Who were The Monks? Because dudes *rocked* that tonsure haircut

I came across this video on the recommendation of a friend of a friend, and as quirky as it seems when you first click play, there’s an urgency and an animal primacy to the music that belies the sweaters and the bobby socks of 1965.

I had never heard of The Monks before this video started rolling; a google search of the blogs and sites I read turned up one reference on Pitchfork, but P-fork writes about a lot of stuff that flies right over my head (in fact I am apparently a sort of anti-Pitchfork). So I had some learning to do.

The Monks were five G.I.s stationed in Germany in the ’60s who started making music together, as many young men are wont to do when they are away from their women and stuck on base. At first their tunes were pretty standard covers of Chuck Berry, surf music, or original melodic pop a la The Beatles — but then they started experimenting with feedback and the kinds of beats that sounded more like a prototype of punk than a clean cut quintet.

Originally called the Torquays, they soon wholeheartedly adopted the name of The Monks, and they even had “a look” that has not, to my knowledge, been back in fashion since, oh, 1457. The tonsure (as that stunning bit of shaved baldery is called), the cassock, the rosary. Hot.

But the music — the music is intriguing to me, and has quite a cult following to this day, mostly through word of mouth and friends saying, “Man, you gotta hear these guys.” And it’s easy to see why – the tribal pulsating beats, the dadaist lyrics, the attitude — they’ve may have more in common with Nirvana than other acts of their own era. Even where standard sounds of the time show through in their music, there’s still an undercurrent of fresh inventiveness that delights me. Some of their music reminds me of what The Doors were just starting to do on the other side of the Atlantic.

The Monks recorded one album in November 1965 (Black Monk Time) and then essentially vanished (other than some reunion shows in ’99 and one member who is now mayor of Turtle River, MN).

Their songs have been covered by everyone from the Dead Kennedys to Jon Spencer, the 5.6.7.8.s to Manchester Brit-band The Fall. There’s currently a very interesting documentary project called Monks: The Transatlantic Feedback and if you like it even rawer, you can also buy their 1965 demo recordings, all through the Berlin-based label Play Loud! Definitely a fascinating and fun one to add to your collection.

Monk Chant – The Monks
We Do Wie Du – The Monks
Drunken Maria – The Monks

BUY: Black Monk Time

Gladly going down with the Damnwells ship

This song popped into my inbox recently from lead Damnwell Alex Dezen, and maybe it’s just the cold grey skies that are causing me to post two melancholy tunes in one day, but I’m feeling this one.

Alex makes it sound easy the way he crafts these humble aching love songs with his acoustic guitar, and puts his soul behind it. The Damnwells will be back in the studio come February, with Alex saying “it’s going to be the record we should have made long ago.” I don’t know what that sounds like, but I’m glad to hear that there’s more music forthcoming from this earnest, shining talent – the two years since Air Stereo already seem interminable ’round these parts.

Down With The Ship – The Damnwells

The Avett Brothers :: “If It’s The Beaches”

This stark, bittersweet song from North Carolina’s The Avett Brothers was originally on their 2006 EP The Gleam. It’s going to reach new sets of ears this Friday when it’s featured on the TV show Friday Night Lights. I don’t watch this show. But I am glad to hear these boys will be getting some primetime exposure; their most recent album Emotionalism (2007, Ramseur Records) has, as I wrote, “raw and joyful harmonies, if you can acclimate to the twang that smacks you in the face. But kinda in a good way.”

This song mutes the twang in favor of an echoey piano and strings, creating something that feels dusty and resigned. The last stanza of this song is arrestingly beautiful.

If It’s The Beaches – The Avett Brothers

IF IT’S THE BEACHES
Don’t say it’s over
Cause that’s the worst news I could hear I swear that I will
Do my best to be here just the way you like it
Even though its hard to hide
Push my feelings all aside
I will rearrange my plans and change for you

If it’s the beaches
If it’s the beaches’ sands you want
Then you will have them
If it’s the mountains’ bending rivers
Then you will have them
If it’s the wish to run away
Then I will grant it
Take whatever you think of
While I go gas up the truck
Pack the old love letters up
We will read them when we forget why we left here

The Avett Brothers are on tour in the coming months.

