The Monks Pt I

Three, two, sun. EasyJet's big orange sale is now on, with up to £400 off package holidays and up to 20% off flights. Book now at easyjet.com. Get out there. Selected dates and flights sale and 5th of May. Holidays minimum spend and after protected, season fees apply. Switch to Plastnet's award-winning fourth fibre from just $22.99 a month. Our sweet deal gets you fast from reliable broadband with no activation fee, with speeds up to 900 megabits. Ooh, feels like a sugar rush. Full fibre that's full of value. That's a plus. Offer ends 6th of May. Welcome to season three, fuckers! Yeah, you fuckers! Okay, we're bringing in New York energy to it. We're now in California. Let's bring in California energy. Welcome to season three, fuckers. I'm Carolina Hidalgo. I'm Marcus Parks. This is No Dogs in Space and we're so excited to bring you season three. This season we're going to be covering experimental rock and pop. When did season two end? I don't know. Sometime before this season. And now season three has begun. Because we're going to experiment. We're going to get fluid with it. We're going to have so much fun. I'm excited. I'm excited to know what noise really means. That's goddamn right. We're going to be covering bands like Faust. We're going to be covering 13th floor elevators, Bjork, Sonic Youth, all kinds of wonderful shit. And more. We haven't even decided all the bands are going to be covering this season. And in addition to the bands that are experimental on purpose, we're going to be starting this season with a band that was experimental on accident. Yes, because that's my favorite kind. All right, let's get into it. Now, one of the joys of listening to obscure music of the distant past is that sometimes legends can spring up around these obscure artists. For example, it was rumored for years that today's band was made up of five GIs who'd gone AWOL in the mid-60s during the Vietnam War to record an album of proto-punk protest songs. Then they disappeared into the ether. I don't know where in Cambodia they found a recording studio. But apparently they did. I heard most of the album was tracked in Laos. Yeah, of course, of course. That's why it sounds so tinny. Now, that story, of course, isn't true, because if it was, you'd have heard that story by now. But the fact that people thought it was true for decades speaks to the unique power of the music this band produced. Hell, that was the story I was told in 2007. By some guy I was working a fucking temp job with in a musty warehouse in New York moving boxes from one side of the room to the other. And I believed it because I'm gullible. I like that you were like, that checks out. Thank you, sir. Yeah, one side of the room to the other, and then back again. And I wanted to believe this story. And of course, once I heard the monks, I had to go on some fucking blog, on Blogspot, to find it. That story made sense. And I therefore kept believing that story for years. Now, that unique sound was absolutely the creation of five American GIs living in Germany in the 60s after their terms of service were over. But that music and the band's distinctive image was helped along by two German ad executives named Walter and Carl. Rather than being a tale of AWOL soldiers sacrificing their lives on principle, the story of today's band is somewhat closer to what happened when the Velvet Underground came under the influence of Andy Warhol. The difference is that instead of English majors and experimental musicians like it was with the VU, today's band was made up entirely of former soldiers. Now today's band began and ended almost entirely in West Germany during the same decade that the Berlin Wall was built and Soviet missiles were moved in and out of Cuba. As a result, this band's energy could be described as Cold War Rock. That's right. It's a reaction to the world's past and future problems. It's serious, unhinged, but funny and absurd. Just like war, actually. Hot and cold ones. I prefer cold ones with simple syrup and a lot of ice. Well, this band's songs alternated between nervously euphoric tracks about nothing in particular and manically delivered screeds about kids getting killed in Vietnam. And they were all held together with screaming organs, asymmetrical compositions, and martial rhythms. Unfortunately though, very few people outside of West Germany heard their music even when their popularity was at its height. And it took decades for them to get their due. Some might say they're still waiting. But like a fish that evolves to survive on land and immediately dies before it's able to propagate its species, this lack of recognition doesn't make this band any less important to the history of experimental rock, even if it was all on accident. Absolutely. As we said, the best kind. Absolutely. I love that. Yeah. How many like the flaming moe? Oh, right, right, right. Sorry. Or real things like penicillin as well. Now, while this band believed with all their hearts that their tension-filled organ-fueled debut album was going to rival I Want to Hold Your Hand in popularity, that's obviously not how things worked out. See, when these Americans brought their sound into the clubs of West Germany, it was mostly met with confusion, outright hatred, and in some cases, violence. But to them, they weren't always as bothered as you might think. Sometimes they were, sometimes they weren't, because these guys truly believed that they were playing the music of the future. Ironically, though, I would argue that this band was exclusively playing the music of their present, songs that were entirely reflective of the experiences and personalities of five American GIs living in West Germany during the 1960s. The miracle is that their one and only album still somehow sounds timeless. And that goes for the A Heard It 1967, 1997, 2007, or if right now is the very first time you're hearing The Monks. Complication! Complication! Complication! Constipation! People cry! Complication! Complication! Complication! Complication! People cry! People die! People kill! Now they will, will! People run! And have fun for you! People cry! People go! People die for you! Complication! Hot fucking pipes! Oh my god! Those are the hottest pipes in the fucking world! I love you, Larry! I love it. This song came out in 1966, and I just can imagine just someone, Betty, would you like to dance with me? People die! You know what? And I would. I would head bang with you, by the way. Thank you very much. We were a high school dance. And I would ask it, because I know you'd be down for it. Yes. Or maybe one of our kids will try to bring us together. I don't know. Anyway, anyway. So, yes, The Monks. You heard The Monks. This is mid-1960s in Germany. Yeah. And this is them playing it for... Okay, so we got... I'm getting a little bit ahead. A little bit. All right? Because we do want to get into the context of the place and time of where this story is. So, as we said before, it's Germany. It's West Germany during the Cold War. And these are five American soldiers who are stationed in a base just inches away from the iron curtain, from the Warsaw Pact forces. And so, a bit of a refresher, and also to some who may not know, World War II happened. The Holocaust happened. It was all real, and it's a shitty, shitty thing. Sorry, it's important. Okay? And I'm going to point fingers as well. I'm going to start with the Nazis. And the incurable cut, that was Adolf Hitler. So, Nazis, of course, we know our bad. Our ideology, everything they stand for, their methods, their false sense of superiority, and their stupid-ass plans for the world. Yeah, brave stance you're taking here. It's important to mention this. So, when the Nazis surrendered to the Allied forces in 1945 because they lost, and they always were loose. Always. After the massive fuck-up, that was the Third Reich and the devastation that they led in their wake. Millions of people killed, displaced, in exile, with no food or shelter, just left behind to rot. The entire country of Germany was bombed to oblivion. Yeah, and you're talking about the German citizens. Like, these people, like, most of these cities, like, Dresden is gone. You know, like, there are entire cities all over Germany that are just fucking gone. Absolutely. And I'm not even talking about the Germans. These are people who are moved. The Nazis are asshole. They displaced millions of people for coming from different ethnicities. Of course, the Jewish population unfortunately suffered the most. But as well as other ethnicities in the communities around, of course. So there are a lot of people, there's a lot of rubble. So this led to years of what the hell are we going to do with this broken country, Germany, right? There is this rubble, there is these broken people. We need to jumpstart a society, get the government going, figure out how to use money. What do we call the money? Right? And so the allies who beat the Nazis, who were there to occupy everything, there were the Americans and the other allies, there were the French, the UK, and the USSR, who are our allies at one point, well, what ended up happening after a couple of conferences was that the Americans had one idea and the USSR had another. The Soviet Union had a different idea. So of course, I'm simplifying this just a little bit. Tiny bit, but not too much. But this actually, no. So this led to the country being divided in two. The country, Germany. West Germany, East Germany. West Berlin, East Berlin. The capitalist pigs versus the communists who eat babies. Basically, there's a point of view for everything. Each group was just taught to fear and hunt the other. And when I mean divided in two, I mean divided like twins in a bedroom, okay? They drew lines between East and West Germany. You come over to my bedroom, you come over there. That's exactly it. There was a literal wall, the Berlin Wall, that was raised in 1961 because of all this crap. It was basically the USSR saying, hey, we have a question. Can we sign this treaty with Germany? And then maybe communism can really take off in Europe. And America thinking like, that's probably a bad idea because then we lose a foothold in Europe and then we don't want to leave because we also help beat the whole world war. That's basically it. We're all mean girls here. So the point is, is that why are these two superpowers that came out of World War II, the US and the Soviet Union, fighting over parts of Germany? It's basically for global influence. So this is the whole thing. Who's gonna come on top, the US or the Soviets? And at this point right now, in 1961, we don't know. Absolutely don't know. And both sides are so fucking scared. And that is the environment that these five guys that are in the monks, this is the environment they are coming to in Germany. Do you believe in miracles? You're sex-at-thine. Because that's a nice reference. That wasn't the reference I was going with, but that's a very nice reference. Because yes, these American guys are gonna jump in to West Germany right now at this moment. It's not really gonna matter, but when they become the monks, that's all that matters. Yes, because in the background, when they arrive