will take care of you. And with a little bit of help from their friends, the Beatles honed their skills from, shut up, from really bad to actually really great.

So George Harrison, he was perfecting his lead guitar skills like day and night and every show, eight hours a day, six to seven days a week. While John Lennon, he was cracking jokes and telling the audience, they lost the war. Get over it already. And Paul McCartney singing like Little Richard, because that's the thing. Paul, as well as the rest of the band, could sing and they could harmonize. That's what made them stand out from other groups. A lot of them were not strong singers. They're very good. Yes.

They're very good. And they were just so in tune that they had this natural charisma. The Beatles, like they made you want to watch them every night, which many people did. But you know what? It wasn't just the Beatles town. There were other great bands and artists, particularly Tony Sheridan. Now, I heard Tony Sheridan is a

guy who started Hamburg. He truly did a front man and genius guitarist. He came over first before the Beatles and it went so well. That's kind of when the idea of poaching English singers and rock bands to Hamburg became a thing. And then them getting better and going back to England. The Rolling Stones, of course, deserve some recognition. But that's when the English bands got better than Americans for just that brief period of time. Very small period of time. So Tony Sheridan, he was wild. He had a big personality. He introduced speed.

speed to the Beatles and even taught them a thing or two about the business we call shell. Of course. He was an exceptional, if erratic, performer. I think Ringo Starr, who drummed with Tony before joining the Beatles, said that he was volatile. That's my favorite kind of guy, erratic. Yes, and that's why the Hamburg lifestyle suited him very well. And the Beatles, in turn, got to back Tony Sheridan on his first single, which...

which is also the first time the Beatles are heard on a record. This is a children's song turned rock and roll. My Bonnie Lies Over the Ocean. My Bonnie Lies Over the Ocean

So Tony Sheridan was signed by Bert Kampfert, I believe. He was a German singer-songwriter. I think he wrote, Strangers in the night. No shit. Yeah, all that kind of stuff. And so he really believed in Tony Sheridan. And so him and the Beatles as well, he was like, okay, let's record you guys, um,

The Beatles backing Tony Sheridan for this one single. They spent all night drinking, and then by the end of the night, they decided, okay, or Burt at least decided, we're going to do My Body Lies Over the Ocean. Well, because they thought, like, well, Germans don't speak English, but they do in nursery school. They learn English nursery rhymes and songs. So if we do something, like an old nursery rhyme, and then we update it rock and roll style, then it's sure to be a hit, which sometimes does work.

But not this time. Not even at all. And also the Beatles were barely even credited. They're not even on the record cover or anything. I think they were credited as the Beat Brothers because the Beatles name, which is funny enough that they've been at this point, they've been there like almost a year. The Beatles name in Germany sounded too much like Petals, which is slang for little penis in German. Does it der Petal?

Yes, these are the Beatles. And they're like, yes, we all have small dicks. Yes, this man has no dick. So, okay, so now that's Beatles info. I hope that took less than two minutes.

So now it's three to four years later, and the Beatles had reached international fame. They're gone from Hamburg. Long gone, right? Capital T, capital B, the Beatles, Ed Sullivan's happened. They're fucking the biggest band on earth. Absolutely. There's the British invasion. They're all over the place. And Hamburg is also kind of all over the place. It's a hot place for rock and roll live music now because of that, because of that jump start. And luckily, Oma, you know, the German grandmother bathroom attendant, she's still

there too and Oma thinks the monks are adorable yes particularly Roger and she would always give them and Roger loads of speed because they looked a little tired and she's like my boys when my boys are tired I'm gonna give you guys speed and that's the thing the monks fit right in in the whole Hamburg scene they fit in perfectly yeah I mean it's a cosmopolitan place this is the cool fucking city in Germany full of

as well. And also, remember, the monks are dressed in black and they have the haircuts and they're taking speed while drinking beer and making lots of lady friends. It looks perfectly normal. And of course, they're playing loud rock and roll music with plenty of screeching feedback. Yeah. It's great. They're a hit. Well, with most people, unfortunately, there were still some locals like Tony Sheridan. He had a little

a little bit of a drinking slash party problem. Right. Yes. Because you see, Tony Sheridan unfortunately did not reach the heights of fame that the Beatles did. He was still living in Hamburg, playing and touring all over and also drinking and partying. I mean, he was 26 at the time, but he looked like a hard 37. And while the monks played onstage,

On the Top Ten Club stage, Tony Sheridan, he would show up drunk and come to the front of the stage and swing his arms and shake his head while staring at Dave usually. I don't know why he laser focused on Dave because he hated the whole band. But he would stare at Dave and just scream really drunk at the—

At the top of his lungs. The English own rock and roll, you bloody fucking yanks. Fucking yanks can't play shit. Make show, you fucking bastards. And that's not a sea captain. That's Tony Sheridan, rock and roller. One of the best rock and rollers. He was a musician's musician. And then he's drunk. That's the thing. Fucking rock show.

