......well, okay. I have mentioned this subject to you once, just in passing--but now I'm going to dive right in. In short, I've acquired a new overriding passion. It happened right before we went to San Francisco in February.

You'll recall the unbridled enthusiasm I displayed in the notes that accompanied those "Post-MTV Era" tapes I sent to you a few years back. It's no secret that I haven't found much to be that excited about, since.

Well, I still haven't. I had to go back 31 years and cross an entire ocean but I found an album that actually displaces some part of my all-time top ten. Think about that for a second. I have waited this long to talk about it at length for fear it might wear off, but it hasn't.

The name of the band was The Monks, and the album was called Black Monk Time. They were five American ex-GI's stationed in cold-war Germany in the early 60s. They formed a typical frat-band called the Torquays, and stayed in Germany after their tours ended, because of the money they could make by playing. This was the immediate post-Beatle era--1963, 64. They quickly realized that with a different band playing in literally every open door down the street, they needed to come up with something that would set them apart.

Here's what they came up with:

• They changed their name to The Monks.
• They shaved round tonsures out of the tops of their heads, and wore black robes.
• The drummer ditched his cymbals (except for effects) and played only tom-toms.
• To make up for the missing cymbals, the second guitarist got rid of his guitar, stuck a mic inside a banjo, and played it through a fuzzbox.
• The guitarist and organist eschewed chords and lead lines in favor of various squeaks and honks.
• The bass player just turned his amp all the way up.
• They squeezed all the lyrics out of their songs and slashed them down to simple repetitive phrases. The singer/guitarist, who apparently had a Dovells/Len Barry kind of white soul-boy voice, raised his pitch to a psychotic yelp.

So Polydor signed them, and put out this LP in early 1966. Their old audiences, of course, hated it. But it is one of the most amazing things you'll ever hear. You won't believe it was recorded in 1965. And you REALLY won't believe you've never heard of it before.

It was never released anywhere but in Germany. They were told that it'd be put out in the US and UK, but the local Polydor execs balked. The lyrics to the very first song, Monk Time, (which are yelped rather than sung) go like this, over a track that sounds like a cross between Green Onions and a runaway locomotive:

Alright, my name's Gary! Let's go! It's beat time, it's hop time, it's Monk Time!
You know, we don't like the army, what army? Who CARES what army?
Hey, why do you kill all those kids over there in Vietnam, MAD Viet Cong?
My brother died in Vietnam! James Bond, who's he?

And that's just the first fifteen seconds. Can you IMAGINE this in the USA in 1965? In folk music, sure, but not in this blazing mutant pre-punk sound.

So anyway, the album came out, they toured all of Germany, and then pretty much imploded. They limped back to the states, individually, and tried to forget about the whole thing. So several years go by, and hardly anybody in the US has actually HEARD the thing. It shows up now and again in auction lists, for like $600, $800. I've always assumed it was some low-rent Standells ripoff by actual Germans, based on what I saw in the auction lists. So I wasn't too upset about the price tag--those European punk bands always disappoint. So I just figured it was something I'd never hear, and no problem.

So, as it turns out--three of them have a little "catch-up" session in the early 1990's, and in the flood of repressed memories, the bass player decides their story would make a good book. I should say SO. So he starts his own publishing company, apparently on a shoestring, and publishes a book called, of course, Black Monk Time. A couple of people, notably Thurston Moore of Sonic Youth, petition Rick Rubin to try and score the re-issue rights to the LP. A couple of film studios contact Eddie about movie rights for the book. Meanwhile, I don't know about any of this.

Finally, in February of this year, Black Monk Time is re-issued, on Rubin's Infinite Zero label (through WEA) with seven bonus tracks, including singles, live stuff, and the original demos for the LP, which are even more harrowing than the LP itself. I, meanwhile, have read a couple of reviews in a couple of magazines, telling the true story of the band, and I am at Compact Disc World the very first afternoon it's available. This is two days before we leave for San Francisco. I run back to the store, (I'm on till 9 that night) shoo my employee out the door, and put it on, and hit the repeat key. And nothing has been the same since. So, the whole time we were in S.F., what is blasting through my head? Jefferson Airplane? Grateful Dead? Big Brother? Quicksilver? Nope. "Alright, my name's Gary! Let's go, it's beat time, it's hop time, it's Monk time......." Meanwhile, while this is happening, Wendy hasn't heard it yet and now I have to try and EXPLAIN it to her. On a cable car.

Well, I would send you a tape of it but YOU MUST GO OUT AND BUY IT IMMEDIATELY and tell everyone you know to do so as well. The liner notes, new interviews, and pictures in the booklet are as priceless as the music. And you should read the booklet before you listen.