The Monks - No Shame: The Complete Recordings (2023, Cherry Red) - A brief review.

Just a quick disclaimer, this is not the group of American ex-pats named The Monks who in the mid-60s recorded the lauded, proto-garage "Black Monk Time" LP. 

Right place, right time, right song.  It's rare when all three circumstances are perfectly in alignment, however toss in a fourth improbable factor to boot. When The Monks charted with their 1979 debut single, the sassy, Cockney-esque punk classic, "Nice Legs, Shame About Her Face" the gentlemen responsible for it weren't aware they were even an extant band at the time. This unintentional hit was in fact never designed to be a single (by the Monks anyway), much less the beginning of a career that spanned two albums in just as many decades. Nonetheless, their place in history was solidified, and their discography has been bundled up in the guise of No Shame, a double disk collection that tacks on virtually a whole third album's worth of bonus material.  

Sometime in the late '70s a trio of British musicians who boasted lineage to the rather prim and proper folk-rockers the Strawbs (Richard Hudson and John Ford) and the even more unlikely prog combo Elmer Gantry's Velvet Opera (Terry Cassidy) were looking to branch off into something decidedly different - even if it meant fielding songs to unrelated artists. "Nice Legs..." was cut as a four-track demo, and oddly enough would remain as such. So the story goes it was specifically tailored to be adopted by an unnamed punk outfit who ultimately rejected it, but Carrere Records caught wind of the track and insisted on releasing it as is.  With that The Monks were born, though the song was released on such a lark that nobody assumed anything would come of it.  

As fate would have it, by mid-'79 "Nice Legs" gained traction in the charts, peaking at #19 in the UK, and The Monks were suddenly a red hot commodity, in spite of the fact they didn't exist as a band yet. But capitalize they did! Additional members were quickly supplemented to the lineup (fleshing out to a quintet all told), a record contract with EMI was inked and an album of par excellence punky power-pop, Bad Habits, hit record shelves later that year. Only with the release of the LP no subsequent hits followed, at least not in Britain, and in America Habits was an import-only proposition.  Due to label-politics at EMI and an overall reluctance to prioritize the album after The Monks were 'outed' as being punk-imposters (so to speak), the Monks took advantage of a licensing deal in Canada, and were soon off to the races again with yet another top-20 single ("Drugs in My Pocket"), albeit exclusively north of America. Bad Habits ran up the charts in the provinces, managing to go double platinum there, and it's status was deservedly so boasting a consistent bevy of often sardonic but substantive melodic slammers including "Spotty Face" and the title track.  Even when operating on a less-strung level the Monks were still mightily effective, and I'd recommend this album for enthusiasts of The Jags and Joe Jackson who are seeking something a bit more irreverent. The bonus content on Habits includes b-sides, alternate versions, and three Devo-ish inspired outtakes.

The band's second album, 1980's Suspended Animation, had it's target audience aimed almost exclusively at the Canadian market, given the runaway success of Bad Habits there.  It didn't yield any major hits, but managed to spin gold (about 50,000 units) up there, and found the band broadening their pastiche to incorporate ska/dub ("I Don't Want No Reds" and "King Dong"), sprite jangle pop ("Cool Way to Live"), and back again to zippy, serrated punk-pop ("Don't Bother Me, I'm Christian," "Grown Ups" and "Oxford Street," the latter featuring a fake street-busker lead in). Still cheeky as hell, The Monks really seemed to be honing in a niche on Animation, even if that niche was situated in just one North American country. A tour of Canada followed the album's release, with Huw Gower of the Records brought aboard to fill one of the guitar slots. Plans for a third album were mapped out, with about a half dozen songs being cut for it, but due to more record label drama and changing priorities for some of the Monks, it was ultimately aborted. These songs, some pointing in a subtler new-wave direction comprise the bonus material for Suspended Animation. 

The sharply packaged and well annotated No Shame is a testament to the creative germ of a one-off song parlaying itself to something far more substantial and rewarding, and is available at your fingertips from Cherry Red Records, Amazon and beyond