in the background, Kennedy is sending military advisors to Vietnam. Vietnam is beginning. They don't know it yet, but we'll get to that later on in this episode and especially next episode. And of course... We're gonna get to that. Hell, we even forgot about the fucking bomb, man. The whole, when you make a call, Dmitri, Dmitri, we're all fine now. There is a thing called MAD. It's not a MAD world. The mutual assured destruction of the whole thing, where the US and the US's are, each have bombs, atomic weapons that can destroy the whole world, and they have military bases with these warheads pointing at each other. And one of these military bases that have these weapons, of course, pointing at different parts of the world, like the Soviet Union, is at an army base near a town called Geldenhausen. And that army, actually an army barracks called Kohlmann Kassern. Kassern. No one saw this, but I almost threw a chair across. It's fine. I took two years of German. I don't know what anything means, but I know how to pronounce everything. Kohlmann Kassern. Kassern means barracks. Okay, so there are the barracks, right? Or they're about to get to the barracks. So this is where the story starts. It actually starts with a guy named Gary Berger, who enlisted in the US Army in 1961, right after graduating high school in Bemidji, Minnesota. Bemidji. Gary, he's 18, right? And he wants to experience something that's not Bemidji, Minnesota. Bemidji. It's just midge. They're going to name midge. Hey, got it. All right. Okay. Show's over, guys. All right. So the US Army, they send Gary to Kohlmann Army barracks in Gell-Hausen as a fuel truck driver. This is first class private Gary Berger, who's been playing guitar since he was 10 years old. He was a big country music fan, played a lot of Hank Williams songs, grew up listening to Grand Ole Opry religiously. But he was also into rock music of the day, Chuck Berry, Bill Haley. Big surf guy. He was really getting to surf at this point. And while stationed in West Germany, Gary would practice his guitar by himself at the Army service every weekend, because they had a little Army service club where you can go and play maranjas and congos and stuff like that. He chose the guitar. Okay. Go figure. But on one particular day, Gary Berger, who, you know, he just went to the front desk to sign up for like a room and a guitar. Well, the lady at the front desk said, hey, there's this other guy who comes in when you do, and he plays guitar in the other room. So instead of using up two rooms, why don't you guys just use the same room together? Because she doesn't know that people play their own music. But you know what? She's trying to save space. I get it. It's Army efficiency. So Army efficiency. So Gary said, fine. And after an awkward afternoon of two guys trying to play different songs in the same room. Fucking mad thing. So it's like fucking hanging out in the guitar center. It really was. But so this was a very weird situation. So Gary just decides, okay, you know what? This other guy, he really could play like he's good. So he turned to him and he said, should we just try to play together? And that other guy that he turned to was Dave Day, the guy who would become the banjo player for the monks. Yeah. What you came up with, we'll get more into it later, but you called him the other day, you called him the banjo drummer. And he says, the best way to describe Dave Day's eventual role in the monks, the banjo drummer. Oh, there's a whole thing to it. It's very exciting. So Dave Day also, by the way, my favorite monk. He's a solid guitar player who would, as we said, later be the banjo player for the monks. How cool is that in a hard rock band? Because the monks to me are a hard rock band. Oh yeah. What are the first? These are the beginnings of what we call heavy metal music. That's amazing. Now he's only 19 years old from Renton, Washington, and he doesn't say much about his childhood, except that he grew up really poor and joined the army, partly to get away from his abusive stepfather and to prove to his mom that he could be somebody. And because his hero and favorite artist, Elvis, had also enlisted. Give us a room with a view of the beautiful ride. Give us a room with a view of the beautiful ride. Give me your money or quick and dance is your annual time. I got those up, two, three, four occupation GI blues. From GI to the hills of my GSU. And if I don't go, I'll be a little bit more. From GI to the hills of my GSU. And if I don't go, stay inside sooner, I'm gonna move a few. We'll get Hassan Pfeffer and Black Pumpernickel for child. Yeah, Elvis, Hassan Pfeffer and Pumpernickel for child. What does that even mean? That must be code. He must have been a code breaker. No, Elvis was historically, and I was always, historically, a very nice mama's boy. Yeah, of course. No, Elvis and his mama is a romance for the ages. Okay, all right, let's just go back to the story. I'd love to do Elvis one day. Elvis is one of my dream series. God, I'd love to do Elvis. We need to do Elvis one day. And then we'll do the fun conspiracies with our brother wives, Henry and Ben. Anyway, so after jamming together for a while, Gary Berger from Bemidji, Minnesota, who loves good old country western music, and Dave Day from Renton, Washington, Elvis Fanatic to say the least, they figured, why don't we just start a band together? And since they're both guitarists in the same room, they decided, let's call ourselves the Rhythm Rockers. Working title. Now to fill out their sound, Gary and Dave recruited an organist with horn rimmed glasses named Larry Clark, who served in Dave's unit as the company clerk. And I got to say, Larry is now my favorite monk. I love Larry. Yeah, he is also adorable. Yeah, Larry was like a mid-western type from Chicago. He never drank, he never smoked, he played chess, and he read constantly, hardly makes some of your typical rock and roller. But even though Larry was classically trained on the piano, it can fucking murder a Chopin sonata if you really wanted him to. His passion in the early 60s was rock and roll. To wit, he bought himself a small portable electric organ, specifically because it had the same tone as the organ on a certain Booker T in the MG song. So when Gary and Dave brought Larry in to audition, he played one make or break song, his favorite song, arguably the greatest and most well-known rock and roll organ track in existence. Green fucking onions. Hell yeah, green onions. I love that song. That song is iconic. Obviously, it's iconic. And it is very much Larry Clark's song. Very much so. His favorite song. And it's basically once you're going to hear Larry Clark take that song, take that vibe, put it in a fucking blender, and spray it out all over the audience in the best possible way. Larry Clark is quite possibly my favorite organist of all time. Wow. So after Larry played the song perfectly and was quickly hired, the band also added a drummer in the form of a soft-spoken German craftsman named Hans. Hans was a civilian who had joined the band as a cultural experience to see what it was like to play American music with genuine Americans. Calling themselves, as you said, the rhythm rockers. Working title. The band was only missing a bass player to round everything out. Now Coleman Cassana Bass was woefully lacking in bass, bass in bass players. I know. Woefully like it. Bass was lacking in bass. Okay, okay. I'm sorry. You can do it again. I'm not. I'm not. I'm keeping it in. But luckily, the band piqued the interest of a former jazz trumpeteer named Eddie Shaw, who would eventually come to be known as the bass of hell. Yes. Trumpeteer or trumpeter? We don't know. Trumpeter. Okay. So Eddie Shaw, yes. Who, by the way, is the author of our main source, Black Monk Time, by Thomas Edward Shaw, you see. And Anita Klemke. So this is why we know so much. And of course, we'll list other sources at the end of the episode, but since only one member wrote a book based on the experiences of the monks, we're going to go by a lot of Eddie's point of view, just so you guys know. And quick side note, Black Monk Time, the book, it's fucking great. It gets absolutely good. He even draws a little. He draws a little autograph for you and draw a little doodle. It's fucking great. Absolutely. Okay. So here's where Eddie Shaw comes in. Now, remember, Gary's into country, but loves rock music too. Dave's the Elvis guy and Eddie's thing is jazz. Jazz, like, like, like, like Cisco, right? Like Captain Cisco. Ooh, jazz baseball. Yeah. Okay. So Eddie sings jazz. He's big into Dizzy Gillespie, Miles Davis, Coltrane, of course. He started out playing drums as a kid and then switched to trumpet by the time he was 15 years old. And he's playing the trumpet somewhat professionally, actually, like playing Dixieland jazz groups in casinos and events, parties, bar mitzvahs, weddings, what have you. And you'd be playing a lot of music, a little bit, something like this, a little something like Louis Armstrong fireworks. Yeah. It sounds really old. It is very old. It's extraordinarily old. Wow. 15 years old. And he was doing this, you know, in the other room, he'd say the other room, Wayne Newton was starting his career as 12 years old. Yeah. Yeah. And when he was 15, doing the Nuggets Casino in Nevada. Name a Wayne Newton song. I can't either. No, fuck you by Nate Wayne Newton. That was a good one. Hit number two, 1975. Anyway, Eddie Shaw was from Carson City, Nevada, total jazz man. He played drums in a jazz group at the Army base at Coleman Cousin. Cousin. But soon. Admittedly, it's a tough German word. It's a tough, yes, at the Army barracks in Gellhäusen. God, you're doing it. Okay. But soon the guys that Eddie Shaw was playing with were discharged and they, you know, they went back home. So he was left with no one to play with. That is until one day at the service club, that same music service club. That's when Eddie Shaw heard a group of guys playing rock music in one of the rooms. It was Gary, Dave, Larry and Hans, the Rhythm Rockers, working title. And they're the most fun group of musicians around. Like there was even a line of people outside peering in the door, watching them practice. So Eddie stood there by the door with the others and he noticed all their songs were rock and roll songs. And each song only had three chords. And that's when Eddie Shaw realized rock and roll is not that complicated. At this point, it is very easy. Not that complicated at all. Okay. So Eddie wanting to join in on the excitement, he went into town at Gellhäusen. He bought a cheap used bass guitar in an old music store. He taught himself a few chords. And then on the next Saturday afternoon, when he knew the Rhythm Rockers were practicing in the auditorium at the service club, he walked over to the stage and like he, like it was just like in a movie. He like opened, pulled up back the curtain and he goes, looks like you guys need a bass player. This is also Eddie's recollection. So it sounds like, sounds like you need a bass player. I was practicing this all day by barracks. Sounds like somebody needs a bass player. Was it like that? Yes. It's a great book. It really paints a whole story. It does. And so Gary, at this point, Gary, Dave, Larry and Hans all looked at him and they looked at each other like, who's this asshole? Right. But they gave him an audition anyways, because what you said before, they were woefully lacking in bass players. The whole army barracks, not one bass player in sight. Nobody wants to be a fucking bass player. That's right. I love playing bass. I love playing drums. But no one wants to be. Yeah, no one wants to be. But this guy, Eddie's coming in. So they gave him a quick audition where Eddie had to kind of dance around the fact that he'd only been playing bass for about a week, maybe two at the most. They still allowed him to join the Rhythm Rockers working title. Working title. That's it. Three, two, sun. EasyJet's big orange sale is now on, with up to 400 pounds of package holidays and up to 20% off flights. Book now at EasyJet.com. Get out there. Selected dates and flights sale on 5th of May. Holidays minimum, spend a natural protected, season C's apply. Switch to Plastnet's award-winning full fibre from just $22.99 a month. Our sweet deal gets you fast and reliable broadband with no activation fee, with speeds up to 900 megabits. Feels like a sugar rush. Full fibre that's full of value. That's a plus. Offer ends 6th of May. 24 months, 26.99 from the 31st of March, 2027. 