Black Monk Time [Paperback]

Thomas Edward Shaw (Author), Anita Klemke (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: January 1995

A memoir by monk bass player, Eddie Shaw, it is the other story about Hamburg and Germany in the 1960s.

Shaw claims that the British Invasion and groups like the Beatles were the result of long hours in the beat clubs of Germany and Hamburg.

The monks played in the same club as the Beatles had played before them - The Top Ten Club in Hamburg. The "Beat" culture was strong.

According to Alan Dein of BBC, the Hamburg scene started with groups like the Beatles and "ended with their reaction, the monks." They knew the same people, but that is where their shared experiences ended.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Starting out as just another pick-up rock 'n' roll band to follow the Beatles' lead, the Monks would eventually become one of the '60s' most interesting musical footnotes. The Monks' story--told here by former Monk Shaw and his wife--proves that Andy Warhol's Velvet Underground and the American garage psychedelia of such bands as the Count Five and the Seeds were hardly the isolated fads they may have seemed. American GIs stationed in Germany at the height of the Vietnam War, the Monks unleashed a brooding combination of guitar feedback and existential rants; such songs as ``Complication,'' ``Shut Up'' and ``I Hate You'' captured the darker tensions of their era. In the background of the Monks' staged chaos, a love story also unfolded, but unfortunately neither Klemke nor Shaw evokes any real emotion in their writing. The band's brief glory days are blurred by the book's arrangement, which alternates between Shaw's first-person and Klemke's third-person accounts and descriptions are too slight throughout to read as anything more than pale '60s nostalgia. Ultimately, Black Monk Time is unlikely to secure the Monks the wider recognition they do in fact deserve.

Copyright 1995 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

Review

"The Monks’ music attains an eerie and disquieting new dimension after you read Shaw’s book." -- L.A. Times - 6/23/95

"The monks were the original exiles on main street This is the extraordinary story - collision of rock history and hysteria." -- David Fricke - Editor, Rolling Stone Magazine

(Black Monk Time) "The story of a group that laid their vengeance upon music as you may never hear again." -- Lindsey Hutton, Mojo Magazine - London, England, 2/96

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 397 pages
• Publisher: Carson Street Pub Inc; 1st edition (January 1995)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0963337122
• ISBN-13: 978-0963337122
• Product Dimensions: 8.9 x 6 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.3 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (6 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,391,401 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Oh, How To Do Now, December 1, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: Black Monk Time (Paperback)

Incredible. Everything you've ever wanted from a band that time forgot, but never get. Really well written, with the ring of truth and a great sense of humor. Some great cold war stuff too. Maybe this is what Johnny Rotten was refering to when he talked about going under the Berlin Wall. Such a strange, interesting story, that now I've read the book, listened to the CDs over and over, even saw one of the guys walking around NYC with a baseball cap on and still have a hard time believing all this really happened. But right there in the book is a photo of a tonsured Dave Day comparing notes with a spit-curled Bill Haley; and there's even a German poster advertising, in clockwise order, an album from The Who, Hums of The Loving Spoonful, Fresh Cream, and lo and behold, black monk time.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The greatest rock'n'roll book ever written,, July 8, 1998

By A Customer

This review is from: Black Monk Time (Paperback)

Unromantic, exhausting, frightening, unrelenting, damn funny and the whole thing rings true...just like The Monks music. Wanna know what rock'n'roll in the 60s was really like? Read this. Eddie Shaw's writes this book as if he were telling you the story of his life with The Monks while sitting with you at a bar over the course of a beer soaked evening (which is how this story should be told!). His intimate and engaging style rivets you from one moment to the next and makes you feel as though he's telling you secrets he's never told anybody.

On top of everything else, the love story between Eddie and his wife is nothing short of inspiring and beautiful.

The Monks are the greatest American rock'n'roll that unfortunately never got to play in America. Thankfully, this book is here to keep the legacy alive.

It's Monk Time!

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A magnificent look at the beat scene in mid-60s Germany, December 16, 1998

By A Customer

This review is from: Black Monk Time (Paperback)

Eddie Shaw's book, BLACK MONK TIME, is an in-depth look at the mutation of a standard 60s rock n roll group into the first punk band. As bassist for the Monks, he is able to give readers an inside look at the dynamics of a working rock n roll group. His prose really starts to catch fire, appropriately enough, when the band begins to undergo radical changes; both musically and satorially. Fans of the Velvet Underground to the Sex Pistols should give both the book and the Monks sole album (entitled BLACK MONK TIME also) a whirl.