The Monks//Shut Up

Ali gave me this as a birthday present this year. A few months later, she asked me if I had listened to it yet. I hadn’t. I have a lot to listen to. I forget sometimes.

Finally, I ended up picking it up and putting it on. I’m so happy I did. The Monks are SO delightfully weird.

The story: five American GIs stationed in Germany in the mid-sixties start a garage band. They get discharged from the military and keep playing music, calling themselves The Monks and dressing the part.

They didn’t sound like anything else around at the time—and many credit them with being the first to define a certain early lofi proto-punk sound (think Velvet Underground, but weirder), which strayed away from many of the elements found in a popular rock and roll at the time. Drawing from sensibilities that seem like they could only be routed in Dadaism, their lyrics are sometimes nonsensical, sometimes offensive and often hilarious.



Shut Up.mp3

World is so worried,
World is so worried.