Thanks, Monty

Egon remembers Monty Stark

• Egon
• December 02, 2009

When I contacted him in 2001 to discuss reissuing his masterpiece, The Stark Reality Discovers Hoagy Carmichael’s Music Shop, he was amused – perplexed, even – but not defensive or confrontational or worried in the way that many musicians are when I first explain to them my intentions to repackage and attempt to renew interest in recordings from a bygone era. He welcomed me to his apartment in Phoenix and entertained me and two friends as we prodded around his past for answers to that most confounding, beautiful music.

He visited LA when we finally issued our anthology, Now, after he cleared the use of his band’s music for interludes on a Madvillain release (for no charge other than a “Thanks Monty” inscribed in the dead wax of the vinyl), after he realized that there were leagues of new fans interested in not only The Stark Reality, but Monty Stark the man. I’ll never forget our record release party, at the now-defunct Star Shoes on Hollywood and Cosmo, as I stood next to Monty on the club’s small dance floor (he, as always, behind those dark shades), as J.Rocc plugged his headphones into the microphone jack on the mixer and exhorted the crowd to give props to the man who had created the fuzz-soaked “Dreams” he was playing; I felt overwhelmed with pride, intoxicated by music, and so happy to be in the presence of that shy, quiet, giant of a man, Monty Stark.

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Egon Remembers Monty Stark | Now-Again