And the monks would just keep staring over his head and just ignore him, play the next song. But the thing is, between the songs, it'd just be that again. We fucking, we took it from you. We took it from you. Okay, so here's the complicated

Complication. Next song. Next song. But, you know, to be fair, I have seen recent interviews and it seems like Tony Sheridan did eventually find peace because he is a very fun, nice, older man. Unfortunately, he's dead. So he definitely found peace. He's dead. Rest in peace, Tony Sheridan. He later studied a lot of Eastern philosophies, Indian philosophy. Bhagwan. And he's very much at peace now. Oh, that's nice because he's dead. Yes. As well. Rest in peace, Tony Sheridan. So,

In conclusion, Hamburg is the perfect place for the monks because the monks, they're playing there right now for a full month. They're going to go back a few times. This is one of their other homes at this point. Now, after the monks did their time in Hamburg, they traveled to the city of Cologne in November of 1965. Finally, they had reached the point where they could enter the studio to record a rare work of art, their one and tragically only album, Black Monk Town.

Yeah, finally here. Finally with Black Monk Time. Oh, yes. Now we're going to get to the recording of the album, which is one of my favorite parts. Yeah. In a whirlwind three-night-long recording session, Black Monk Time stretched the limit of what the engineers thought was possible in a studio. And it was done in the style of so many classic albums of the day.

After playing a four-hour set at a club in the evening, the Monks would enter the studio at 3 a.m. and record until 8, much like how the Velvet Underground would later do with the album loaded.

Using only four tracks, the Monks recorded all of the instruments live, unable or unwilling to compromise the impossibly loud five-piece uberbeat they'd created, which surprised and infuriated the recording studio engineers at every turn. For example, if they brought the Monks close together while recording them all at once, everything peaked red and the recording got blown out. Pulled them away, though, and the band couldn't signal changes for each other during all those weirdo compositions.

So, after failing to capture the monk's sound by putting each member in different corners of a massive room that was usually used to record orchestras, the engineer came up with a primitive solution.

That I don't fully understand. No one knows. No one truly knows. Unless you're a German native, maybe. By using practical, trademark German engineering, the engineer devised a type of Rube Goldberg setup that was so common during sessions in the 60s. He used a 20-foot loop of audio tape wrapped around the control room doorknob to, I think, counteract the peaking audio levels with reverb.

This, combined with an ambient mic that captured the Monk's uber beat, was what eventually produced the impossibly clean sound heard throughout Black Monk time. You're right, it does sound amazing. It sounds fucking great. Don't drink, you're on Maria. Don't sleep, sleep, you're Maria.

They were always asked, like, is there a Maria? Is this a song about a Maria you know? And they're like, yeah, we knew tons of Marias. And they were all drunk. Wonderful ladies. They had nothing but nice things to say about them. Now, as far as lead singer Gary Berger's recording went, I'd peg his vocal performance on this album as one of the most distinctive in rock history. The technique behind his slightly hoarse, loud-mouthed, almost panic delivery is, however, one word long. Whiskey. Yes. Yes.

Yes. Yes, of course it must be. But I also like his voice in general. It's really great. But you're right, the whiskey helped. I love his voice. I mean, but on the suggestion of producer Jimmy Bovian, Gary drank just enough whiskey to burn his throat, but not enough to get drunk.

That gave his vocals the rawness that lived at the front of his delivery. This would work not only in the more negative songs like I Hate You and Complication, but also in more upbeat tunes like my favorite Monk song, the nonsensical and confusingly titled Oh, How to Do Now. How to do what? And when? And how? Oh, how to do now. Well, I've been away for a long, long, long, long, long, long time. Now, oh, how to do.

Make you, you, you, you, you, you mine. Now, oh, how did you make me mine? Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, say. Now, hey girl, I want to make you, you, you mine, mine today. Now, oh, I don't know how, how, how, how, how, how, how to do. Now, girl, I want to put the make, make, make, make on you. Now, oh, how did you make me mine?

Make you mine, long, long time today Make you mine, long time today

And then he does that six or seven more times. That's the perfect example of the monk's tension of like doing shit way more times than they should. I like that, though. I love it. I like that because you never know what's going to happen next. Actually, it's going to be the same thing. That's great. Because you don't know. Is it going to happen again? Oh, my God, he did. Goddamn good thing. I love it.

Now, while the phrase, oh, how to do now is confusing, it was kind of written that way for a reason. See, since Black Monk Time was due to be released in Germany and also Scandinavia as well, and since the Monks audience had been mostly German up till that point, they'd written songs with very simple lyrics. After all, there's nothing quite so simple as I hate you.

But for one song, the monks decided to throw a little German into the lyrics. And here's how that whole brew came together. First. I'm excited. Get naked first, everyone. Okay, now go. Wait. Now I'm naked. Now go. Go, go. Hell yeah. Hell yeah. First, they took the melody from a 1963 song written by Ike Turner and sung by the Ikeettes. That song was called I'm Blue. I think this was also in Hairspray.

I can't stand you.

