Fireworks. In The Form Of Rock 'N' Roll

Album: Body Language EP
Artist: Monotonix
Genre: Garage Rock
Year: 2008
Label: Drag City

My first experience with Monotonix was a short one. At Bumbershoot last year, I was reading The Stranger, trying to figure out what band to see next when I ran across a full page spread on Monotonix, an Israeli Garage Punk band from Tel Aviv who were known for wild antics beyond compare. The more I read, the more intrigued I became. The drummer who played the kick drum with his face, the wild front man, the fires… the fires… I knew I had to see this band. I looked at my watch; we had fifteen minutes to get all the way across the Seattle Center to the exhibition hall. I quickly rallied my friends and we took off for the show. When we arrived in the exhibition hall, I realized that the band had set up on the floor and that actually seeing them was out of the question. But we could still hear them.

In retrospect, I’m not entirely sure what I heard, a wall of punk sound and front man Shalev’s howling. At one point, Shalev climbed up on the stage and mooned the crowd. The only sight I had of the band was when guitarist Gat and Shalev started crowd surfing. They played for about fifteen minutes, when suddenly, the lights came back on and everything stopped. The show was over as suddenly as it had begun and people began to file out. It was weird. I later found out that the band had made a deal with the fire marshal not to crowd surf, which they went ahead and did anyways. This got their show canceled. When I got home, the first thing I did was purchase their Body Language EP.

The music of Monotonix is unsophisticated, uncomplicated Rock. Just three guys, two instruments and a voice. It’s a formula you hear repeated a lot, but Monotonix do it so well you couldn’t ask anything else. It’s catchy, it rocks, it thrashes and afterwards, you want to do it all over again. The producer did an excellent job of capturing the bands high energy in this recording. It’s hard to be energetic in the studio and these guys bring fire and brimstone to their sound. It’s not a long EP, twenty-three minutes, but that way the band doesn’t wear out their welcome. Six tracks is the perfect length I think and each one is a keeper. The best take though, is certainly the head banging opener “Lowest Dive.” Gat isn’t a flashy guitarist, but it’s not about flash, it’s about the dirtiest, loudest riff you can manage and that’s really all you need, fuck stunt guitars. Drummer Haggai Fershtman’s style isn’t glamorous; it’s simple, steady and punk, though that doesn’t mean he doesn’t get to show off from time to time. A perfect example is the furious conflagrations of percussive sound early on in “No Metal.”

With music this loud and in-your-face, you need an obnoxious, in-your-face vocalist to antagonize and entertain your listeners. Monotonix has that in Ami Shalev, a wild man who was clearly meant to live and die for Rock N’ Roll. His songs are outrageous and uplifting. His delivery is out of control. He’s like a hairier, crazier, Israeli version of Eugene Hutz of Gogol Bordello, from hell. I’ve read tales of him lighting himself and everything in his sight on fire, in the name of Rock N’ Roll. In many ways, to me, Monotonix feels like the legacy of Iggy and the Stooges made manifest: a band with fury, fire and a front man who’ll do everything and anything for Rock. The world needs bands like Monotonix, just like we needed the Stooges, and we’re lucky to have them.