Monday Music Roundup

Well for pete’s sake. GO SEE U2 3D.

That was the absolute coolest thing since, well, since Captain E.O. (sorry MJ). I had a huge silly smile plastered across my face for at least the whole first song, barely able to breathe but not realizing I was holding my breath.

From superclose Bono yelling the opening count-off of Vertigo (in that creative Spanish), you feel like you’re inches from the real live sweating tiny mofo. You can see the limber flex and vibration of Adam Clayton’s bass strings as he plucks them, you can count the freckles on the Edge’s arms while he nails a killer solo. You hover over the stage like Tom Cruise in Mission Impossible, looking over Larry Mullen Jr’s shoulders while he beats out his robot-hybrid beats from an impossible vantage point. I almost felt like I would knock over the mike stand sometimes, or get hit in the face with Edge’s guitar (I wouldn’t mind). The gliding shots over the enthusiastic Latin-American crowds were also like something out of a flying dream. It was mindblowing in the childlike wonder it instilled in a whole audience at once.

You also get to wear extremely fashionable glasses that are worth at least five minutes of pre-show entertainment.

I know it must be expensive to everyone but U2 to make a movie like this, but with technology that lets Bono kneel on the side of the stage, draw in the air with his fingertip, and create a hovering light-trail image floating inches from your face, well heck . . . I wish every band I loved would do this so I could get closer than close for only $9.

Music this week!

Don’t Ever Do That Again
Golden Shoulders
There’s a snaking, crunchy opening riff that sucks you into this smart song from CA Gold-Rush-country band Golden Shoulders. Originally released in 2005, the Friendship Is Deep album is seeing the light of re-issue; when it first came out, British tastemaker Mojo magazine wrote that they were “grungy slackers catching up on ‘Rubber Soul’ pop.” The drawl in the delivery hearkens that for me, but I also hear a good echo of Fuel-favorite Cake (whose former drummer Todd Roper is featured on this album), and also that riff from that Weezer-side-project tune “American Girls.” It’s a pleasing mishmash of influences that sounds addictively fresh and ready for adventures.

Nothing
The Hands
There’s something slightly off and unnerving in the melody and rhythm here from the Pacific Northwest band The Hands – just a half-second syncopated, or too fast. Either way, it feels like about seven cups of coffee in the morning (thank god I’m back on the stuff after my successful vegan detox week) — all jittery and yowling, but anchored by a more classic rockin’ feel with those Jaggeresque vocals. An exciting combination, I want to keep replaying the opening notes to figure out what’s going on there in those first thirty seconds. The self-titled album is out February 19th on Selector Sound, and wisely features, well, a hand on the front.

Dancing For No One
Hello Stranger
For a song released in 2006, this has a borderline guilty-pleasure tinge of sounding like something I would have liked in the ’80s, but better. Hello Stranger is a band from Los Angeles [previous post] fronted by tall red-boot-wearing Juliette Commagere and featuring Ry Cooder’s son Joachim. They sounds a little like Blondie, a little punk, and a lot like something that you want to sing along with. Indie film fans might recognize this song from the excellent and quirky Lars and The Real Girl. Hello Stranger has toured with Kings of Leon, Rooney, and looks like they’re opening some Foo Fighters shows in the coming weeks. Their 2006 self-titled album is out on Aeronaut Records, and they are currently back in the studio working on new material.

Be Not So Fearful (Bill Fay)
Jeff Tweedy
I remember hearing this song memorably used in the Wilco I Am Trying To Break Your Heart documentary and then having to seek out a live version of it for my collection. This is a cover of a folk song by British musician Bill Fay, and feels so perfect in its simplicity. It’s almost a benediction, this telling of “Be not so fearful, be not so pale / Someone watches you, you won’t leave the rails.” It’s heartening and lovely, one of my favorite acoustic Tweedy covers, something I’ve been listening to a lot lately.

