Weird but true: Five US soldiers based in Germany created one of the greatest 60s albums ever!
They got together as a band in 1964 and performed in the barracks as a fun band. Later they played in the same Hamburg clubs as the Beatles. After leaving the army they decided to stay in Germany. Under the guidance of the two ad executives Walther Niemann and Karl-Heinz Remy they became their artwork named Monks with black robes and tonsures.
This very controversial image plus their sole album Black Monk Time, released in March of 1966, was unlike popular pop rock bands. Their mix of proto-punk, garage and avant-garde wasn’t only innovative but revolutionary and radical with it’s subversive style, absurd, free association lyrics, fuzzy dissonance and beat-heavy rhythms. There was simply nothing like that. The band and their only LP has since become a legend, hailed as a precursor to punk and krautrock.