30.99 from the 31st of March, 2028. New customers only. 62% UK availability. Time's apply. So once the band had five members and were taking themselves more seriously, they began to re-examine their very dull name. Chosen long before the other guys joined by Gary and Dave. It seemed, however, as if Gary and Dave were the only ones who had a real say in what they were called. See, at the start of Gary and Dave's musical collaboration, they played for fittings thrown into an empty guitar case at an off-base bar called the Fisher Tube, which was owned by a woman named Karen, a fascinating woman named Karen. Karen had driven tanks during World War II against the Russians, probably near the end of the war after Russia invaded Germany and the only people still alive to fight were the women, the children, and the old men. Most of them left in Germany had been rightfully terrified of the Soviets and what the Soviets were going to do once they conquered Germany. There's a BBC documentary called Germany 1945 that is harrowing. At the same time, it's one of those things that's difficult. It's like, well, who did you vote for? But at the same time, no one deserves that. No one deserves that. No one deserves that. So a lot of these people, they fought whether they still believed in Nazi ideology or not. If they ever even believed in Nazi ideology in the first place. This was perhaps why Karen loved Americans, partly because they drank in her bar, but perhaps partly because Americans were the new enemies of the Soviets. But regardless, Gary and Dave honed their chops in the back room of Karen's bar with her blessing. And this time seemed to give Gary and Dave a feeling of ownership when it came to the band that never really ended. But it had also been Gary and Dave's decision to call the band the Rhythm Rockers. Right. I mean, I understand. It's a good first band name. Yeah. As Gary Berger rightfully pointed out, the name sounded old fashioned even for 1963, which tells you how fast things moved back then in a cultural sense. Just eight years before calling your band the Rhythm Rockers, it would have been cutting edge. It would have potentially even have been obscene, a sexual reference, rhythm, a rockin. But by 1963, it sounded like the musical equivalent of a wet noodle. And so Gary Berger said during a band meeting one day that they needed something more sophisticated when it came to their name. Something French sounding. He suggested that they use the title of their de facto theme song, their opener. That tune was from a landlocked Clovis, New Mexico surf group called the Fireball. Yes. Who'd had some success with a song called Torque. Yeah. It's a good opener. You know, it uses people in it tells them, Hey, this show is about to begin and it's groovy. You know, the fireballs are fucking great. We covered them during our surf and bird episode, I believe. I believe that. Yes. Now, after Dave ruminated on the name, making annoyed grunts because he's still like being in a band called the Rhythm Rockers. Dave finally came around saying that maybe it wasn't such a bad idea. Dave was and remained the rock and roll guy. He never stopped loving Elvis and he never stopped loving rock and roll. Yeah. But he also knew a good idea when he saw it. Organist Larry Clark, though, he wanted something that seemingly put a little more focus on his organ or he might have just wanted to name check his favorite song. He wanted to call the band Green Onions. I know, I know. It's like, what's your password, man? Immediately though, Gary and Dave responded in the sort of aggressive and immature way that seems especially prevalent in men in their early 20s. They told Larry that he hadn't been in the band long enough to suggest a name. And besides, Dave didn't want to be in a band named after food. And you know, and you think like, Oh yeah, that's a really good point. Like being in a band named after food is fucking lame. But when you think about it, there's cake, corn, meatloaf, bread, cream, peaches, the cranberries, the electric prunes. Blind melon, the flamborito brothers, banana ram, a hot tune of vanilla fudge and tangerine dream. Germany's own tangerine dream. And that's just to name a few. Don't forget hot chocolate. Do you believe in miracles? Do you believe in miracles? I believe in either way. We believe in miracles. Say it loud. You're such a thing. But even though food names were obviously the wave of the future, Dave didn't find food so rock. Or perhaps he just didn't want Larry to have a say. Maybe. Likewise, when Eddie Shaw tried suggesting a name, he wasn't even allowed to finish his sentence because he'd been the last member to join the group as the bassist. So Eddie and Larry acquiesced. They called it a foregone conclusion, which an army speak meant that they didn't like it, but they had no choice but to go along. From that moment until they became the monks, the band was called the Five Torques. That's right. And now you listener, maybe at the part of the episode where you're wondering, I thought they were in the army. Isn't there a cold war going on? What exactly are our taxes paid for? Seriously, what are they doing? Right? Well, these are soldiers, not officers. Right. The first class private was pretty much the highest they're going to go. Maybe they might be made sergeants at most. Yeah, they're grunts. They don't give a shit. That's right. And like I said before, Gary had been playing guitar since he was 10 years old. At this point, he's just following his instincts. You know, he's doing army stuff. Sure. But this is why, like why they're getting into this is that they're following their instincts. Gary, especially, he's working on it too. Like while he's in the band, he's also experimenting musically. He's trying out new sounds. He's getting into surf rock, of course. And same with Eddie Shaw, who played the drums trumpet and wasn't jazz bands most of his life. Music came easy to him too. And he was drawn to it just like he was drawn to the practice room when he first heard the rhythm rockers. And Dave, the other guitar player, remember we were talking about him. He's a sentimental monk. He's excitable by nature. He wants to see other people happy. He lives to entertain. He'll run laps, do handstands if that's hard to show. He'll do nudity if it's essential to the plot. He just loves the show. I feel like Dave was the kid who would like eat bugs for a dollar. That's me. You know, like they're all like a spice girl. Like he's sentimental monk. I totally relate to him. He plays for applause any day. He just wants to be just like his idol Elvis, who also just wanted to make people happy as well. Elvis was historically just a good mama's boy. Yeah, he's a people pleaser. Absolutely. And then there's Larry, the keyboard player, the organist. He also loves the show, but he also loves the idea of the band making some money. Remember, he's the cool calculated one. He's the one who's got it together if you ask me. He's the Victoria Beckham. Would you say that? I would say that. He always, like you said, always keeps a pen and a little note. I have a lot of to-do lists. It's important, you know? He's who I call the business monk because he loves a good business opportunity and he sees something with the tour case. So this is what they're moving forward with. They're all into this. Like let's, you know, focus on this. Forget the army. They're going to focus on this. Yeah. No, no, no, they're starting to take it seriously. So pretty soon after they started calling themselves the five tour case, the nascent monks got offered work playing weekends in the town of Gelenhausen at a place called the Maxim Bar. This was the only place in the area where American music could be seen live. So it naturally attracted a lot of GIs from the base. That, of course, came with its own set of problems. That's true. I mean, they're making a little bit of money. This is great at the Maxim Bar, but the Maxim Bar was an American GI bar, which could get pretty hairy sometimes. Every Friday, Saturday night from 8 p.m. to 11 p.m. the place would be rockin'. And by midnight, it's a shit show. I'm serious. So, okay, this is a typical Saturday night, right? They're playing and then it's around midnight. They're doing all these new dance steps while they play, you know, they're putting on a show. Dave was always about like, you got to do a show. Swing your guitars to the left, to the right, make a step, you know, all that kind of stuff. The crowd is dancing too. The men are moving to the music. The women are heating up the dance floor kind of thing. And everyone is just a little bit drunk. Beautiful. A little bit, yeah, okay. But then, without warning, you hear someone from the dance floor yell, Hey, buddy, she's with me. And then you hear another guy say, fuck you. And then next thing you know, bottles and glasses are crashing to the ground. Tables are being overturned. One guy starts beating up another and then 50 more spring up from that punch. And the next thing you know is an all-out country western ball, saloon brawl. That's what it is. The owner of the Maxim Bar, Herr Schmidt, he runs through the chaos and he starts screaming for them to stop. But everyone ignores him. And everyone's just punching and pushing and sliding them down the bar. I'm just imagining this whole thing going down. So then the owner, he runs through the phone, he calls the military police. He knows the number by heart because this happens every weekend. And every weekend, these drunk American GIs totally destroy his bar and his glassware. Meanwhile, the tour case are still playing. They're on stage because they'll be damned if they don't get paid for the whole set. Like, let's just keep going. This next one is, I don't know, it's called break stuff. I don't know. Right from that curiously niche rap rock band from Jacksonville, Florida. Anyway, crash, pal, punch, bam. People are just dodging beer bottles. A chair is thrown in the air and hits the back of the stage, the wall of the stage narrowly missing Eddie's head. And then he looks over his shoulder and he sees the leg of the chair actually stuck to the side of the wall. Where the Star Wars cantina? And Hans, remember Hans, the drummer who was there for the cultural experience. So I've spoken German, man. Yes. So he jumps off his drum stool and off to the front of the stage. He just jumps off the stage and straight for the front door because it ain't worth it. The hell with this. I'll see you guys next weekend. That kind of thing. He's like, these guys are lunatics. And then right through that same door, the military police finally runs in. They push their way through. They throw a gannister tear gas in the middle of the dance floor that sends everyone scattering around the venue. It's chaos. It's anarchy. It's Saturday night at the Mexican bar and Gell houses. It's going to be like a 20, 30 minute bar fight. It happens. Eddie said like, this is a quote. He said, these soldiers are trained to kill, but really lack social grace. Like, yes, I know. I can see that. And that's when Gary, followed by Dave and Eddie, they finally put down their instruments and run off through the exits with their hands in their face, their eyes burning and coughing from the tear gas. And meanwhile, Larry, remember Larry? He's playing keyboard because he was the only one who brought a gas mask. Yes. You see, every time Larry senses some kind of danger and something is about to go down, he would just calmly reach for his gas mask, put it on, check for leaks, and then put his hands back down and keep playing the organ. And since usually he was the only one left after all of this, he'd be playing what he wanted, which was green onions by Boca Tea, surrounded by clouds of tear gas. That's his solo. If that's not a Kafka-esque nightmare, I don't know what is. And finally, when the gas clears and the military police yell at Larry, yelling at Larry, the quit playing, the show's over, he finally calmly gets up, he goes outside, he pulls off his gas mask and says, I didn't stop playing, Perchmet. That means we get paid for the full time, right? And that's when the owner, Perchmet, he would be despondent at this point, but he can't ban the GIs from the bar because that's how he makes his money. So every week it's the same thing. And every week Larry tells the guys to bring their gas masks and they would say, okay, but by next week they would rationalize that maybe they didn't need them this time because maybe they learned their lesson, right? But sure enough, they always needed them because some traditions are hard to let go. That was every Saturday. Every single Saturday. Every single Saturday, they're like, yeah. It's not going to happen. It's all like, yeah, I mean, it's happened the last four times we played, but it's a chance it could happen five. Bring your gas mask, guys. Now as the five tour case, the band became more popular locally. So their post commander ordered them to volunteer for a so-called hearts and minds mission in West Germany. The band, of course, loved the assignment because they found that the better they got at playing music together, the less it felt like they were still in the army. What a bunch of regular search and billcows. Sorry, that's a 50 year old joke. But I do believe in puns. So at the direction of their commander, the band embarked on a mission called Operation Jingle Bells. And remember, for those of you who are familiar with the monks, It's not a Bell-Merry movie. In Operation Jingle Bells, their one and only objective was to play Christmas music for Germans in nursing homes, hospitals, and orphanages. But since these were daytime gigs, Hans could no longer be their drummer. They were temporarily replaced by a terribly intense New Yorker named Bob Rose, who certainly fit the stereotype of the unstable drummer. But as the tour case played out more and more, they began to realize that they could just stay in Germany as working musicians if they wanted to. They realized this could just be their life. Now this was a bold move for a bunch of Americans in their early 20s, some of whom had only the most tenuous grasp on the German language. I think only one of them ended up becoming fluent. I think a few of them were, Roger was the only one who was like, I like my A&W, cheeseburger, and malt, sorry. And he'd only go bowling or something. But a few of them did learn. I think Dave's like, man, I want to, but... No, Dave did. Dave did, okay. Yeah, Dave, remember, he had to, well, we'll tell you about this in episode two. He had to relearn English. But as we'll see, bold moves make up the core of what will become the monks. The decision to stay in Germany as working musicians was all but cinched when the band was contacted by a successful booking agent from Frankfurt named Hans Reich. He told the Five Torquets that if they wanted the opportunity, he could book them for resident season towns all over Germany. The hitch the band had though, was that while most of them were about to walk outside the walls of Coleman Cassin, a base for good, drummer Bob Rose still had the majority of his service ahead of him. And since Bob was a little unpredictable anyway, the band found another drummer that Gary knew who was also getting out of the army around the same time as everyone else. His name was Roger Johnson, and he would eventually become the anchor of the future Monk Sound. Roger was a rough around the edges drifter of sorts who joined the army because he had no other viable options. And when I say drifter, I don't mean like Henry Lee Lucas drifter. I just mean a guy who just doesn't know what the fuck's going on. He was looking for work going from one place to another trying to find something. Yeah, he was originally from Wetherford, Texas, but had no desire to return. So it was a very easy decision for him to make when he was given the chance to stay in Germany as a working musician in a rock band. And so with their classic lineup complete, the Torquets signed on for a series of month long residencies starting in October of 1964 in the towns of Ziegen, Worms, and their temporary home base, Heidelberg. Yes, they were heroes in Heidelberg. And they're out of the army at this point. That's right. They're out of the army. So they're putting on these shows and they're having fun. They're making jokes. They're bantering with each other with the audience, doing dances, comedy bits, you know. All of this while playing covers of Chuck Berry, Ray Charles, Beach Boys, you know, Gary would do the high voice for the Beach Boys. They were kind of trying to harmonize. It was really fun. You know, and they sang and they also played songs like Route 66, Cadillac, Daddy Boy. You know, songs like that. And they did this eight hours a night, seven days a week. There was never a night off, but they loved it, especially and also the crowd. The crowd also loved it too. The crowd, they're from everywhere. You got American GIs here. You got white American GIs on one side, black American GIs on the other side, German locals on one side, African students on the other, European students, Swedish people, Spanish people all over like everywhere. And the guys, the guys in the band, they're like 20, 21 years old. They're making friends of everyone. They're going from table to table. They are free to roam through anything, through any groups of people. Like this is like their fun, multicultural like experience. Is their sophomore year abroad? They love it, yes. And they're also making friends with locals, tourists, sex workers. They were good friends with sex workers, sometimes dated some. I also dated other local girls as well. I know Eddie got married pretty early on around this time. So they're at a place that's incredibly exciting, you know, full of fun and outlandish characters. Dave would go around from table to table asking like, how you guys doing tonight? You like, you like in the show? Any requests? You know, where are you from? Want to grab a drink? Just bonding, getting to know people and just drinking in this insanely gratifying cultural exchange while everyone, the band, the customers, the wait staff, everyone is dancing and rocking out to their show Stopper Song, What I Say by Ray Charles. Hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey There's some more hot pipes for Larry. Okay, so now the tour case, they are now just a few months into their bookings. They're doing a whole 30 days every night, one city, and then going to the next, and it's all really fun. But when they hit a bigger city like Frankfurt, they realize what kind of competition they're up against. You see, in Frankfurt, they had a month-long engagement at a place called the K-52 Club. And it was the home club of Casey Jones and the governors, or at least one of the home clubs, because Casey Jones was pretty big in those days. Casey Jones was huge. Yeah, so a quick bio on who Casey Jones and the governors are, Casey Jones. He's a lead singer, a guitarist. Actually that's his stage name. His real name was Brian Kasser, which is why he called his first band, Kass, in the Casanovas. But they quickly broke up when Brian Kasser, Kass, moved to London, or his band left him. I don't know, I've heard him both reports, you know, and that. Considering his, the way he later treats the monks, I'd say the band probably left him. That's, yeah, you're right, you're right. I would go ahead and say, seems like a bit of a prick. I've heard that. I've heard that. But you know what, his band, the Casanovas, they were able to form their own band, The Big Three, who, according to legend, were one of the most rocking bands in Liverpool, live bands. And that's saying a lot, considering the Beatles are from there and played alongside them and other shows. But the Big Three men watch a documentary, some other guys, it's the best music documentary I've seen in a long time. That's saying a lot. It's fucking great. Yeah, one of the guys. Really good. Yeah, the drummer from that, I mean, these guys are like an integral part of history. The drummer from The Big Three was asked to be in the Beatles after they kicked out Pete Bass, but he said like, fuck no, Cole Ringo. Yeah, that's Johnny Hutchinson. Yeah, Johnny Hutchinson, by the way, is also a legend. Two drumsticks in each hand. And that's how we play and sing. It's amazing. See, he would sing with a fucking broomstick between his knees and a microphone taped to the fucking broomstick. They all did. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, watch some other guys. It's a fucking great documentary. I don't, yeah, I don't think it's gotten a lot of, like, I don't think it's on any streaming platforms. You might have to find it on Vimeo, but if you Google it, some other guys, Big Three documentary, you will find it. It's fantastic. I cannot recommend that enough. Yeah. And it really rounds out like the early days of the Beatles too. Absolutely. So anyway, back to Casey Jones, but because right now he's Casey Jones now. He turned into Casey Jones when he moved to London where he signed a deal with Columbia Records and released a single in 1963 as Casey Jones and the engineers. And a little quick tidbit right before he recorded that one of his engineers was famed Kant Eric Clapton. Actually, that was just fantastic. Anyway, so, but then he left because he couldn't even handle Casey Jones. No, that guy's a bigger dick than I am. No, I, all I heard was Casey Jones was a bit, just a bit prickly. Yeah. He was an horrible person. A bit difficult. A prick. That's it. That's it. RIP, by the way. All right. So I'm not sure how Casey Jones's single did, but it did seem like he was ready to move on because he did move to West Germany in 1963 where he actually found very modest success. And he had a new band with him, a band from Bristol called the Midnights who decided to come to Germany to and join Casey Jones as Casey Jones and the Govenus to make them seem as British as possible since British beat music was becoming all the rage. And with this song, their biggest single in 1965 peaked at number two in the German pop charts, Don't Ha Ha. Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Oh. I mean, that's something to be on fucking nuggets. It's actually pretty good. Yeah. It's very good. Like it's a lot faster. You know, it's got to get a fucking amazing energy to it. But Casey Jones was an- Five foot one, by the way. Nothing wrong with short people. I'm just saying he's five foot one. Yeah, he's five foot one. But yeah, Casey Jones and the Govenus, they later played a bigger show, a much bigger show with the monks like a couple of years later and they took up all of the monks' sound check time and then ensured that when the monks went on before them, when the monks opened for them, they ensured in like a 2000 seat venue that none of the monks' amps were mic'd up at all. They weren't- they couldn't hear anything. Nobody could hear anything. They absolutely humiliated them for no other reason than Casey Jones wanted to be the bigger band. Yeah. Yeah. So he's an absolute fucking dick. Yeah. And he always tries to put himself into history, which I understand a little bit. He's like, yeah, me and, you know, the Beatles, we went to school together. You know, we used to- I told them to call themselves the Beatles. Yeah, that kind of stuff. He's like, you know, I was once in a skiffle group with Bill Wyman, but he had to go and join the Rolling Stones. Skiffle. Skiffle group. Yeah. I had put him with Ray Davies once. R.I.P. R.I.P. Anyway, so now the monks- sorry, they're the tour case right now. Yeah, the soul tour case. The tour case, they have to compete with that because Casey Jones, he's pretty big and also not just that, his performance was great. The showmanship. I mean, he did all kinds of tricks on stage. You know, you dance around, trolling, always seem to be floating in the air like the grace of a fling gazelle. And the music, you know, the music's loud and energetic and fun. You see, it has to be loud. That's the trick. And fast. Yes. And Casey Jones, he had a very loyal fan base all over Germany, especially at the K-52 club in Frankfurt. They were a tough act to follow. So the tour case really intimidated. They get on stage, nervous as hell. The audience is just sitting there like, okay, arms crossed, what you got? And so the tour case, they just turn up their amps and all their equipment to, I'm sorry, 11. They make it as loud as possible. Roger takes out his new drumsticks that he just bought that afternoon in town in preparation for this show. Eddie Shaw described his drumsticks as just a little thinner than baseball bats. And with that, they were ready to rock. But once they got going, they realized they couldn't hear anything because the louder the sound, the less they could decipher the notes that they were playing. Yeah, it just turns the mud. Yes. So to compensate for the shitty sound coming from the amps, Dave would just start running around the stage from one end to the other, trying to hype up the crowd. Yeah. And he kept signaling to the other guys, Larry, Eddie, Gary, come on, let's go. Like we got to make show. Mock show. Mock show. Mock show. Always have to make show. But when the first song ended, it was just crickets. No one moved or clapped. Nothing. Then they played the second song. Same thing. By the end of the tour case, first set, Dave was freaking jumping off a amp and doing the splits like Dave's Brown. And nothing, nothing worked. The audience is just not having it. One guy even yelled, you guys suck. As they walked off stage after their first set and it only got worse because they were fired after their second set and were quickly replaced with a German beat band that was just waiting in the literal wings of the stage. So the owner of the club, he still felt pretty bad for the tour case. So he got him a free case of beer as a consolation. And he just told them, dude, it's the songs. You guys are playing American R&B when everyone now wants to hear the Beatles and Rolling Stones. It's 1965 now. Yeah. I mean, yeah, British music has already been huge for two years at this point. At least. Absolutely. It's international now. It's all over the globe. It's established. And Dave, who was so horribly depressed over the incident of not being able to make show, he hid in the kitchen of the club and he drank most of the beer by himself. And if that wasn't bad enough, he and the rest of the guys had to wait until the band who replaced them were done with their set so they could go and retrieve their equipment on stage and go home. I've had to do that before. That's such a fucking awful hour. But Dave, even in his drunken stupor, watched the German beat band play British rock and he realized, yeah, that is actually much newer and cooler. It's much better. And that German beat band was playing this song from the Kinks. This really rocking song. It's a classic. You really got me. Yeah, and it was true. The turquoise, if they wanted to compete, they had to update their repertoire. So the band got to work. Our stuff is old hats. Let's change it around. Let's play some British rock music now, which is a faster, punkier version of old American Blue Standards. Sure, but we can do that. We can play Rollover Beethoven, but not the Chuck Berry version. We do the Beatles arrangement. Everything is more modern now. So the guys, they go back to Gell and Halzen and they rework a new strategy. Here comes the A-Team theme song. There's the montage. Thank you because I forgot in production. I forgot to ask you to put that in. So that's perfect. That's enough. I'm going to know it by heart. Okay. So the turquoise, they get new equipment. I'm only 40 years old. I fucking swear. Yes, I know. Wait up. Three, two, sun. EasyJet's big orange sale is now on, with up to £400 off package holidays and up to 20% off flights. Book now at easyjet.com. Get out there. Selected dates and flights sale on 5th of May. Holidays minimum, spend a natural protected. Teas and seas apply. Switch to Plusnet's award-winning full fibre from just £22.99 a month. Our sweet deal gets you fast and reliable broadband with no activation fee, with speeds up to 900 megabits. Feels like a sugar rush. Full fibre that's full of value. That's a plus. Offer ends 6th of May. 24 months, 26.99 from the 31st of March, 2027. 30.99 from the 31st of March, 2028. New customers only. 62% UK availability. Terms apply. So the turquoise, they get new equipment, bigger amps. They buy matching shiny gold vests. Then they pick up English records like the stones, the Beatles, the kinks, of course. They listen to them, learn them, and now they're part of the band's set list. And when they were ready, the turquoise went back to Heidelberg, where they did great that past winter, where they were heroes, and they killed it every single night they were on. They were on fire. The venue they played in, the Odeon Keller, that was packed every night of the week. They were gods up there, and making good money too. So when they saw that they had a nice surplus in the band fund, they decided to use the money to make a record. So they get in contact with this elderly man who was running this small two track recording studio in his house. And with his help, they quickly recorded two original songs for a single. Yeah, original songs. Not like fucking covers like KC Jones, they're recording fucking originals. Yes, Gary and Dave being the original Rhythm Rockers. Remember, that was a working title. Did most of the songwriting themselves. And later on as amongst the other guys we contribute, of course. But this is a turquoise era, so they recorded Gary and Dave's B side, there she walks, and on the A side. One of my favorites. Yeah. It's really catchy. Boys are boys and girls are choice. I'm gonna lose you at me there more than toys. Here is something you gotta know. Boys are girls like go, go, go. Boys are boys, girls are choice. You know, you know, you know. I'm gonna find one. I won't be lonely. She'll be my lover only. And when I do, it'll be alright. It's catchy. I can see why it's in an Apple commercial. It is? Yeah. I don't know. I didn't ask. Alright, cool. You know, so the single, the original seven inch single of this, what we were talking about when they recorded it with the Elderly Man, the seven inch today, boys are boys is worth nearly $2,000 on discogs. Yes. Casey Jones and the governor's EP for Doha, about $6 on the market right now. So I mean, it's just, the numbers don't lie, man. They don't lie. Fuck off, dead man. Okay. That's not what we wanted, Rob. We'll talk about this in post production. I'm sorry to Casey Jones's family. Now, boys are boys, the Torque's version, it's pretty catchy, although a much faster and better version would show up on their debut album a couple years later. But since the original version is in the original version, it's pretty catchy. But since the original version still had a good beat with just enough bluesy American influence to go along with that British stuff they were playing, the Torque's quickly sold out of their initial run of 500 copies. Mostly this was due to the efforts of the business minded Larry Clark. Using the band as a real time advertisement, Larry sold each copy personally from the stage during shows using his organ as a store counter, sometimes making a sale in the middle of the song by playing with one hand and making change with the other. Genius. Yeah. Now, it wouldn't be long after recording the single that the odd creative impulses that would define the monks began to make themselves known. And the skills necessary to translate those impulses would be born from the band's desire, nay there mandate, to mach schauw. Mach schauw. Make show is what it translates to. It also means make it quick. In German. Yeah. If you watch any of that like that big three documentary or anybody talking about the Beatles in their early days, mach schauw, mach schauw comes up again and again and again. And we'll talk about that in episode two, by the way. See in the cities where the Torque's were playing, the rock clubs would be lined up on a single drag and almost every club featured a band that was more or less imitating the British invasion sound. Nevertheless, each