And so, from I'm Blue, doobie doobie doobie doo, the Monks changed it to We Do and added the German homonym of Wie Du to create We Do, Wie Du, which means We Do Like You Do. Actually, the first Monk song that I ever heard. But I heard it through a cover version by a fucking awesome band called Das Vöhrleins.

that does a fantastic version of V-Doo V-Doo. But regardless, I'm about to be that guy for just a second. Can I be that guy for just a second? Absolutely. Oh, thank you. Are the Beatles shitty? I'm just kidding. They're very good. They're very good. I mean it. I've been listening all week. They're very good. They're very good. Go ahead.

Okay, but this is going to be one of those interesting musical side notes because some of you might be listening right now and you might be thinking like, that melody, that sounds very familiar. Where do I know that from? Well, where you know that from is the original version of I'm Blue by the iCats was also adapted on the classic 1993 Salt-N-Pepa song, Shoop. These are my girls. You make me wanna... Shoop, shoop, shoop, shoop, shoop.

Isn't it funny how music works out like that? That's amazing. And we should have played the Woodstock version. The live version is always better. What's my weakness, man? That's right. Well, in a further nod to this song, bringing it back to the monks, the second verse of I Am Blue features the lyric every night around to my love for you comes tumbling down. Love came tumbling down is, of course, the title of the 10th track on Black Monk. I'm not so glad, so.

When you left, you took my love. Didn't show respect for my heart. But I guess I'll never let you go. I must return to what was in store. Your love came doubling down.

Yeah, that was a song, I think we were talking about this before we started recording. That was a song that the Monks wrote when they were the tour case. And then they Monkified it as best they could. And that's the interesting thing about it is that that song is the only one in the album that gets placed specifically in 1966. It's very much of its own time. Strangers in the night.

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Okay, so Black Monk time. They finally did it, right? It's a wrap. It was recorded November 1965 and was released the next year, March 1966, with Complication as the lead single. That's going to be their single. And the cover of the album was the original Black album, not far off

Spinal tap. Because what is blacker than black? The answer is not much. None more black. Oh, non more black. I paraphrase every time. Well, it was non more black. It was mostly black, except for the words monks on it and underneath the title of the album, Black Monk Time. But the rest was blacker than black. Like none more black. Exactly. And of course, their managers, Walter and Carl, set up a couple of events to promote the monks in their debut album.

And the managers, they definitely prepped them up beforehand. They're like, okay, listen, you're going to get a lot of dumb questions. And when that happens, just give them dumb answers. Okay? Because sometimes the first thing a reporter would ask would be like, why the hair? And the guys would say, I don't know, because Beethoven had long hair and the Beatles, and so therefore we have short hair. Next question, right? That kind of stuff. Another one was like, so what do you like to do other than play music?

And the monks would say, answering reporters' questions. Oh, anything else? But the press, they got what they wanted. And pretty soon it was all over the newspapers and like all the culture magazines. Like, the monks are fighting the grandmother style of the beta.

You say it in that voice because that's how it's written. That's how it sounds. The monks fighting the grandmother style of the Beatles in Hamburg. They keep advancing past the Rhine. So...

This is great PR, right? It got the monks lots of attention. But when the album was released and it didn't sell as well as expected, the press really just kind of started to focus more on the monks' haircuts and monks' outfits. The photographer would come to the interview and then they would tell them, OK, guys, lower your heads now for the picture. And the guys would. But it just didn't feel right.

And Larry would be asking, like, why don't you guys want to see our faces? Yeah. They're starting to get resentful of the haircut attention. No one was talking about the music anymore. Why isn't anyone talking about the music? Yeah. Actually, I sent the Monk Chant TV clip to a friend of mine who is a professional musician. And when he got back to me, he's like, oh, that's really fucking cool. But I bet the first thing that they were asked about in every single interview was the haircut.

Like, yes. Yeah, actually. He knew instinctively from being a musician who'd been interviewed a bunch of times that that's just what a music journalist is going to focus on and it's going to take away from talking about what's really important, which is the fucking music.

Now, even though the monks had billed themselves from day one of their inception as the anti-Beatles, the power of the biggest band in rock history was simply too strong for the monks to resist for even a year. Or even for Carolina and Marcus. Because we've been enjoying the shit out of Revolver lately. So much. I love Revolver. It's one of the best albums of all time.

God damn it, the Beatles are very good. While Black Monk Time is now a classic of heavy, uncompromising material, the monks were getting pressure from Polydor after its release to record a softer single because the Beatles were dragging pop music in the softer direction with an admittedly catchy, yet still limp Little Ringo number. I like it. I like it too, but you know, at the end of the day, it's still fucking Yellow Submarine. Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha

So we sailed unto the sun till we found a sea of green in our yellow submarine.

Okay, so two of the greatest songwriters of all time decided to write this song, a children's song, for their drummer who can't sing. Okay? Because they figured, let's do like a children's song. Let's make this a children's song. But what makes it kind of special is the fact that they took it musically to a whole other level with all these sound effects and everything. That's

some really cool and genius shit by 1966. Yeah, it really is. It's some pastiche. Yeah, Yellow Submarine is an achievement, but it also... I mean, it's no, they're coming to take me away, ha ha, but it's very close. It's very close, but it started, it's dragging rock music in that direction. You know, people, back to my point earlier...