Love Ya
Paloma Faith
I read about Londoner Paloma Faith on this blog while I was looking up SF show information, they mentioned she had “a Billie Holliday voice and a Betty Page look.” Retro is so hot right now — I can always dig more of this Amy Winehouse vibe, with less of the self-destruction. While on Paloma’s MySpace page I was also excited to see that she had a cameo in that other fantastic Dan le Sac vs Scroobius Pip video, “The Beat That My Heart Skipped.” Since I always like watching this dude rhyme, enunciate, and gesticulate (like he will be doing at Coachella!) watch Paloma shake her thing here:

THE BEAT THAT MY HEART SKIPPED,
DAN LE SAC vs SCROOBIUS PIP [UK download]

BONUS MONDAY TIMEWASTER: Try the addictive Traveler IQ Challenge. I am on a mission to beat my somewhat shameful Level 6 (and my friend, who clearly must have cheated and got Level 12).

Only in Northern California

I should totally go for it. It’s functional and durable with only a few scuffmarks.

Listen up everybody if you wanna take a chance

. . . Just get on the floor and do the New Kids dance. If you are a female born between 1977 and 1982-ish, you may have found yourself at one time picking your favorite New Kid to moon over (because they are sooooooo cute!), watching the Hangin’ Tough live concert video at a slumber party, or asking for an NKOTB t-shirt for Christmas. Yes, I did all three of these things.

You will also probably agree with me that there is absolutely no need for a reunion, as is being rumored in the media today. Why? WHY?! The only result that can come from this is that someday soon I will find myself driving along and, without thinking, bust out singing “I get up in the mornin’ and I see your face, girl.” And then I will want to drive my car into a wall.

Lucky to have Nada Surf on my stereo

Like the thoughts I’m prone to mull over when I sit underneath the deepening hood of twilight, watching the stars come out, there’s an introspective thread in the new Nada Surf album that illuminates the conflicting desires most of us feel in adult life. On “Weightless,” frontman Matthew Caws sings to all of us who have ever felt too inexperienced to be in control of these big decisions and important duties:

“grown-up life
is like eating speed or flying a plane
it’s too bright,
it’s too bright . . . “

And then the same song breaks into a pause, a reverie, and over a muted piano melody Caws muses quietly:

“behind every desire
is another one
waiting to be liberated
when the first one’s sated“

Such is life through the lens of Nada Surf’s stunningly fantastic fifth album, Lucky, which comes out February 5th on Barsuk Records. Folks, this is poised to be my favorite record of the year at the rate that I’ve been listening to on my iPod, in the car, on repeat til the CD gets hot. Rare is the album that’s this sonically pleasing with equal depth and nuance in the lyrics.

The sixteen years that Matthew Caws, Ira Elliot, and Daniel Lorca have been making music together show in the confident elegance of this multi-hued album. It’s full of earnest flourishes that pay homage to sublime sounds of the past, from the cascade of harmonies at the end of “Weightless” that feel like super-relaxed Beach Boys in a hammock, to the ‘oooo oooo oooo’s in “Are You Lightning?” that remind me of waiting on a friend. I’m addicted to the way this album sounds, with the shimmering landslides of melody, the driving rhythms, the bright chime of the guitars.

Nada Surf, like the rest of us, are growing up. The opening song, “See These Bones,” wrestles a bit with that mortality (“what you are now, we were once / but just like we are, you’ll be dust“), and finds Caws singing this simple line that only really hit me after several listens:

“too tired to eat
too hungry to sleep“

Simple, right? Throwaway? . . . No. The ache and the weariness in his voice when he sings these lines gets me. He’s talking about being unable to fulfill needs and desires, each one competing with the other for primacy, and what a draining place that is to find yourself in.

