Book of Roger

I read the letter you sent Gary and appreciate the thoughts and comments on the music. Gary and I both had asked Ed to refer any questions to us that we should be answering ourselves. I’m especially eager for this because no one has ever written to me personally for answers, facts, speculations, rationalizations, excuses, sob-stories, rumors or outright lies on any damned thing – ever. Not that I’ll add much except some memories that are as hazy as the rest of us have, but most of the information about the monks seems to be originating in Nevada and, hell, we’re scattered all over the continent. I used to live in Texas and that had us pretty much covering the country except for California and New York and none of us are that crazy. I did live in Queens for a short while and San Francisco a few years but now I’m in Minnesota which makes Minnesota sort of monk heavy. Still, I don’t get mail. I’m getting a little pouty about the whole thing, being the primal, jungle-beat, raw, thumping drummer that I am, so I’m going to take the list of questions you sent Gary, consider them as being addressed to me and respond to each one with an answer, comment, fact, speculation, rationalization, excuse, sob-story (already covered), rumor, and/or outright lie. It’s how I get through life. I left out ranting and raving but that’s hard to do in a letter if you don’t have a lot of red and purple magic markers. So . . .

What kind of guitar did you play?
Curiously enough, I started out with Gretsch which I believe Gary also started with. In my case, the amplifiers (8 altogether) I used were made by Slingerland and were different sizes of their classic thin, circular design. Later on, since Gretsch couldn’t stand up to the type of music we were playing, I switched to ASBA, a French manufacturer who, oddly enough, were famous in France for their fine line of drums, though I haven’t heard of them since. ASBA made a very good product.

Did you like the fuzz box?
I’ve always liked a good fuzzy box.

Do you have any of that equipment and do you still play?
No, and occasionally.

What lead guitar players were a big influence on you?
I started to listen to music seriously when I was around eleven or twelve years old – that makes it about 1952. The very first major influence was Gene Krupa, who, you might or might not know, was also a passable drummer. Later on I pad a lot of attention to Cozy Cole, Louis Belson, Sonny Paine (who was with Count Basie), and much later on, Ginger Baker and Charlie Watts. Again, all these guitarists were, strangely enough, also drummers. Eerie, isn’t it?

How did GI’s react to you and were you ever threatened by them?
The only incident I can recall happened in a club in Frankfurt when a GI came back to our dressing room and carried on about the line about Vietnam in Monk Time. He was very drunk and confused, though, and I can’t hold that against him since that’s pretty much how I got through the Army. All in all, the GI’s were mostly friendly and supportive.

Were there any live acts that influenced you?
When I was in high school, say 1957, I saw Fats Domino and his band at a rock & roll show in Fort Worth. They impressed me, as did Bo Diddley and later on, a few Dixieland and blues bands in Mississippi. As far as the Tielman Brothers in Germany, they were technically excellent musicians but were about as interesting to listen to as an elevator in a government building. Muzak City. Most of the English bands touring Germany at that time were very good. I heard some very good German bands (the German Bonds come to mind), but on the whole they weren’t as energetic and original as the English bands.

Who drove and where did you sleep?
We took turns driving mostly. There were times when one or two of us had a car we drove (in Larry’s case it was a Harley Sportster). We usually slept in hotels or rooms above the club we were playing then, after a few days, maybe a warm, cozy bedroom if we were lucky. During the last year, when we were on the road a lot, sleep was a wherever and whenever affair. On one occasion, Dave mastered the art of driving and sleeping at the same time. Very handy when you’re on the road.

Were drugs easy to get?
Very easy. I could buy speed legally at a drugstore or from the old lady attendant in the club men’s room. Along with alcohol, speed was my drug of choice. I did try pot and hash a time or two but wasn’t too thrilled. Speed gave me the extra energy but I doubt it did a hell of a lot creatively for the music. I never considered hard stuff.

Who came up with the monk image and why didn’t you have a proper monk tonsure on the back of the head?
The original concept was from our managers. We all had a hand in developing and refining it. As for the tonsure, that came about, as I recall, when we all went to a barber shop in Frankfurt to get our hair cut short. The bald spot was a spur-of-the-moment thing. We told the barber we wanted to look like monks and that’s where he put it.

Did you like Germany and it’s people?
Germany is a beautiful country. Lots of forests and mountains. The German food was very good, especially the bread, cheese and beer. The people are a bit more complicated to describe. I met, and became friends with, some very exceptional people (I married one). Collectively, the could be like a herd of sheep or, in some instances, like a herd of very belligerent and aggressive sheep, which is one of the reasons Mr. Hitler had such a good time there. There is a saying there about not being "in ordenung" or not in order. This roughly translates as, "That’s not the way things are done" or "That’s not the proper way to behave." As the Monks, our image literally shouted, "Fuck that!" which I suppose is one of the reasons people either loved us or hated us. No middle ground, no compromises.

Politics — I didn’t identify a lot of what I thought as politics, though I suppose it was. In the Army my politics were what the Army said they were. After we started playing I read a lot. Things like Ayn Rand’s "Atlas Shrugged" and Robert Rourk’s "Uhuru" and ‘Something of Value." Even Vonnegut’s "Cats Cradle." The main feelings I had about Vietnam at the time were that it was a war, which was bad, and that I wasn’t there, which was good. I had a general gut feeling that things weren’t quite right. Like the words from For What It’s Worth, "There’s something happening here – what is ain’t exactly clear." Even if things weren’t exactly clear, you had to say something.

On Rock & Roll — Most rock musicians cite Southern blues as the foundation it’s all built on and that’s true. But it seems to me there was an intermediate stage between down-home Mississippi blues and the late ‘50s rock ‘n’ roll era. When I was 13 or 14 years old, say 1953, I used to listen to a black (or Negro as it was called back then) radio station in Fort Worth with the call letters KWBC. I suppose I was the only white teenager in my town, Weatherford, who listened to it (or admitted listening to it). Those were the pre-Elvis days of Patti Page, the Ames Brothers and Perry Como sweetness and innocence that all white stations were broadcasting. This was in the pre-tape, AM only days when all the sublte nuances and fidelity of today’s radio station broadcasts were unknown. The music I heard on WKBC didn’t need nuances and faithful fidelity. The music came directly from 45 rpm records with all the scratches and sometimes skips, and it was better, rawer and more exciting music than I had even heard before. It was during this time, as I think back upon things, that I received my foundation. I heard a very early Ray Charles playing boogie piano on "Mess Around," the Drifters when they were billed as Clyde McPhatter and the Drifters, Clarence "Gatemouth" Brown, the Robins, who evolved into the Coasters, Rusty Bryant’s big band, Jimmy Reed, Little Walter, Sonny Boy Williamson, the Premiers, Joe Furman, Ruth Brown, Etta James and my favorite group, the Midnighters. The music was raw and hard, driving. It was music about people, black, white, yellow, whatever, and you could to it (unless you were head cheerleader or president of the senior class). A lot of my rhythmic influence came from the vocal do-wop riffs the singing groupd did behind the lead. Some of it sounded like some of the African music I had heard in movies like "Trader Horn," or early Tarzan movies. I wish I could find a source for late 40s and early 50s rhythm and blues. It was also called "race music" by whites naturally. The name you put on it doesn’t matter. It was good. It was hot. It was rhythm and blues.

I appreciate the opportunity to ramble on but I think I’ll cut it here with a statement that sort of sums up my feelings about the monks experience from 1966 until now. It’s about fucking time.