Monks: The Transatlantic Feedback

First avant-garde beat band in pop history

Overview

The monks were 5 American GIs in cold war Germany who billed themselves as the anti-Beatles; they were heavy on feedback, nihilism and electrical banjo. They had strange haircuts, dressed in black, mocked the military and rocked harder than any of their mid-sixties counterparts while managing to basically invent industrial, kraut rock, heavy metal, punk and techno music.