When things are dark, they want stuff that's light. And so giving into the pressure to release a single that was more commercial to follow complication, which is possibly the Monk's least commercial song, the Monks recorded a near novelty track that singer Gary Berger later referred to as, quote, a dog's ass.

Now, I think that's a little harsh. I like this song. Yeah, me too. But one still can't deny the goofiness of this song. And I think it's much more of a live song. But I still like cuckoo. Cuckoo. Cuckoo. Got you. I like cuckoo. Cuckoo, cuckoo. Someone stole my cuckoo. Yeah, I want to know who, who. Did you take my cuckoo? Cuckoo, cuckoo.

Someone played a joke on me, that ain't very hard to see. Did you take mine? Who's got it? Now someone thinks I'm a fool. Who's got it? Who? Have you got mine? Who?

It's the drummer Roger doing the lead... What? What? He's doing the vocals. I know, I know. That's what I love. It's just some fucking dude from Weatherford going, Who's got my cuckoo? I wanna know who, who. I love it. I love it. You should see the outtakes when it's like, Who killed the president?

That was great, too. That was great. Who killed my kin-kin? I don't want to know when when. Now, once the band buckled under the pressure of their record label, the harsh realities of being a working rock band signed to a major label in the 60s, that began to settle in. See, as it turned out, even the Germans were having a hard time understanding and absorbing Black Monk time.

When the Monks received their first royalty check, they found they had only earned about 40 marks each because the album had not yet paid for its own recording and promotion. That's about a little less than $100 in today's U.S. dollars, by the way. That's not enough for an entire groundbreaking album. Ten bucks. Yes. Roughly. Yes. Now, this was a massive disappointment. Although Dave Day, he was sort of resigned to it. He said, hey, man, I've been poor all my life. I can wait a little bit longer.

But regardless to make up for the royalty's shortfall, the band went on a grueling tour to promote both the album and the Cuckoo single. Cuckoo. Okay, I'll just say Cuckoo. No, no, no. It's the name of the song. They sing Cuckoo. I know it's Cuckoo. If I say Cuckoo now, I'm just being willfully obstinate.

Don't change who you are. Thank you. Yes, you're welcome. Okay, so since the debut album, Blank Monk Time, wasn't selling all too well in Germany, their management team decided, okay, monks, this might be a good idea for you guys to do one-nighters all over the country and playing at every town hall and venue in every town possible. This is grassroots politician style. That's a good way to help win over the crowds and probably

sell more records. They even hired a van and a driver and they got a new tour manager, Wolfgang. So that way the monks were able to hit nearly every town in West Germany that had anything, anything.

plays at all. A barn they would play in. And they would sometimes do two, three gigs a night. They would just crisscross all over the country. But a lot of times these gigs would be a disaster. Especially like at a local show in a town hall where everyone goes out for it. I mean, it means you're going to get a lot of working class types, maybe farmers and whatnot, watching the monks go on going, people die for you. It didn't

It didn't always go well. And the monks had to just go through the motions, just dying up there, waiting until the moment they could get off stage and break down and get the hell out of that town and then on to the next. And sometimes it wouldn't be much better. But, you know, there was a lot of highs and lows as far as being the monks. But, yes, there were a lot of low lows, especially in a country like Germany. But then when they went to Sweden—

That was weird. Okay. It went okay. Like the younger Swedish kids were definitely curious about the monks. They asked, so why do you guys shave the top of your heads? And they're like, actually, we don't know anymore. And is the kind of music you make popular in America? And they're like,

We also don't know that anymore. No fucking clue. Yeah, we're just trying something out, man. And then I think, I believe like the last few nights they were in Sweden, they did stay in some sort of castle, monastery, hotel place. Well, you know, it's very on brand. But they got yelled at the guy at the front desk because he couldn't believe they were smoking in

doors and having parties and bringing women over. I am shocked, shocked, shocked at your behavior because he thought they were real monks. Well, it was a monastery after all. Yes, I know. But it was a hotel monastery. You see what I mean?

Oh, a hotel monastery. And the guy's like, we didn't understand. We thought this was just one of those cool monasteries. But anyway, so the monks, they went on that tour. They got on TV a little bit, but when they came back home to Germany, the managers, they asked them, like, so how did everything go? And the monks honestly said nothing.

I don't know. Well, I guess this is just the whole thing is just not shaping up the way it should be. Not at all. Now, the tour hadn't necessarily been a failure, but it hadn't really been a success either. So they returned to the top 10 club in Hamburg where they were at least locally popular. But it was there that things started going seriously and irrevocably wrong for the monks.

Managers Carl and Walter unexpectedly showed up one evening looking more serious than usual to have a chat because they'd heard that the boys were having a little bit of trouble, which they absolutely were. See, the band felt like they were getting nowhere. And in this, they were fucking correct.

Besides a couple of TV appearances, the Monks hadn't really accomplished much. Most of all, they were anxiously awaiting the day when Black Monk Time would be released in America, which would mean a tour. It would mean a fucking ticket home. It would mean a lot. It meant everything. Yeah. I mean, why isn't our album coming out in America? They kept asking that every single week. That's when Walter gave him the bad news.

Black Monk Time would never be released in America because one of the American record executives said that the lyrics to Monk Time were obscene, pointing to the lyrics, pussy galore is coming down, we like it. That's her name, though.

That is her name. They were referencing the James Bond character. It's pretty obvious that Polydor American had more of a problem with why do you kill those kids in Vietnam? That's very obvious. That's what he had more of a problem with. But Pussy Galore's coming down gave him a convenient excuse. And in the end, the excuse didn't really matter. As a result of this decision, Black Monk Time wouldn't be released in America until 1997. Just a hair over two decades following its debut in Germany.

Now, perhaps to raise spirits or in a last ditch effort to find an audience for the monks somewhere, Walter and Carl came up with a fucking insane idea. I really hope cocaine was involved because it's insane. It's such an insane idea. In 1967, the monks were asked to tour Southeast Asia with the centerpiece of their journey being Saigon. Brian, can we get helicopters? Go ahead.

Saigon, the capital of South Vietnam. And to tell you how the Vietnam War was going, this was five months before the Tet Offensive, which was when the Viet Cong mounted an all-out assault on every city in South Vietnam, including Saigon. They took the embassy and held it for a...

fair amount of time. This is the end, my friend. This is, the monks are just going to go five months before the Tet Offensive. It's fucking insane. I know. I know. Remember, but this is, let's be honest here, this is before the Tet Offensive, okay? We can do shows

before the tent offensive. Yeah, but there's still fucking Viet Cong walking around Saigon wearing dresses with AK-47s tucked underneath. Details. So, yeah, okay. So it was a weird joint management decision to book a tour in Asia during wartime, which includes...

Well, of course, they did include other really fun cities like Hong Kong. That's fun. Bangkok. Okay, some tourism there. Saigon. Wait, what? Saigon? Yes. But before, remember before, the Tet Offensive. Oh, okay. So Walter and Carl, they could tell that the monks were not super comfortable with this. It's dangerous work. Of course, some of the...

their wives and girlfriends were also very pissed off. So Walter and Carl were like, okay, but remember, this is just part of the plan. They were trying to keep them on the plan. We record a second album, Silver Monk Time. All right. And then we toured the U.S. Remember, guys, keep your heads up. We'll go to New York. We'll make sure these albums are released in the U.S. Here's a bag's

huge bags of fan mail from people all over Germany and some in Spain. Remember, it's all part of our plan. And the monks are like, they're like, okay, well, we're not feeling very monk-like, but thank you for the pep talk and everything. Gary even said, if we do Vietnam, I don't think...

I don't think I can sing that song, "Why are you killing all those kids in Vietnam?" to the guys who are actually fighting in Vietnam. Because that didn't seem right. And there was also another thing to worry about. You see, Polidor was wondering why the monks haven't had a hit yet.

So they pushed for a third single, a softer sounding one. So Polydor was going to push this single more than all the others. They're actually going to throw a lot of money and a lot of copies into this to see maybe this is one last try to see if the monks can actually hit the charts, if they can break through the charts. This song, Love Can Tame the Wild. It didn't come close to breaking the charts. Uh-uh.

Do you know the taste of soap?

It's fine. It's not the monks. It's not the monks. I mean, it's more the Beatles than the monks. It's their jazz odyssey. And because it wasn't the monks, when managers Walter and Carl heard it, they were incredibly disappointed in a fucking cutting takedown. One of them called it softwave. They were right.

Soon after, the Monks' contract with Polydor expired, and no one at the label brought up a renewal. Perhaps as a show of support, though, the manager at the Top Ten Club in Hamburg offered the venue as a place where the band could get back on their feet creatively. The owner had installed a control booth hidden behind a false wall so the band could record there after gigs if they so chose. But...

But when the monks tried recording something new, they found that they'd lost their courage. The repeated failures had been too much, and the band was falling apart emotionally and physically.

Gary Berger's voice had been strained to the point where nodes had formed on his vocal cords, proving that sometimes the most original voices in rock burn out the quickest. Ironically, his voice had given out during the recording of one of those softwave songs when he was singing in a more conventional, decidedly un-monk style. Meanwhile, Roger was taking far more speed from Oma than was good for him.

him. Well, he looked tired. Oh, you look tired. Oh, you take some space. My new Frau have some speed. Take some speed. I wonder whose Oma she was during World War II. I think she was fucking, she was everybody's Oma. You know the fucking, if she was definitely the Oma of many tank operators fucking flying into France, you know the Nazis conquered France for speed, right? On speed. They were all on meth. The Nazis created meth.