marquee on the strip claimed that their band was the best show band in the USA or the UK or Deutschland. It's amazing how that one blog had the best bands from everywhere. It's like, wow. Everyone was famous. The famous German bonds, the famous Casey Jones, the famous Torque. When Jimi Hendrix would come to Germany, they'd be like famous from England because he lived in England. And the England was where he first got famous. That's where he first got popular. But at the end of the day, each band was basically doing variations on a theme. As a result, when people went out for a night on the town in a place like Heidelberg or Schuttgart, they'd begin their night by peeking their heads into each club on the strip to see if the band inside caught their attention immediately. It was therefore in each band's interest to, in the words of bassist Eddie Shaw, jump, run, scream, sweat, and otherwise abuse your instrument at all times during the entire show. At one point, the Torque's even wore striped night shirts just to give themselves a clownish edge. They used to picture themselves in these old man dresses on the sleeve to their boys or boys single. Comedy acts were a big thing with music as well. It was so competitive that in a very Ramones-like move, the Torque's took barely a second pause between songs to make sure that no one opened the door to a silent room. That pace wouldn't stop for 45 minutes. And after a very short rest, they do it again and again and again. They keep that up for six hours straight every night. Within a few months, the band knew the song so well that they could have full conversations during the show without missing a beat. In addition, they'd become somewhat jaded with the simplified lust of I want to hold your hand and all day and all of the night. And from the band's increasingly evolving perspective, the world in 1965 wasn't that simple. These guys were recently discharged GIs in their early 20s and the American body count in Vietnam, which was made up of GIs and Marines around the same age as the band, that was rapidly rising. It was scary even from when they were in the army. If they would have re-opped, they probably would have ended up in Vietnam. Oh yeah. Furthermore, they were living and working in post-war Germany. And while the Soviets had taken Berlin 20 years earlier, women like Karen, the tank-driving bar owner that I mentioned earlier. Love her. People like that often reminded the band that this was still a scarred and traumatized country. See, when you're reading about napalm and race riots in Vietnam and America, while you're sitting across from Germans who had very recently fought under the Nazi flag, whether they believed in it or not, things start looking a lot more complicated. Therefore, wearing long night shirts and playing mediocre Bill Haley songs somewhat began to lose its luster. But that's not to say that the band went cynical and dark immediately. Or really ever. They still made show. Mok-shou. They're maturing. Yeah. They're becoming more mature. Much more mature. But their style was starting to inadvertently move towards the direction of the Dada movement. Very mature, by the way. They are. Yeah, the Dada movement had of course responded to the extreme violence of World War I with art that reflected the absurdity of the seemingly pointless casualties that ran into the millions as a result of that war. War! Done it. Good God, y'all. What's it? What's what? Wait, no, wait, what is it again? Sorry. What is it good for? Okay, wait, wait, wait. War! Good God, y'all. What is it good for? Absolutely nothing. Say it again! Woo, war! I had to say it again. Sorry, continue. And to go along with their shifting perspectives, the band came up with a new sound, although it happened completely by accident. One day in June of 1965, when the band was hungover and rehearsing at a place in Stuttgart called the Rio Bar, Gary Berger had to go take a piss. He leaned his guitar against his amp, but since he was hungover, he forgot to turn down the volume. So, as the whole band stood there in a haze, the telltale, annoying hum of worsening feedback began to grow. It soon turned into a screech, so Gary turned around and asked for someone to turn off his guitar. But instead, drummer Roger Johnston started beating out a low and steady rhythm on the toms out of sheer boredom, something new to do. Somehow, the cacophony of the feedback meshed with Roger's primal beat, and soon Eddie Shaw was joining in on bass with a perfectly fitted, tasty groove. Gary then ran back to the stage, shouting that he couldn't believe what he was hearing. He picked up his guitar and twanged it as loud as he could while holding his guitar even closer to the amp, creating a screech and a wail unlike anything any of them had ever heard. In the words of Eddie Shaw, it was like discovering fire. Yes! Now, after they bought a bigger amp that could handle the feedback without blowing out the speaker, they found that the drums needed to be louder. But when they made the drums louder, they discovered that they had to overdrive the guitars and the organ had to scream to be heard. Make it louder, that's the trick! The only sound they greatly reduced was possibly the loudest things on stage, the cymbals, because the high frequency of the ride and the hi-hat didn't mesh with the feedback. This gave the band their brilliantly monotonous thump, it's like the sound of a heart that's beaten way too fast. As Eddie Shaw put it, they thereafter no longer wanted to do things that just sounded pretty. Instead, they sounded like this. I mean, it's a far cry from boys, boys and girls and boys. But it's true. And this sound, nobody had that sound, at least not in West Germany. This is 1965! This is amazing! Like barely anybody had that sound, the only people who had that sound in America were the fucking Velvet Underground. There you go. So the monks, the tourquays, sorry, they're the tourquays still. We're almost there, we're almost there guys. So the tourquays, they kept having fun with it. Sometimes when they were on stage, you know, just mocking show, they noticed that the audience weren't paying attention to the band sometimes. They're just sitting there chatting up their friends, or talking amongst themselves. So Gary would just blast them with a room full of feedback, like really fun, just to get their attention for a minute. And they would stop, make conversation, look around, like what just happened, which pissed off the manager of the club, of course, because in the middle of a song, they would do do a ditty or something like that, one of those really fun, pretty songs, then they would just unleash a feedback. And then the manager would come running to the front of the stage to yell at them to stop, but by the time the manager got to them, they would stop and the song would continue as normal and like, oh, hey, did you want something? They would just have fun with this shit, especially with the club manager. Why not? They made him run back and forth to his office like as a Bugs Bunny opera man singing, you know, the cartoon like, la, la, la, la. And then he makes them say, he plays Bugs Bunny, he's playing the banjo there, you know? And then he does the two and three and four, she dances all day long. That's the best. Leo Polo. It's a real home. Watch that. It's great. It's wonderful. It's one of the best. The tourquays, they like making things weird just for fun, especially when they didn't think anyone was really looking. I mean, they would get all serious and do their set as well as possible when they saw like a guy come in with a suit and order club soda. I was like, that could be a talent scout. You know, that could be. You know, you go and get the sign. That's right. Music industry, we're everywhere. It could be an A&R guy looking to hand out record contracts. You never know. Which is why it was kind of a surprise when two German guys in suits came into the club one night and said, hey, we've been watching you guys with the feedback and stuff. Sorry, we were the drunk guys in the back, but we've been watching you very closely for a couple of nights and we want to manage your band. The guys were more like, we want to manage your band. We will make you the biggest stars in Germany. Yes. It was Mike Myers. And Sprockets. So actually their names were Walter and Carl. They were advertising executives who did award winning ads for companies like Volkswagen. They were big, but they weren't in the music industry, but they still knew how to market a product. Yes, they did. You see, they had this whole plan to find a rock and roll band with a unique sound who in the proper hands and direction could become the biggest band in the world and knock the Beatles off their prime position. And that's what Walter and Carl said. They said, we can make you rich and famous. You will not want for anything. You just have to trust us. Yeah. Or not nine. Yeah. They said, yeah. Yeah, fuck it. Why? Yeah, why not? I was agreeing to do it. No, one might think that if you wanted to make money off a group, you'd steer them in a more commercial direction towards what was already selling. I want to hold your hand to selling all of this, you know, very sweet, nice stuff for selling, more sweet, nice stuff. But Walter and Carl took the more courageous approach. They were looking towards the future to what they believed would be the next big thing. Because after all, a lot of people did pass on the Beatles when they started coming up. Dekker famously passed on the Beatles. So to encourage the band, the Germans attended practices and told the band to mix up noise, meaning feedback. Once Gary gave them just the right kind of screech that tickled these guys in just the right way. More, more. The rest of the band would then be directed to play louder, to match the feedback. Everyone louder, everyone more. And finally, Carl would say, no, you're playing hard. That's the way you should play. Jesus. No, with Carl and Walter encouraging them, the band began to think more seriously about how they constructed songs. Everything some members thought needed to be simplified just as the punks decided years later. In the racist Eddie Shaw's case, he just started playing fewer notes, taking all the fancy out of the equation, even though Eddie Shaw was quite good at a bass walk up and down every once in a while. He was a fucking great bassist. To the point of not playing pretty anymore, though, but not playing ugly either. There's something about keeping it simple and stark that allows for moments of lightning. And those moments usually belonged to organist Larry Clark. Yes, they had to work together. So they pretty much had to throw away everything they knew in order to work together and be together in this one particular sound of the future they were making. Yeah, yeah, one noise like a chorus, like a Greek chorus. But the bravest choice when it came to the music itself was in the composition of their songs. Mirroring the uncertainty of the Cold War happening all around them in ways big and small, the band introduced tension to their compositions by playing verses and choruses for 11 bars or 17 bars instead of the