Film Comment:
Monks – The Transatlantic Feedback
They were a sensation – yet went virtually unnoticed. The Monks themselves weren't even aware of the influence they had on other muscians. Their aggressive, minimalistic, metal sound was way ahead of its time: this was punk in the Adenauer Middle Ages, or Dada in the stuffy era of “Gelsenkirchen Baroque”. Forty years after the release of their sole LP, and many years after their original split up, the Monks finally played in America. This film tells the strange story of the “Monks”, an American beat band that was popular only in Germany, but who influenced musicians around the world.
Credits
Original Title: Monks – The Transatlantic Feedback
Language:
OV with German subtitles, German-English original version,
OV with French subtitles,
OV with Spanish subtitles,
OV with Italian subtitles,
OV with polish subtitles
Country of Origin: Germany/Spain/USA
Year : 2006
Duration: 100 Min.
Color, b/w
Director: Lucia Palacios, Dietmar Post
Script: Dietmar Post
Camera: Lucia Palacios, Dietmar Post
Editing: Karl-W. Huelsenbeck, Dieter Jaufmann
Sound: Lucia Palacios, Dietmar Post
Sound Mix: Dietmar Post
Music: The Monks
Starring/Featuring: Jimmy Bowien, Gary Burger, Larry Clark, Dave Day, Wolfgang Gluszczewski, Gerd Henjes, Hans Joachim Irmler, Genesis P-Orridge, Eddie Shaw, Jon Spencer, Charles Wilp
Production: play loud! productions, Dietmar Post, Lucia Palacios
Festivals: 2008: Planete Doc Review (PL); 2006: München Film Festival (D), Chicago Underground Film Festival (USA), Gijon International Film Festival (E), Oslo Interntional Film Festival (NO)
Awards: 2008: Adolf Grimme Preis (D); 2007: Documentary Award, Würzburg International Filmweekend (D)
Parental Guidance Suggestion: suitable for six years and older
This film is not available in the US, Canada and Mexico.
Also available:
-DVD of the film with extensive bonus material
-180 gram vinyl and CD of the debut album 'Black Monk Time'
-Tribute CD 'The Silver Monks' (with The Fall, Faust, Jon Spencer, Mouse on Mars, Alec Empire, Alan Vega, Gudrun Gut and many others)
-Vinyl and CD 'Monks Demo Tapes 1965'
-Film poster designed by Daniel Richter
Order here:
www.playloud.org/shop.html
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About the Film
Yes, they were beat musicians
but they weren't really a beat band. The Monks were avant-garde; they were 'art' when youth culture was just dawning. They reveled in minimalism while the rest of popular culture gleefully followed garden-variety fads.
As sophisticated as they were under-appreciated, the Monks were rockin' the boondocks... now 30 years later, they're being celebrated as pioneers.
The Monks getting their trademark haircut (fom l. to .r: Gary Burger, Dave Day, Larry Clark, Eddie Shaw, Roger Johnston)
MONKS-THE TRANSATLANTIC FEEDBACK
by Dietmar Post and Lucia Palacios is a unique music documentary about the legendary, style-pioneering beat band The Monks. As the German Rolling Stone writes: “To this day, there is nothing in art, rock, punk, or 'nut rock' that approaches the crazy, conceptually rigorous Monks image, and the raw, 'avant- beer garden' sound of their sole LP Black Monk Time.”
In the mid-1960's
a unique German-American cultural exchange took place: five American ex-soldiers living in Germany start a beat band while still in the military. When they get out, they meet two German artists who are also fans of beat. Together they draft a concept for a band with a provocative , dadaist aesthetic that breaks with rock traditions. The Monks cut their hair short, shave monk-like tonsures on their pates, and wear hangman's nooses instead of neckties. Their music is minimalistic and aggressive, their lyrics are both ironic and radical. The unusual combination of Adenauer-era politics,
Drummer Roger Johnston hitting the skins
the war in Vietnam, American pop, and the growing counter-culture in Germany, merge in the Monks' radical anti-war songs. An idiosyncratic melange of Anglo-American pop and German avant-garde. Today, the “Monks” are considered brilliant pioneers of diverse modern music styles and the immediate ancestor of bands such as Faust, Can, Amon Düül, Kraftwerk, and any number of punk protagonists and predecessors.
The documentary filmmakers Dietmar Post and Lucia Palacios weave together comprehensive archive footage with the personal recollections of these five musicians to reconstruct this special moment in German-American (pop) history.
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