Oh, my. Come on. And Eddie, of course, his marriage was a toxic slush pit that was made worse by an overbearing East German mother-in-law. Banjo player Dave Day, he was doing the best he could for his part. But like most of the members, he started drinking too much. He was visibly intoxicated during shows and was once so drunk by the time they got to the recording that he vomited on the floor between takes.

Larry, meanwhile, the organist, the only one who really liked wearing the monk's outfit day after day, he seemed to have fallen into the Reaper Bond's temptation in a different way. Yes, he started wearing a goatee. He looked damn good in that goatee. Yeah, but still, it's troubling when someone starts wearing a goatee.

Now, we're just reading between the lines in Eddie Shaw's book here. But it seems like Larry, who Larry didn't drink, he didn't smoke, he didn't do drugs. He seems to have spent a lot of time and money on St. Pauli sex workers. Yes, those are his best friends. That's, I mean, really? Yeah.

Yeah, that is what you're about to say. Wild speculation. Wild speculation. I think he made some very good friends. I think he did. I mean, to that point, he once had two girls stay with him at the same time during a long stretch when the whole band was sharing just one room during one of those Hamburg stretches where they just had a communal space that was just separated by sheets.

And from what Eddie said, Larry's section, which was separated by a bed sheet, the two girls that were staying with him spent the majority of their time naked back behind those curtains. That's just kind of how it is for Larry. That's just how Larry lived. You know, Larry's my favorite monk. I love Larry. Yeah.

But yeah, everyone's sort of fallen into the seedier sides of the Reaper Bond. Everyone's falling into the temptation because that's what everyone always said is that, you know, Germany is full of stories of people coming to the Reaper Bond and ended up in the gutter.

And the monks, every single one of them, were on their way there in one way or another. Yes. It kind of started going downhill after a while. And in spite of all that fun sex worker weirdness that we've all been talking about, which is fun and weird and fun, the monks were about to get some bad news.

And then that's pretty much when things started falling apart from there. The first piece of bad news is that Carl was resigning from Walter and Carl. He might have had a bit of a drinking problem that could have influenced that, but it was really the direction the band's music was going. Carl even told the monks, your music should be louder and harder. And if you want, we could still work together, but you'll have to leave the other managers. But I can't do this commercial shit anymore. Mm-hmm.

And the guys in the group, the monks, they were just stunned by this news. So they kind of let Carl go because they couldn't agree on what to do. So the monks, they left Hamburg again and they continued to tour. They stopped in Kiel at the Star Palace. Actually, this is really fun. That night, they played for two nights, actually. They played on the same stage the same night as Jimi Hendrix.

Thank you for playing that. I requested it because it was my phone ring for many years. Thank you. Are you fucking serious? Hello. It's Carolina talking. Talk to me. I do all kinds of asshole things when I was 24. Anyway, so the reason I know this show with Jimi Hendrix at the Kiel Palace in Germany is famous. It's a famous show only because Jimi Hendrix has a really cool picture online. Just Google Jimi Hendrix TV.

Star Palace Kill Germany 1967 and you'll find a Pinterest on him actually and a picture of him sitting back wearing the coolest pair of pants ever known to man. Yeah, well it's Hendrix, you know. Yeah, exactly. He had a wild style especially on stage and amongst

Loved it. They watched both of his sets with Glee and even noticed how he did the playing guitar with his teeth thing. They found out the truth behind that, if you want to let the audience know. How did Jimi Hendrix play with his teeth? Play with his fingers. Yes, you just do it with your fingers, and then the rest of the sound just kind of goes with the feedback. That's how he's using the feedback, going back and forth. Finger tapping. Yeah, exactly. So he's not really playing with his teeth, guys. I'm sorry.

sorry. I know it hurt me the first time I heard it too. And Dave Day, he loved it. He cornered Jimi Hendrix for a conversation anytime he could. He was like, oh, so you're from Renton, Washington? I'm from Renton, Washington. That's the crazy part about it. Who do you know that

know that I might know? Hey, where are you going? Where is he going? Have you met Elvis yet? So Jimmy did tell the monks that, you know, because he watched their set, he's like, your music is unlike anything I've ever heard. And in Eddie's memoir, he says he's still not sure to this day if that was a compliment. Because he's just like, whoa, very different. Very different.

Wow. And Eddie also noticed that Jimmy, he was alone for that whole weekend gig that they were doing together. Like there were no groupies hanging around him. The German people also wouldn't look him in the eye like the monks, maybe because of the colorful clothes, the giant Afro or the fact that he's black and no one's black in Germany at that time. But Eddie also realized that

Jimmy and the monks, they would be treated like they were from another planet. And according to Eddie's memoir, the difference was that Jimi Hendrix was actually going to go places, though. You see, when Jimi Hendrix did his set at the Kiel Palace, everyone was blown away. He had taken rock and roll music to another level.

And of course, sure, the monks, they were loud too, right? But they no longer felt like they were going to be the first wave of the future of music. Not after watching Jimi fucking Hendrix live. How do you beat that? And it wasn't long after that show that the guys started to tone down their monks look. Like, I mean, the guys would still maybe wear all black, but they would lose the rope tie and then the frock suit thing.