standard eight or 16. But simply this was effectively because people have a subconscious expectation for how long pop verses and choruses are supposed to last. We're conditioned for it. We know exactly when it comes in. But when those expectations are subverted by sections that are far too long, the audience gets nervous. But they also pay attention. That is the sign of good art is when you deviate things that the audience are expecting, like the good, bad, and the ugly in the movie. That is a perfect example of that. That's how things are good. That's how you make things good. If anyone wants to know, that's how you do it. So drawing on the German club experiences of needing to hold the audience's attention at all times, no matter what, the band decided to demand attention negatively and aggressively while also remaining playful. They're like a badly trained German shepherd. The simplicity and instrumentation combined with this concept of tension would work best for the monks on their most well-known track, whose peak of visibility was when it was used as the soundtrack for the Market Zero scene in the Big Lebowski. Go back and watch that. You'll see what we mean. Yeah. It was anchored by a bass riff consisting of five notes. That aside from one small noodle, walked up and down the E string for one part and stuck on one note for another. The drums are a simple tom and snare loop and the changes come long after you'd expect them to every single time. And in keeping with their new theme of no longer doing things pretty, the band approached the song from an anti-beatle perspective. After all, this was the music of the future. And in the future, we don't sing, I want to hold your hand. We sing, I hate you with a passion, baby. But call me. Hey, why? Hey, why? Hey, why? Hey, why? Hey, why? Hey, why? Hey, why? Hey, why? Hey, why? Hey, why? Well, it's because you make me, make me, make me hate you, baby. Yeah, yeah, yeah. All right. That's Gary Berger from Bemidji, Minnesota. Bemidji. Yes. There you go. They kind of chose him to be the lead singer of the Monk songs because before they would all take turns singing, you know, Dave is like, I want to do the Elvis songs. Yeah, they can sing. Absolutely. They all can sing. And of course, they all do like what you say, like Greek chorus kind of stuff. They all go together. And in the single, Boys Are Boys, Eddie Shaw is singing lead on that. But this is where they do a shift where they find that Gary's voice is the perfect like temperaments, a perfect kind of pitch for it. It has the right attitude. So Gary is taking on this like crazy, screaming kind of voice going on, which is great. It's fantastic. I mean, it's an insane fucking voice. It's correct. I mean, it's one of those he eventually developed polyps because this voice was so hamburger throat. That's why you call it, you know, with the sea air and just messes with your vocal cords. Yeah. And nobody in history sounded like Gary Berger before Gary Berger. He is a true original and hardly any like I can't even name anyone who sounds like him. Now he's so like he's just such a true original and such a very, very nice man. Yes. Now with this new sound, the band certainly couldn't stick with such a non name as the Torques, but nor could they go with the other suggestions band members had like molten lead, fried potatoes, again with the food. And my favorite, which I actually do like heavy shoes. Heavy shoes. I love heavy shoes. Okay. The path towards the final name though actually began with the only member who ended up not really liking the name, partly because his father was like a part time fill in pastor. See, Larry Clark had begun playing church organ intros for each song as a small joke, a sort of like sacrilegious anointing of each track. Actually, let's listen to what he used to do because when the monks ended up recording their demos, they started every single song with one of these. Yeah, we're like an organ intro kind of thing. Let's hear it. The princess. As syphilis. She cannot attend. The menstruation is unfortunately out of control. Those are our vocal exercises. Every before every episode. Horrible. Queen, the princess. Unfortunately. Medistration. So that's okay. Okay. That's definitely churchy music. It's very much church music and they started every single song like that. But even though it was facetious, it's still annoyed Dave Day. He told Larry to stop playing the church organ intros because it made them sound like a bunch of fucking monks. And upon hearing that, the managers, Walter and Carl seized an immemorable one syllable name and the band was from then on known as the monks. I love it. It's great. Three, two, sun. EasyJet's big orange sale is now on with up to 400 pounds of package holidays and up to 20% off flights. Book now at easyjet.com. Get out there. Selected dates and flights sale and fifth of May. Holidays minimum spend and after protected season sees apply. Now drawing on that one syllable aesthetic and by falling almost subconsciously into an army mindset, the band developed a minimalist aggressive sound that made them resonate as if they were one instrument. A sort of chorus as I said, they called this sound the uber beat. That means overbeat overall. We got that. When they played live, the band would accentuate this solidarity by standing in a straight line with no members out front or in the back. They were in essence still a unit. They're still fucking privates in the army. They had their privates. And I think that was also when they were filming the TV shows. But a lot of times they kind of had to just do with whatever. But before the monk sound was solidified, the Germans had one more stroke of brilliance, which was arguably the secret sauce of the monks. See, everyone else in the band had found something special, whether it be Larry's wild screeching organ solos or Eddie's overdriven bass tone. But Dave Day's rhythm guitar parts were still stuck in the days of Elvis and Chuck Berry. And besides, nobody could hear his fucking rhythm guitar over all of the other noise. And he just didn't have a way out using his own instrument. So the Germans came up with the solution. The Germans being Walter and Carl, not the German government. I'm sorry, we gotta make sure that. One day they walked in and said, Dave, you need to ban Joe. It is an instrument of ugliness and beauty. It'll take you to the gates of heaven, since the fires fell. Look at these drawings from 10,000 years ago. The penguin walks, knowing. He will die. Warner Hedg, Herzog everybody. We had him tied up and gagged until this moment. Please everyone, big round of applause. Thank you for coming. And so after Dave figured out how to amplify a fucking banjo to match the volume of the rest of the band, he took the shell of the banjo apart and stuffed two round microphones in there. They strung it with guitar strings. It's a six string banjo and they handed it to Dave. And he played it as something that was halfway percussive, actually mostly percussive. He played very, very simple chords. It was more about the tch-tch-tch-tch. That's the sound. That's the secret sauce. That's the thing that makes the monks, the monks, especially on what I think might be my favorite monk song. Oh, how to do now. Oh, how to do now. Oh, how to do now. Oh, how to do now. Oh, how to do now. Oh, how to do now. Oh, how to do now. Oh, how to do now. Oh, how to do now. Well, I've been away for long, long, long, long, long, long time. Oh, how to do now. Well, I want to make you, you, you, you, you, you cry. Oh, how to do now. Well, I don't know how to say. Hey girl, I want to make you, you, you, you mourn your day. Well, I don't know how to do. Oh, how to do now. Hey girl, I'm gonna put a make, make, make, make on you. Oh, how to do now. Oh, how to do now. Oh, how to do. Yeah. I wanna do, I wanna do, I wanna do, I wanna do. Make your mind long, long time today. Make your mind long, long time today. Make your mind long, long time today. Make your mind long, long time today. That was in a Coca-Cola commercial in 2001. Jesus Christ. I know. But I mean, but that song is such a prime example of the verse going for way too long, the chorus going way too long, or not too long, but just a lot longer than you expect. Oh, how to do now? You expect to go on twice. It goes on four times. You expect that verse to go on for 816 bars. I think it's like 19. It's very strange, but Dave Day in that song, on the original demo version, like he plays along with the chords, and he plays all those chords on his banjo. On his banjo. But when it came time to record the album, we just heard the album track there, they brought it down to one single chord and just him going, tch-ch-ch-ch, tch-ch-ch, tch-ch-ch, tch-ch, tch-ch, just to make, and that's all they had him do, and it's what makes the fucking song. It's the anchor of the song. Yeah, it's like they're all parts of the same brain. It's basically what they had to do. They had to, what we said before, they had to take away everything they knew to be a part of the, to be a monk. And by the way, it wasn't a Coca-Cola commercial, it was a Powerade commercial, sorry. Oh, owned by the Coca-Cola Corporation. Well, just in case I got phone calls from Coca-Cola again. You're gonna have to enter to the Coca-Cola Corporation now. Again, okay, so the monks now, they have the sound, they have the name, they're on their way. I think Gary said it took several months for them to get this whole thing together, but they finally got it. But they're not done yet, because Walter and Carl took the monks to Frankfurt to get fitted with specially designed clothes. Created, I think it was either Walter or Carl, I don't remember which one it was. This is where the advertising background really comes into play. Exactly, they designed the whole thing themselves, right? They got these nice, tailored black suits, a front flap on the crotch, with a button up, no zipper. Anyone who's ever been on stage understands why you shouldn't wear a zipper, okay? You know what I mean. Yeah, I know what you mean. It's happened to me before. It's happened to me before too. Yeah, of course. So anyway, so to look like a monk, you gotta dress like a monk. So that's what they did. They put on all the all black. They're all, only wearing all black. But there's more. One of the managers, Carl, he was a merchant mariner when he was younger. He brought a big roll of nylon rope, and he cut them into pieces, and he used them as ties for all the monks. You know, he put them around their neck. But not ties exactly. He tied them up, like he would use like a mariners, special mariners knot for each one. So each member had their own special knot. Next was the barber shop. Oh. The managers, they decided. The brave choice. Yes, they decided the monks are gonna have short hair, which the guys really didn't like. Remember, they were in the army for two and a half years. They had to wear crew cuts, and now they were gonna go back to that. Like they're not into this. But the Germans are like, yeah, the Beatles had, they had long hair, so yours is gonna be short. You are the anti-Beetles. You must look as if you're the anti-Beetles. They shouldn't just met