This playlist is cooler than anything you’ve heard on classic rock radio.
How can I be so sure? Listen and you’ll see! (Also: remembering the band Monotonix)
The problem with classic rock is that there’s too much emphasis on the classics! If you don’t believe me, I invite you to take a ride with this playlist I made…
In 2007, I interviewed Ami Shalev, frontman of the Tel Aviv rock trio Monotonix for a Nashville Scene feature story. At one point in the article, Shalev says: “All of us in the band really, really, really like classic rock. But we try to give it something [that comes] from us. I don’t think that we do what you’d call classic classic rock.”
I have a fond memory of the way he emphasized that first “classic” before pausing to savor and chuckle at what he’d just said. I still smile when I think about it. Shalev was being somewhat tongue in cheek, but he was making a serious point, and we were both sympatico on the idea that there’s so much more to classic rock than just the radio hits.
If you had to come up with a pejorative tag for me, you could call me a DCJW or “deep-cut justice warrior.” For the life of me, I’ve never understood why so much time, energy, money, and human resources have gone into bands recording entire records, only for the majority of the songs on those records to go largely ignored by the public.
I’ve already written about that at length in the post above, so I won’t re-hash it here and repeat myself like a broken record. But let’s just say that, for people who would say they don’t care about classic rock — and people who would call themselves classic rock fans — there’s an oceanic catalog of tunes that have never made it onto radio.
It strikes me as odd — even perverse, anti-musical and anti-creative — that a society would slather musicians with so much reverence and yet choose to kind of collectively invalidate all the music that it chooses to submerged under the tip of an iceberg. I don’t get it.
My playlist is an invitation, a reminder of the vast, almost infinite reward that awaits the listener who goes off the beaten path, even in a genre that we tend to think of as being done to death. I would encourage even those who view classic rock as a kind of psychological tartar buildup to take the dive — to kick back with these tunes like you’re on a trip.
No one on classic rock radio — at least over the last 50 years — has come close to giving deep cuts the attention they deserve. As far as I’m concerned, it’s a form of collective lunacy. Hope you enjoy the music…
p.s: Monotonix were easily one of the most thrilling — and uplifting — live bands I’ve ever seen. Neither of these two complete-show YouTube clips even comes close to conveying the sheer, chaotic rush of joy that would overtake the room when the band was clicking.
I’m not even sure my description in the Scene article does the experience justice:
Impish and irrepressible, Shalev—whose diminutive stature, mustache, leather pants and sidestepping, split-legged Rock God dance moves give him the appearance of a roadie from a bygone era at a karaoke night gone too far—does indeed spend a great deal of time on the ground when his raucous Tel Aviv trio plays. He also climbs walls, hangs from rafters and windows and jumps all over the audience, bandmates and equipment alike.
Not to be outdone, guitarist Yonatan Gat and drummer Ran Shimoni run about the venue, often playing the entire show right in the thick of the crowd, with the drum set in pieces scattered about the room. They frequently call upon audience members for help with percussion, background vocals and also to hoist them in the air when an airborne mood strikes.
But acrobatics alone don’t account for the irresistible jubilation that this band creates. Monotonix indulge an unabashed, uncalculated love for classic rock while including the audience in an explosive show of reverse hospitality.
When Gat marries the familiar strains of Jimi Hendrix, Ritchie Blackmore and Billy Squier to a Godzilla-huge bottom end for an ungodly—yet sparkling-clear—guitar sound, the seemingly immovable roadblocks between the audience and its fading rock ’n’ roll fantasies dissolve in a splash of Shalev’s sweat.
Monotonix broke up in 2011, and towards the end of their run I felt like they were running out of steam, as the chaos of the shows started to engulf the music. By that point, as I wrote in this 2010 story for Mountain Xpress, the crowd antics would routinely prevent the band from making it even halfway through its set.
I’m eternally grateful that I got to see them when the thrill was still fresh, especially because they just happened to be booked at an art space by a musician in my town named Cameron who’s always had a thing for bringing cool underground bands to town. Seeing Monotonix two or three times during that period was like catching a comet. And it was sad to see the comet fade away.
The good news is that Monotonix have a release scheduled for next year. I’m not quite sure to what extent this upcoming release signifies a true return to the band being active again, but it’s cool to see some stirrings of life. It’s a bit confusing, but the LP is already available as part of Gat’s box set. (The link below has info on the box too.)
After Monotonix broke up, Gat re-surfaced as a psychedelic / experimental player who’s worked in a surprisingly wide range of projects with the likes of Lee Ranaldo, Thor Harris, Laraaji, Jamie Branch, David Berman and members of Deerhoof and Mdou Moctar’s band.
His guitar tone in Monotonix was just gargantuan, but it’s been impressive to see that he wasn’t just a one-trick pony with a fuzz pedal fetish. Much of his post-Monotonix work exudes a mind-expanding, even serene quality. Looking back, I would definitely describe Monotonix as a band reaching for transcendence, and Gat is clearly pursuing multiple paths toward that transcendence. Monotonix’s energy makes a lot more sense now in the scope of everything else Gat has shown himself to be capable of since. It’s nice to see that he still has room in his heart for the raucous, chunky riffing that formed the lifeblood of Monotonix’s sound.
For more info on his collaboration with the Native American ensemble Medicine Singers, check out Matthew Richardson’s review in Pitchfork, as well as label Joyful Noise’s info page for the box set.
<3 SRK
As a kid I always wondered why you kept hearing the same few songs from the same bands over and over... I never understood the radio stations weren't allowed to play songs that weren't released as singles or if they just didn't want to.
Will never forget Monotonix at Av space and bug jar! 🖤