You know, they were like, OK, just how about a black shirt and I'll roll up my sleeves or something. And then one night Roger showed up in bell bottoms and high heeled boots. And he told them, like, I'm just going to grow my hair out. Yeah, fuck it. And that was the turning point. That and the fact that they received no other offers other than that Asia tour, you know, to do Hong Kong and Saigon. Remember, they're not making a lot of money right now. They're actually making less than when they were the tour case. Yeah. The tour case. I'm sorry.

And that's when they heard a rumor that an English band who had gone to Vietnam to entertain the American troops had run into some Viet Cong gorillas. And one of the members of the band was killed. It was Tony Sheridan's band. Because it's...

It's true. At first, Reuters reported that Tony Sheridan was killed in Vietnam in 1967. But it turned out it was just someone in his band, a hired musician for the tour. Even so. Yes. Okay. So Tony, remember, he was heckling the guys. Sometime in 1967, he went to Vietnam to do like a two. He was contracted to do like two months. But he ended up staying for two years. And he was actually made an honorary captain by the U.S. Army. Oh, shit. Yes. Bagua. Bagua.

is what I'm saying. Wow. Yes, absolutely. That's fucking amazing. But even, but I mean, they didn't know about the honorary captain thing. They're like, people die? Yeah. Because people have died. And that's the thing, especially even years later, 1968, 69, like, there is a real danger to these musicians going in, entertaining the troops.

And with this particular tour that the monks were going to embark on, they were not going to get U.S. military protection. They were actually just going to go there and entertain. They were just going to be a bunch of dudes. Yes. It's not USO. It's nothing like that. Like, it's just a bunch of guys showing up to fucking Saigon.

which is not going to be safe. And, you know, and you got that combined with the fact that you just saw Jimi Hendrix and these guys are all smart enough to know like, yeah, that's like you said, that's the future. That's it. That's what we missed the boat. It's not going to be us. It's going to be that guy.

Now, eventually, the tensions within the group got to be too much. After everyone except Larry got married, the group's dynamic changed as it always does when a bunch of dudes in their 20s get married. This went double in the 60s and triple in Germany, where husbands were expected to be more practical men. Yes, I know a couple of wives were mad that they weren't working their factory jobs. Yeah, but when the monks were away from their families, their accommodations during club engagements only got nastier each time.

In a hotel in Hamburg, Larry and Eddie were questioned by police about the murder of a sex worker that occurred down the hall.

Before long, members of the band were getting into physical altercations with each other because it was obvious by this point that the monks were all but over. One night when they'd all drunk a little too much, Eddie took a swing at Dave who punched back and as Eddie nursed a shot to the ribs, Dave walked away saying that fucking nobody can do anything right in this group anymore. But that's not how the group ended.

See, the band was still going to go through with a Southeast Asia tour, although a few of them, including Gary Berger, were saying that they weren't going to be playing any Monk songs in Saigon. It's pretty much just going to be a tour case set.

But just two days before they were all set to travel into a war zone, Gary Berger got a postcard from drummer Roger Johnston. Roger had very simply decided to just go home back to Texas with his new wife because she hadn't been too keen on the whole Vietnam idea. Oh, really? Yeah. Would you be cool with me going? Why would you be cool with me going? Right. Right.

Right. And with that, the monks were over. There was no time to get a new drummer the day before they left. And if they didn't have Asia, they didn't have anything. Gary had made up his mind to return to America before he even called Eddie to tell him that Roger was out. And one by one, the monks left Germany, mostly returning to their hometowns.

And so it was that the monks were forgotten for almost two decades, existing only in the traded tapes of music geeks before the material was re-released in 1997, when champions like Henry Rollins began to give the monks the attention they deserve. And Kurt Loder. And Kurt Loder was also a huge monk fan. Big fan. I mean, there's just so many. Even Jello Biafra was like, this is great. Yeah. Oh, sorry. I can't do the Jello Biafra. This is great. Thank you.

And really, that's what the monks represent. The monks exist as an idea that there's always something new to love, always something out there that can make us excited about what humans are capable of creating.

The monks were guys that made something because they believed in it, because they and a select group of others felt like it was worth doing. And this is happening all the time, all over the world. And so much of it is fucking wonderful. Every year, it seems like there's more artists to uncover from decades past. Incredible songs that didn't get their due. And while the monks certainly weren't the first hidden treasure ever brought back to life, I think they're the best example of it.

That is to say, even though the monks didn't get their due in their day, we're all far richer because five GIs decided to take a chance and live their life the way they wanted to live it, making what they believe to be the music of the future. And that's the monks, guys. Oh, God. And that's the monks. Yeah.

No, that's the monks. I'm very excited for this whole season three experimental pop and rock. It's also experimental podcasting. We're trying to figure out how to do this. We're featuring a lot of bands. We're really happy that you guys are along for this ride. Thank you so much for listening. And we're going to do a series, but we're also going to do interesting...

