Monotonix: Where Were You When It Happened?

I’ve been stalking Israeli indie rock band Monotonix for about three years now.

I first heard about them while I was on a desperate search to find a booking agent for ? and the Mysterians, who fell in my lap after singer ? lost his house in a tragic fire and was looking to book a tour to fund rebuilding his home.

I knew of a girl in San Francisco named Michelle Cable (of Panache Booking) who had a really cool roster of experimental and garage-y rock bands like Numbers, Mika Miko, Aids Wolf, The Slits, etc.  I hit up her website to find out if she worked with the Mysterians.

It was there that I stumbled upon Monotonix. And I was impressed, to say the least.

Thanks to the kind people at Drag City, I had the opportunity to listen to new album Where Were You When It Happened. It’s a winner: proto-punk, hard rock and southern fried cabaret that sounds like a metal-induced hipster dance party. Songs like My Needs and I Can’t Take It Anymore could easily be actual classic rock, revisited by basement punks. And As Noise and Hunt You Down could have been written by Jack White in a mountain cabin in the woods of North Carolina. This album is worth your time.

Monotonix are hardcore. On the first US tour the band played in front of five people most nights. Luckily, the combination of sheer hard work and connections with all the right people has turned the group into a well-oiled machine.

It’s clear from Monotix’s MC5-inspired live sets that these musicians have rock and roll figured out. From an email the group sent me:

As a band, we tend to do things to the extreme, with music and even the decisions we make that aren’t around music at all, it’s kinda all or nothing for us, that’s just the way the 3 of us are when we do things together.

We love playing our show and the response we get during the show, it makes it really enjoyable for us so we’re never bored and always ready to play and have fun.

Find what you’re good at and focus on that. And work hard. Try to sweat.

It’s great to meet people who remind you of why you should rock and roll in the first place.

Now go forth, and preach the gospel of Monotonix. Buy the damn album and have a sweet Rosh Hashanah.