War does strange things to men. One day you’re a Germany-stationed GI playing Chuck Berry tunes with your buddies. The next, you’re wearing a robe and tonsure, leading a distortion-addled stomp and yelling, “We don’t like the atomic bomb!” This CD charts the mid-’60s escalation of five U.S. servicemen from amateurish cover band to cult legends. The Monks came armed with a minimalist racket, frantic social diatribes, and a churlish attitude that presaged punk—only in Europe, during the Johnson administration. Liner-note plaudits from members of Radiohead and the White Stripes canonize the band’s sole, once-forgotten album, from 1966, whose manic, organ-twiddling garage-rock now sounds primed for Verizon ads, and whose romantic-angst lyrics (“I hate you with a passion, baby/But call me”) could title an 
Aniston flick. In the Army, though? During Vietnam? It probably went over a bit differently.

Download “Monk Time,” “I Hate You,” “Oh, How to Do Now”