Respect Your Elders! Monks Edition

In which we give credit where it's due, whippersnappers!

Today, I took a moment to browse through the music saved on my computer. It's always interesting for me to do that. Inevitably, there are songs and bands on there that interested me at one point, but for whatever reason, I simply haven't had cause to listen to for an extended time.

It's always a bit nostalgic.

I was hunting through folders of artists that were unable to be unidentified by Windows Media when I came across the Monks.

Oh man...The sumbitchin' Monks...

I used to love the Monks. In a big way. I still do even if I haven't been moved to listen to them for a bit.

I was introduced to them via the phenomenal jukebox at a bar here in Pittsburgh. I have no idea who put them on but thanks guy or girl! Way to go! For a few solid years, this song was my theme. I'd pony up to the bar, drop some quarters on some tunes and this would roar out of the jukebox:

The Monks - Monk Time



Does it rock? I think so. If nothing else, it personified a time and a place for me. I'd nurse beer after beer and smoke cigarette after cigarette with Jan the German and Little Joe and Johnny Motto and Crazy Al DeGrazio. Later, I'd drift off to shoot some pool in the back and hit on the cigarette girls.

My life was like a fucking Tom Waits song.

Anyways, the Monks are indisputably punk. Black clothes, bad haircuts, discordant and jarring sounds...The whole nine yards. And when was this? 1966, ya bunch of puppies. Around the time your parents were thinking about getting their drivers licenses. Hell, around the time some of your parents were wondering "What's happening to my body?".

But do they still rock?

You tell me.