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Der Film: monks - the transatlantic feedback

• "A banjo with a microphone in it to make it electric, a fuzz bass en ’66, and an amazing singer, not to mention the drummer and organist, both out of this galaxy with what they were doing. Their melodies were pop destructive and must be played to your younger brother."
  The White Stripes


• "To this day, there is nothing in art, rock, punk rock or nut rock that comes close to the conceptual rigor of the monks' image and the crude, avant-biergarten sound of the group's sole LP, Black Monk Time. [...]"
  David Fricke, Rolling Stone Magazine


• "I was blown away by it. It was like seeing for the first time Eraserhead by David Lynch. Something very compressed and pounding like the film. That's how it hit us!"
  Schorsch Kamerun, Goldenen Zitronen


• "Fantastic film! Respect! Full of facts and details, wonderfully tied into the art net, interwoven brilliantly with the band-member interviews. It reminded me of the beautiful film by Fechner* about the Comedian Harmonists – in its mix of intelligence, sensitivity and the description of the greatness of a band, which for a few years were the essence of the (art) world."
  Berthold Seliger, Seliger Concert Agency
  *Eberhard Fechner is probably the most significant documentary filmmaker in 60s and 70s Germany, comparable to E. Morris, D. Pennebaker, R. Leacock, F. Wiseman and the Maysles Brothers.


• "The film is absolutely astonishing for one simple reason. The revelations and connections made by the film are so completely new that the history of popular music not only needs to be reconsidered but most probably to be rewritten. The Monks invented in 1965 punk, prog and political rock and techno. Now they are considered a mega-60’s legend: obscure, raw, brutal, angry, political, just ANTI...! References are, among others, The White Stripes, Schorsch Kamerun and the founder of German Beat-Club, Mike Leckebusch. The film is not only a must for every music fan but also for all people interested in recent German-American history."
  Johnny Bottrop, Terrorgruppe


• "I am a huge fan of 'Black Monk Time'. I discovered the Monks only a few years ago... around '98 or so. I remember I was in a tour van with Dee Dee (Ramone) and asked him if he ever heard of them. He said no. I left it there cuz he was in a horrible mood for the whole tour and it was just too scary to even deal with him. I regretted not talking about them with him because he was in Germany the same time and they seem so way ahead of their time...punk-wise. I wanted to make a tape of them for him. But...I never got around to it and then he died."
  Jim Fields, Co-Director of The Ramones - End of the Century


• "The band discarded most melody in favor of seething chords above the unison of Roger Johnston’s simple, relentless drumbeat and Eddie Shaw’s bass lines. Songs pounded and oomphaed, then sprouted an incongruous harmony chorus or veered into a new key. Burger’s lead vocals rose to reedy, discordant interjections that anticipated Pere Ubu and the Sex Pistols."
  Jon Pareles, New York Times


• "[...] The music was ugly but insistent, like Teenage Jesus and the Jerks trying to make it as a skiffle band. The lyrics were simplistic, angry non-sequiturs, with the singer, Gary, spitting out lines like a psychotic drill instructor. [...] Apparently, love them or hate them, once you experienced the monks, you could never forget them."
  Don Bolles, LA Weekly


• "[...] The monks played extremely repetitive songs assailing U.S. involvement overseas. Their sole album featured amplified banjo, martial-yet-danceable tempos and furious bleating. It remains, nearly 40 years on, the most eccentric rock record ever."
  Blender Music Magazine, October 2002. Section Blender Recommends


• "[...] The monks produced one legendary, almost impossibly aggressive LP, Black Monk Time, in 1966. Since then the album has drifted in and out of print like a lost black whale. [...] The monks have become revered as mysterious nihil-punk demigods."
  Byron Coley, SPIN Magazine


• "What's so interesting about the record is its hypnotic element. Something you also see in Velvet Underground. A sort of trance-like, hypnotic, pulsating structure. The same thing I like about techno."
  Thomas Meinecke, Freiwillige Selbstkontrolle (FSK)


• "This was about saying NO, a new freedom, a positive NO. Musically it was like a new beginning; everything was based on one beat, archaic rhythm and feedback. It was for the first time that a band seemed loose and free and oriented towards the future."
  Jochen Irmler, Faust

Infos: Event | Film | Monks | Presse | Clips | Konzertbericht | Picture-Gallery

Produkte: Records | Konzertplakat | Film | Filmplakat | Buch: Black Monk Time