But in addition to their observations about this thing called adult life, there’s also a pervasive and uplifting theme throughout on the love of music and its ability to shine a light. My absolute favorite song on this album is “Beautiful Beat,” whose chorus has these soaring lines:

“beautiful beat get me out of this mess
beautiful beat lift me up from distress
. . . I believe our love can save me
have to believe that it can“

It’s that faith in the redeeming power in music that I find so heartening, and why I am thrilled about this album. It’s a must-buy for you in 2008 (pre-order it here). I’ll be seeing Nada Surf in San Francisco next weekend and bringing you guys an interview. I’ve heard amazing things about the power of their live show, and next Saturday will be an acoustic set that should really let those harmonies show brilliantly.

Nada Surf is now streaming the entire album on their MySpace, so go listen. Start with “Beautiful Beat,” then go back to the first and listen all the way through to the flawless, gorgeous final notes of “The Film Did Not Go ‘Round.” Walk away feeling sated that albums like this still exist.

See These Bones (with Ben Gibbard) – Nada Surf

Nick Hornby and Josh Rouse at Union Square Barnes & Noble in NYC

Other than an exceptionally peppy emcee here who seems almost like a Saturday Night Live character, this is a very cool video segment showing author Nick Hornby (Songbook, High Fidelity, Fever Pitch) discussing and reading from his new book Slam, along with musician Josh Rouse performing some tunes off his new album Country Mouse, City House.

This was for the laudable Barnes & Noble “Upstairs At The Square” series in Manhattan which pairs authors and filmmakers with musicians (other artists have included Craig Finn, Rosie Thomas, Badly Drawn Boy, Sondre Lerche, Duncan Sheik, and Jesse Malin).

The connection between these two guests, as Ms. Pep says in the intro, is that “Nick Hornby is a writer who wants you to read his words like music. Josh Rouse is a musician who wants you to view his songs like chapters out of the book of your life.” An enjoyable glance at these two artists that I enjoy.

NICK HORNBY & JOSH ROUSE
UPSTAIRS AT THE SQUARE, NYC

“On Your Sleeve” :: New covers album forthcoming from Jesse Malin

According to the Jesse Malin website: “New record out April 2008 on One Little Indian Records in the UK and Europe, ‘On Your Sleeve.’ Full-length studio album of covers from Elton John to the Hold Steady, 14 songs plus 3 bonus iTunes tracks. Stay tuned for details.”

Iiinteresting. I don’t know what he’s putting on it, but I would guess that this is the Hold Steady cover, and two other tenuous possibilities below:

YOU CAN MAKE HIM LIKE YOU (HOLD STEADY COVER)
Jesse Malin at Vintage Vinyl 3/20/07

3 Martini Lunch (Graham Parker cover) – Jesse Malin
Questioningly (Ramones cover) – Jesse Malin

Eels contest winners

I just got a package in the mail this very afternoon with the two new Eels CDs and I must say that these are the finest and most intriguing liner notes I’ve read in a long time. They readlly put a good deal of thought into this album. In addition to cool scans of all kinds of memorabilia, E comments on each of the 24 tracks on the best-of collection, and all 50 songs on the rarities comp. So necessary.

If you are a serious fan, you’ll get all excited-like on your insides reading his stories behind how he wrote all these tunes (“Jon Brion came over to my house and decided we were going to conduct an experiment where I’d go downstairs for 30 minutes and write a song and he would do the same upstairs. This is what I wrote.”) and the notes on the recording (“I should have been a bongo player. My girlfriend sometimes played the celeste on this one. Sometimes you gotta let Yoko have a little bit of the spotlight.”)

The new fan will be enticed to take a listen by reading over what he says, because E wields his words sharply and incisively, and is an entertaining storyteller. As he says at the end of the notes for the best-of collection, “Casual users: if you’ve enjoyed this enough, perhaps I’ll see you over in the USELESS TRINKETS aisle for more.” I think you should go.

WINNERS
#1 – jay strange (thanks for the story jay)
#2 – Kari
#3 – Scott/sml1771

All the comment entries were so wonderful to read and only made me appreciate the lyrics of E’s tunes even more. I kept saying, “Oh yeah! I forgot about that line!” Read em over. Or read E’s All-Time Favorite Joyous Songs: