Black Monk Time was the first album by the rock group The Monks, and the only album they released during their original incarnation.

Produced by Jimmy Bowien, and recorded November 1965 in Cologne, Germany. Released March 1966 by Polydor in Germany. Reissued in 1994 on Repertoire Records. Described in the mid-1990s by Julian Cope as a "lost classic" (Krautrocksampler: One Head's Guide to the Great Kosmische Musik - 1968 Onwards. 3rd ed. Head Heritage, 1996. p. 6), the album has since been reissued more than once, and has gained a broader, albeit still underground, appreciation and fame. Of the album's raw style, and the context of its production, Cope writes:

... NO-ONE ever came up with a whole album of such dementia. The Monks' Black Monk Time is a gem born of isolation and the horrible deep-down knowledge that no-one is really listening to what your [sic] saying. And the Monks took full artistic advantage of their lucky/unlucky position as American rockers in a country that was desperate for the real thing. They wrote songs that would have been horribly mutilated by arrangers and producers had they been back in America. But there was no need for them to clean up their act, as the Beatles and others had had to do on returning home, for there were no artistic constraints in a country that liked the sound of beat music but had no idea about its lyric content (Krautrocksampler: One Head's Guide to the Great Kosmische Musik - 1968 Onwards. 3rd ed. Head Heritage, 1996. p. 7).

Track listing

1. "Monk Time" – 2:42
2. "Shut Up" – 3:11
3. "Boys Are Boys and Girls Are Choice" – 1:23
4. "Higgle-Dy-Piggle-Dy" – 2:28
5. "I Hate You" – 3:32
6. "Oh, How to Do Now" – 3:14
7. "Complication" – 2:21
8. "We Do Wie Du" – 2:09
9. "Drunken Maria" – 1:44
10. "Love Came Tumblin' Down" – 2:28
11. "Blast Off!" – 2:12
12. "That's My Girl" – 2:24

CD bonus tracks

13. "I Can't Get Over You" – 2:42
14. "Cuckoo" – 2:41
15. "Love Can Tame the Wild" – 2:38
16. "He Went Down to the Sea" – 3:03
17. All tracks written by Burger/Clark/Day/Johnston/Shaw.

A 1996 reissue on Infinite Zero Archive/American Recordings included three additional bonus tracks on top of the four above:

17. "Monk Chant" [Live] - 1:59
18. "I Hate You" [Demo Version] - 3:24
19. "Oh, How to Do Now" [Demo Version] - 2:39

Complication Single

To tie in with the album's release and to promote the album, "Complication" and "Oh How To Do Now" were released as a single. Like the album, it failed to garner commercial success at the time.

Covers

UK post-punk band The Fall has covered four of these songs: "I Hate You" and "Oh How to Do Now" (on their 1990 LP Extricate), "Shut Up" (on their 1994 LP Middle Class Revolt) and "Higgle-Dy Piggle-Dy" (on the 2006 play loud! Monks tribute compilation silver monk time "

In 2006 play loud! released in conjunction with the film monks - the transatlantic feedback the soundtrack/tribute double CD silver monk time. 29 international bands (the original monks included) take the experiment one step further and transport the 60s ideas into the 21st century.

Personnel

• vocals/Guitar: Gary Burger
• Organ: Larry Clark
• drums: Roger Johnston
• Bass guitar: Eddie Shaw
• Banjo: Dave Day

Links

• Black Monk Time article on Cult Cargo