We're going to go into it. We'll talk to you all about it soon. Yeah. But we're going to go. Obviously, we're going to stick to Germany for a while. Yeah. We're going to go to America for a little bit. We're going to go all over the place. Yeah. We're thinking about perhaps going to Iceland. We're thinking about many different places. And you know what? Since it's experimental, we're going to do whatever the fuck we want to do because we're

That's the thing that keeps happening is we keep looking like, we're definitely going to do this band. And then we get into it and we're like, oh, wow, that story's not great. Or it's just not ready there yet. Or we're still waiting for that book to be published. Still waiting for a very certain book to be published before we can really cover one specific band. But specifically, I think that book's coming out in October, right? Very, very soon. Very, very soon. Sonic Youth. Absolutely. Absolutely. But yes, thank you so much, everybody, for listening. Thank you so much for sticking with us. Thank you so much for waiting.

while we made the move to Los Angeles and while I recovered from my chronic illness again for I think the second or third time now. It's an ongoing battle. We're all in on it. We're here for it. Yes, we're here for it. We're doing it. I would like to give...

You know, just some sources of all the stuff that just it took a lot of work, obviously, and a lot of sources to get this together. Black Monk Time by Thomas Edward Shaw and Anita Klemke. That is, of course, the memoir by the bassist Eddie Shaw. It's fantastic. You know, it could be a little shorter, but it's fantastic. And Ugly Things Interview by Keith Patterson and Mike Stacks. You can Google that. It is what brought.

the monks into the mainstream. It is. It's one of the main things that got into it when Keith Patterson was looking around and he heard about the monks and he thought they were very interesting and then found two of them, interviewed them, and it kind of all snowballed from there. And we'll talk more about the monks in our CODA episode next week. We're going to do a little bit of fun, like a 30, 40-minute episode. A little fun, like behind the scenes on how...

how much hell it was to go through all this, but how much fun we also had learning all this stuff. Yes. There's the monks documentary, the transatlantic feedback by Ditmar post and Lucia Palacios, uh, tune in the Beatles all these years by Mark Lewis. Sean, I believe I'm saying his name, right? I don't know. Lewis on, uh,

Great book. It's about the first few years of Beatles. One Minute to Midnight, Kennedy, Khrushchev, and Castro on the Brink of Nuclear War by Michael Dobbs. Yes, I actually did real fucking research. A Failed Empire, The Soviet Union and the Cold War from Stalin to Gorbachev by Vladislav and Zubac because I like to get both.

sides of the same story. And then there's this great part, 24-part documentary on the Cold War on YouTube that CNN put together 20 years ago before they got weird. I mean, it's got a bit of a propaganda thing going on, but it's still pretty good. Very much. So it's always very good to also check out, you know, like A Hell of a Gamble. That's also another book I read as well. Definitely go and check out

other sides. I don't say anyone's right or wrong, okay? And a special thanks to Patrick Fisher for his help and particularly in translating a lot of articles from German to English. I'm so glad he spoke German. And thanks to Kelsey Netzer for the extra research work that she did on the series as well. Thank you very much. And

Definitely check out our Instagram, NoDogsPod. Mine is Carolina Deidre Hidalgo for any updates and stuff. And our NoDogs one, just for fun, we'll update people on what's going on with t-shirts and stuff because we have our NoDogs t-shirts. We got the classic one and a really cool rabid dog one on LastPodcastMerch.com. I love both shirts. My parents wear both shirts. I hope.

Your parents do, too. Next week, as we said, there will be a CODA episode. Feel free to send any comments or questions to our email address, nodogsinspace at gmail.com, as well as if you make noise, really, if you make any kind of noise at all, and you're a band or you're just one person or a person with their dog or whatever you are, and if you want to make some noise, we would be humbled. If anything, honored.

to play your song at the end of our episode. So we do a Band of the Week for every episode. Just anyone who just sends it to us and we think are really cool and really rock it. So who's our Band of the Week? This week, we got a guy that's put out an album on... Well, actually, what's...

I think my favorite indie label out right now out of Tallahassee, Rip Records. This is the third Rip Records release that we've played on the show just because I fucking love so much what they're putting out. I think it's the fourth actually because this is a solo project from a guy that's in a band called The Nopes. It's called Vincent Reese. Oh, yes. I love this. It's so fucking cool. Really do.

Yeah, it's a solo album that he's put out that's got like a great Beastie Boys feel to it. It's got some Sleaford Mods type shit going on. It's such a fun throwback, but also very modern at the same time. He's got two videos out that are both really fucking fun. One's called What the Fuck Are You Talking About? The other one's called Runnin' Wild. And Runnin' Wild is what we're going to play on this episode, really.

right now. So thank you so much. Check out Vincent Reese. Go to Bandcamp and you can check out all the shit there. He's also on Spotify. Thank you all so much for coming. Coming. Thank you so much for listening, everybody. Thank you for coming. Please come. Here's Vincent Reese. We'll talk to you all in a few weeks. Thank you. Bye. Goodbye.

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