up with Florian and Klaus, man, because they would have totally gone with this. The genius says if you follow us, you will be in absolutely biggest stars, and you could even imagine tape ahead. And they're like, okay, I'm gonna write a song about the Autobot. But anyway, anyway. So, okay, so it was not only just keeping their hair short, but then they got a little creative. They decided, like, why don't we just shave a little bit off the top? You know, a little bit like a quarter size, maybe. Like monks. Yeah, yeah. And then it kind of like, I'm not sure whose idea it was. It was definitely one of the band members, maybe Roger or somebody. But one thing led to another. And next thing you know, the barber is shaving the whole top of their heads, like monks, or like a, like a friar truck, you know? Yeah, yeah, yeah, Franciscan monks. Exactly, like they're called taunt shores. That kind of haircut when the top hair, the top part of your hair is like completely bald. So the monks now, they're monks now, and it's time to rock and roll. That's right. Now, before the monks even played their first show as the monks, they believed that they were already big stars because their German managers were telling them that there was no doubt whatsoever that the world of pop music would soon succumb to the monks' Sturm und Drang. So after six months of preparation and encouragement, the monks debuted in the town of Heidelberg where the Torques had their biggest fan base. This, as it turned out, was a mistake. What? Instead of the micro Ed Sullivan moment the monks were expecting, they were met with confusion at best and in some cases, hostility, despite the fact that the band considered some of the people in the audience as friends. People would really like look down when they would walk by on the street with the outfit and the hair and stuff. They, maybe from far away, they'd start pointing and laughing and then when they got closer to the monks, they would just put their heads down and just shuffle through. People were scared of things they couldn't understand. It was one of those things, one of those weird things that people just couldn't compute. Except for the older ladies, like the really old like Oma kind of ladies with the shawl and they'd be like, bless you and they'd be kissing, you know, and everything. But it's like, oh, grandma, those are actual monks. That's a man of God over there. No grandma, stop it, stop it, put your dress down. Makana, Makana. Well, friend or no, the audience wanted the Torques. They didn't want the fucking monks and the people of Heidelberg couldn't understand why the band would ever want to change what already works so well. See, when the band played as the Torques, everyone was having fun all the time. They're smiling, they're laughing. They're playing mostly covers that everyone already knew, songs that were designed to make people feel good. But when people looked on stage and saw five guys in a line wearing identical black outfits and sporting tunchers on their heads, playing repetitive tense music screaming, you make me, make me hate you, baby. They were stunned and not in a good way. In fact, some Germans in the audience couldn't even look at the monks because the band genuinely disturbed them. But there were some in the audience who got what the monks were going for. And the more the monks played, the more people responded in unexpected ways. During Oh How To Do Now, some kids in the audience started hopping up and down and swinging their arms around. They're doing something that sounds like a combination of a pogo and a mosh. Years before anyone in London did so in response to the Sex Pistols and the Damned. Yes, and these are the younger kids. That's what he specifically said. The 20s and up, 20s, 30s, whatever, they kind of just sat there confused, but it was the younger generation who were like, fuck it, I don't care. This is great. Yeah, but the thing is, is that when they played it, even some of the monks didn't get it. They're just going along with this front, man. This is a fun run. Yeah, Roger the drummer, he said that it was gonna be hell if only dancers they were gonna get with these goddamn hoppers. But their German managers immediately saw the show as a great success. These men were actually very forward thinking. They had seen an entirely new reaction to pop music that no one had ever seen before, that no one had ever brought out in an audience, which is exactly what they were wanting and exactly what they were expecting. But really it wasn't just the costumes or the haircuts or even the music itself that was so shocking. It was also the new content. While the monks certainly still have more lighthearted songs like a reworked version of Boys Are Boys and Higgled Eye, Piggled Eye. I love that song. Yeah, the song's great. They had taken other songs into far darker territory owing to the consequences of the Cold War. Now the monks could have skirted around the horrors of the war in Vietnam or they could have ignored it altogether, but instead they faced it head on, jubilantly, maniacally and bluntly. They didn't write about the war using poetry or clever word play like some of the folk artists did. Instead they wrote about it like five dudes who'd just gotten out of the army and weren't fucking around. For them, this wasn't time for dancing around the issue. It was time to dance with the issue. No matter how uncomfortable it made people, the ban was starting to come to the shocking realization that in Eddie Shaw's words, the government may not reflect the interests of its people. What? The screaming incomprehension that followed was monk time. ["Song of the Year"] All right, my name's Gary. Let's go, it's beat time, it's hot time, it's monk time. You know, we don't like the army. What army, who cares what army? Why do you kill all those kids over there in Vietnam? Not the Econ. My brother died in Vietnam. James Bond, who is he? Tomic, Tomic, I don't like it. Still out for my ears. Pussy galore is coming down, we like it. We don't like the atomic bomb. Stop it, stop it, I don't like it. Stop it, what you meaning Larry? Ah, you think like I think you're a monk, I'm a monk, we're all monks. Hey, Larry, Eddie, Roger, everybody, let's go. It's beat time, it's hot time, it's monk time. Now, yeah, I'm playing. I guess you guys aren't ready for that yet. But your kids are gonna love it, I promise. And that is where we'll pick back up next week. Yes. With the recording of the Monks 1 and Only album, their relocation to Hamburg, and the trip to Southeast Asia, during the Vietnam War. What? That brought it all crashing down. Oh my God. Yes, yes, I'm very excited. This is a two-part episode of course. This is fantastic, quick sources, and we'll put all the sources together at the end of the series like we always do. But for this episode we use Black Monk Time by Thomas Edward Shaw and Anita Klemke, and the documentary Monks, The Transatlantic Feedback by Deepmar Post and Lucia Palacios. Palacios I believe, sorry about that. And of course, Ugly Things, which is a classic and phenomenal fanzine by Mike Statz. And this is kind of how it all started, like finding out the story of the Monks much later in the 90s. And Ugly Things, you can find it online, just Google Ugly Things, Monks interview or anything like that. You'll find it. They tell the Monks story with interviews with Gary Berger and Eddie Shaw. This is by Keith Patterson and Mike Statz. Fantastic. It should win awards. It's amazing. It's amazing. PsychedelicBabyMag.com did a bunch of fun interviews with some of the members of the band, of course. Check out the official website as well. And thanks to research assistant Patrick Fisher for helping us out with the info on Casey Jones and the governors and translating a bunch of German articles for us. Thank God he's German for this. Check out. We got t-shirts on lastpodcastmerch.com, women's and men's sizes. Thank you. And Instagram, we're on Instagram, noDogsPod. I'm on there, Carolina Hidalgo, Carolina Danger Hidalgo. And my name is Marcus Parks on Instagram. Check out especially the noDogsPod Instagram for notifications on when new episodes drop. Any updates on stuff. Any updates on stuff. All of that. Yeah. And also just, you know, fun, cool ass music, ephemera. Yes. And pictures of the dog, Jamal G. Who's sleeping right now while we record? She doesn't lift a finger, by the way. Not a damn thing. Nothing. Just the face of the whole thing. And of course, at the end of every single episode of No Dogs in Space, we always play a track from a listener band. And this week we've got a band out of Wichita Falls, Texas, which is actually pretty damn close to where I grew up. I spent a lot of time in Wichita Falls growing up. Yes. The last picture show kind of stuff. Oh yeah. Well, after city, he was right outside of Wichita Falls, which is of course where Larry went. Mercury's from and he had a bookstore called Book People that I went to all the time when I was a kid. I've told the story before he followed me around the bookstore on a regular because I think he thought I was going to steal stuff. I never did. Sorry, sorry. The band is called It Hurts to Be Dead. Wow. I like it. It's a reference to Return of the Living Dead, of course. The EP is called Old Habits and Die Hards. They're about to release a new EP. Looked them up a little bit. They took a bit of a hiatus, but they're back and stronger than ever. They're playing shows. I know they've got a show in Wichita Falls coming up that I'm not sure if it's there. They'll have played the show by the time this episode comes out. But I know they play the Dallas area a lot. So if you're in the Dallas area and you dig this song, go check them out. Their name is It Hurts to Be Dead. The song is killing me. It's punky. It's alternative. It's got a bit of it. It's got a bit of a ween vibe to it at part. So I'll say that. Maybe that's just me. What's good? A bit of a bootleg. It's good that you're a huge fan then. But yeah, I dig these guys. The song is called Killing Me. If you want to contribute, you want to buy their music, It Hurts to Be Dead.Bankamp.com is where you can find them. They're also on Spotify. Thanks to everyone who sends so much music to us, so much in fact that we have a hard time getting through all of it. Thank you. And thank you for your notes. I'm trying to write back to everyone. I can't. We're trying. Anything. Just say hi. It doesn't matter. We'll write back hi. Yeah. And if you want to submit your band, KnowDogsAndSpace at gmail.com is where you send a Spotify link, a Bandcamp link, anything like that. We don't care what you play. We just care that you care. Yes. Here it is. Have a good time. Goodbye. I don't need anyone to swear that God is true. Let's kill it, babe. I'm gonna take that door. I'm gonna take that door. I'm gonna take that door. I'm gonna take that door. I'm gonna take that door. I'm gonna take that door. I'm gonna take that door. I'm gonna take that door. I'm gonna take that door. I'm gonna take that door. I'm gonna take that door. I'm gonna take that door. I'm gonna take that door. I'm gonna take that door. 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