MONSTER MOVIE.

Back when I was busy ingesting Can’s discography for the first time (and I’m still eternally grateful to the chap from Brighton who sent me CD-R copies of the whole lot with wonderful cartoons of the band members scribbled on the paper sleeves, back when I was on the dole with a dial up modem and hungering for some good psyche, in the days before such things could be acquired in seconds), received wisdom told me that ‘Monster Movie’ was a formative work, a mere warm up for the definitive, academically-certified good stuff the band were to embark upon when they got Suzuki in the band and hit Wire-reader paydirt from Tago Mago onwards.

Listening again today though with my own ears, it seems patently obvious that ‘Monster Movie’ is about the best thing they ever did.

If they’d had the foresight to wait a year or so and whack ‘Mother Sky’ on the end after they recorded it for Skolimowski’s ‘Deep End’, I think we could’ve been looking at a ABSOLUTE, DEFINITIVE A+ GRADE TIMELESS/ENDLESS/NAMELESS MINDBLOWER of an LP, or whathaveyou, here.

In support of my claim, I point to the following:

1. It’s called ‘Monster Movie’. And if you don’t think that’s a better name for a thing than ‘Ege Bamyasi’, I’m afraid you suck.

2. It’s got THAT THING on the cover. (See point # 1 for aesthetic compare/contrast).

3. Every single minute of it is completely fantastic. Yeah, I know: it’s a classic era Can album, but it doesn’t hurt to restate the obvious.

4. MALCOLM MOONEY! Nothing against Damo, but someone needs to write a freakin’ BOOK about how great and relatively overlooked Malcolm Mooney’s contributions to the Can-on are/were.

5. Numbers #3 through about #8 or something of the Best Michael Karoli Guitar Moments Ever. Damn me as a rockist ‘til you run out of breath and die, but his fuzz-tone on ‘Father Cannot Yell’ alone means more to me than the 26 times I’ve “hmm.. maybe I’ll like it better time round”d my way through ‘Soon Over Babaluma’. (#1 – entirety of ‘Mother Sky’, #2 – pedal drop on ‘20th Century Man’, by the way).

6. I guess maybe the full uniqueness of Jaki Liebezeit’s drum style hadn’t quite clicked by this point, but he’s still pretty bloody good, and there’s more to life than unique drum styles for chrissake. Gimme this much awesome fuzz guitar and Malcolm Mooney doing his nut, and they could’ve just hired some guy to beat his fists against a treetrunk for all I care.

7. You know, I don’t think I can hear a single thing Irmin Schmidt does on this whole record, aside from those heavy tremolo key-drone bits that open ‘Father..’ and close ‘Yoo Doo Right’. He’s by far my least favourite member of Can, so I’m actually kinda ok with that. Maybe they turned his amp down and just told him he was coming through just fiiine. (I sort of have the preconceived idea - partially inspired by aforementioned CD-R sleeve cartoons, and partially by that absolutely preposterous TV footage of him in the Can DVD - that Schimdt was some kind of pompous, ugly jerk who the others all sniggered at behind his back and played pranks on as he determinedly banged out his sweaty keyboard epiphanies. I know that’s deeply unfair, so if anyone’s got any pro-Schmidt diatribes to offer, or extensive recommendations from his side project/ solo work etc, go on and hit me – comments box below.)

8. Hmm.. those last two points weren’t so much glowing testaments to ‘Monster Movie’s unquestionable supremacy really, were they..? Time to wrap it up I think.

9. DREAM NEVER TO BE REALISED: one day I’m going to karaoke the fuck out of ‘Yoo Doo Right’.

10. I’m sorry if this post means nothing to you. Hopefully it at least contains enough strange and exotic word-clusters to keep you entertained for a moment or two. I do have a few better/longer/proper posts half-written, so just hold on, it’s coming.

Labels: Can, old music