Hamburg Recordings 1967

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Liner Note Author: Eddie Shaw. Recording information: A Forgotten Hamburg Studio (02/28/1967); The Top Ten Club, Hamburg (02/28/1967); A Forgotten Hamburg Studio (1967); The Top Ten Club, Hamburg (1967). The Monks, the aggressively eccentric group of American G.I.s who gained a cult following in Germany for their striking proto-punk sounds in the mid-'60s, were close to the end of their run when they cut demos for four original songs on the stage of Hamburg's Top Ten Club in the Summer of 1967. (The Monks recorded the tunes once the venue had closed for the night, after the group had played their usual punishing 9 p.m. to 3 a.m. shift.) Hamburg Recordings 1967 gives those recordings a public hearing for the first time, with the addition of an outtake from their final studio session, cut in February 1967. In the liner notes to this EP, Monks' bassist Eddie Shaw described this material as "not as radical as other Monk songs," adding that "they seemed to soothe the Beatles fans" who came to the club where the Fab Four played their first German gigs. Shaw's assessment is spot on, but this EP is still a pleasant discovery for Monks fans. The music lacks the ferocious intensity of their fabled album Black Monk Time, and the songs more closely resemble typical pop tunes of the era rather than the band's best and most extreme compositions. But the Monks' offbeat personality and passion shine through as the band slyly tries to play nice. Hamburg Recordings 1967 is an interesting postscript to a short but remarkable career. ~ Mark Deming