Share POP UP YOURS - The Monsters (Voodoo Rhythm)
Is it any coincidence that a bunch of Monsters outtakes, compiled on one disc, puts 'most any other trash rock to shame? Methinks not after hearing this 14-tracker from Switzerland's finest purveyors of lo-fi sonic savagery.To many people this sort of music will sound like multiple fingernails being dragged down a blackboard with amplification applied. If you're one of them you should leave - now. To the rest of you, run don't walk to your computer or nearest low-life, last-one-standing record shop and procure this. It ain't pretty but it's pretty fucked up.
The Monsters are the product of label head Beatman's singularly fevered mind and have been messing with other minds for nearly 25 years. Marrying chainsaw vocals and guitar to twin drums and sludgy bass with songs that are basic enough to never sully the commercial radio airwaves guarantees everyone a good time.
There are credits but it doesn't matter much when or where the tunes were recorded. Suffice to say The Monsters keep busy. There's the occasional twisted crooner ("Ce Soir") that approximates Ricky Nelson enjoying a crack-pipe after a lobotomy but it's mostly mid-tempo or better molotov cocktails like "Crawling Back To You" or "Cry". There's no experimentation. The Monsters stick to what they do best. This is music that's harder than an end-of-semester university exam after a two-day Tequila bender on acid.
If you're a doubter, wrap an ear around "Whatcha Gonna Do". You've probably nailed the lyrical content in reading that title. Beatman howls, twangs and thrashes his guitar as the rest of the band locks in. There isn't a lot more to say when you could be listening to this. Oblivians fans (circa "Play 9 Songs With Mr Quintron") will love it, and there's more than a touch of the early Cramps running through "Pop Up Yours" although The Monsters are arguably even more trashy and disrespectful of their forebears.
Monstrously great. - The Barman
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20 YEARS OF UNCONTROLLED LIVE SHOWS AND ULTRA RARE RECORDS: GARAGE PUNK VOL. 1 – The Monsters (Voodoo Rhythm)
Psssssst…..don’t tell anyone but The Monsters may just be the wildest, most uncompromising manic high priests of unhinged and trashy garage rock in the world, or at the least Switzerland. There are a lot of names you can throw up in opposition (Guitar Wolf the most prominent) but I simply won’t believe it until my own abused and bleeding ears tell me so.
While I can’t claim to be a Monsters completist – and let’s face it, much what they do is a variation of what they’ve done before (a la the Ramones) or a skewed channelling of well-known antecedents – I do know that they work on a number of levels. There’s the primitive rockabilly-derived fuzz riffs, the curious rhythmic propulsion of The Clonedum (finally, proof that two drummers are better than one) and the throat-tearing, let-me-out-of-the-loony-bin vocalising of Beat-Man. These are all obvious markers of Real Rock Action goodness. There’s also another less definable factor. In this instance, it's like it saunters up to you like a sociopath at a party. With rank breath, pinned eyes and a voice that’s thinner than a meth addict’s alibi, it slurs: “Can’t you hear that these guys are really fucked up?” Well, yes, actually…
The Monsters come across like the spirit of something born under a bad moon back in rock and roll’s primeval days in the ‘50s has been transported to Switzerland and implanted into their four heads. This is music to simultaneously move the feet and turn the stomach.
It’s a two-disc set that’s almost entirely culled from rehearsals, long-forgotten lo-fi recording sessions or live shows in shitholes in Switzerland, Germany and New York City (I know they’re shitholes because CBGB is one of them and any other places that would have The Monsters would have to be toilets too.) Considering most of the 46 tunes were recorded presumably for band members and friends’ amusement, it’s balanced and consistent sounding. It’s also raw and wild enough to have the neighbours convinced that the landlord or bank has finally had second thoughts and has sent in the wrecking crew.
If you don’t know The Monsters’ music the song titles alone should convey a sense of what they do. “Fuck My Brain Buddh Buddah”, “Out of My Live” (mangled malapropisms are part of the charm), “Psycho Trip” and “I Got the Bain Up My Ass” (not sure what’s going on there) are a representative selection. Lyrically speaking, James Joyce they ain’t.
It’s mostly original material but there’s a familiar moment with a live “Lonesome Town” where Beat-Man’s pained croak simply sits original and subsequent version (Ricky Nelson, The Cramps) on their arses. The soundtrack to a pauper’s funeral. Now say six Hail Marys and pass the cough syrup, please.
If there’s a seminal moment (gotta love dilettante turns of critical phrase in reviews of trashy garage punk) it’s when massively over-driven distorto fuzz guitar cuts in towards the end of “I Kiss You Dead” on disc one, a meat-and-potatoes song in any other band’s hands but the sonic equivalent of a grave desecration when The Monsters cut loose. It all but falls apart in a flurry of searing notes and Beat-Man’s screaming before it’s brought to a (slightly more dignified) close.
Six albums preceded this and word is we may get a visit Down Under at some stage, if not from all The Monsters then from Beat-Man. I just hope we’re worthy. - The Barman
1/2
HIDE & SEEK - The Monsters (Off the Hip)
Fuzz garage trash rock's best-kept secret is a multi-headed, twin-drummer-driven thing that eats the frail and aged and comes from Switzerland. The aptly-named Monsters have three albums ("Birds Eat Martians", "I See Dead People" and "Youth Against Nature") to their credit, and this compilation on Australia's busiest underground label compiles their best, adding a couple of exclusive bonus recordings.
The Monsters are unique. They have two drummers playing one kit ("The Clone Drum") and more fuzz than Saturday morning with a mindful of no memories other than the twin visions of the bottom of a bottle of Jim Beam Black Label and the inside of a toilet bowl. They also have, as frontman, the seriously unhinged Beat-Man, a tonsil-shredder extraordinaire and owner of Voodoo Rhythm, the record company with the globe's biggest and best roster of lo-fi trash rock.
Beat-Man is a guy who, in his past guise of The Reverend Beat-Man (leader of the Un Believers), delivered perfect gospel-country-punk songs like "Fuck You Jesus Fuck You Oh Lord". The good Rev was a couple of paces down the Darwinian evolutionary scale from one-man demolition company Lightning Beat-Man, a wrestling mask-clad musical saboteur whose stock-in-trade was staging tag-team spectaculars and clearing venues quicker than you could say: "Fuck me, what is this guy on?"
No idea if Beat-Man huffs helium for light relief, but he does a great job of strangling whatever's left of his shredded voice and spitting his bloody larynx out onto the floor.
The Monsters play the wildest, strangest mix of trash, rockabilly, acid punk and punk that you'll ever come across. If you don't believe it, stack their take on Gene Vincent's "Hold Me Hug Me" here (one of the unreleased bonuses) against the original, or listen to "Go away fuck your self" and get back to us. You might think you've heard it all before, but The Monsters will shake that notion out of your head and give you whiplash into the bargain. So sue them.
Many songs were laid to tape at London's legendary Toe Rag Studios, where almost everything sounds great (the lightweight and strangely soulless Mr David Viner being the exception). Lo-fi is one thing. Lo-fi in a good studio is another. A definite plus.
You get 21 "songs" (term used advisedly in some cases) for your buck and plenty of paint-peelers among them. I suppose I've heard about half of them, having "I See Dead People" and a Voodoo Rhythm compilation, and the unknown tunes don't disappoint.
Full credit to Off the Hip for having the temerity to give The Monsters an Australian release. Now if enough of you buy a copy, we might just see Beat-Man out here for live shows in late 2005 or early '06. – The Barman
2/3
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