Thelonious Monster - Biography
In 1986, singer/songwriter Bob Forrest formed Thelonious Monster with friends from several LA area indie bands, including Rob Graves of 45 Grave and Dix Denny from the punk band The Weirdos. The band quickly gained a reputation for drunken, out of control live shows (sometimes featuring as many as four guitarists) and for Forrest’s compelling, confessional lyrics and urgent, raspy scream of a voice. The Monster’s first LP, Baby….Your Bumming My Life Out in a Supreme Fashion, (1986 Epitaph) was released before the band had really found its sound, and is filled out with punk/funk jams which, despite the presence of guest stars such as James Chance, fail to hold one’s interest for long. The few songs that do stand out, “…And the Rest of the Band” and “Union Street” are the earliest examples of what would quickly become Forrest’s lyrical obsessions: emotional fallout from drug and alcohol addiction, expressions of anger, betrayal and misery over unhappy love affairs. Forrest’s diary-like, nakedly confessional lyrics are at times reminiscent of Loudon Wainwright III’s work.
Thelonious Monster’s second release, Next Saturday Afternoon (1987 Relativity) shows the band finding its own sound (The Replacements were a major influence) and Forrest’s songwriting gaining new depth and strength. Like Pete Townsend, Forrest was a self-conscious writer and performer whose lyrics often explored his ambivalence about his chosen profession. “Walk on Water” eviscerates the fame Forrest had just barely begun to experience while “Sammy Hagar Weekend,” on Stormy Weather (1989 Relativity) was a hilarious dissection of arena rock clichés.
Stormy Weather was produced by a fan, John Doe of X. It had more of an acoustic, folk-rock flavor to it. Opening track “So What if I Did” updates the miss-you/hate-you dichotomy of Dylan’s “If You See Her, Say Hello,” with Forrest wavering between belittling his departed lover and begging for her return. The two hardest rockers on the album are both covers: Dix Denny and Bob Forrest trade verses on Traci Chapman’s “For My Lover” and Blind Lemon Jefferson’s “See That My Grave is Kept Clean” bears a strong resemblance to the blues covers of The Gun Club.
The band remained unpredictable in live performance. Like The Replacments, they could own an audience one night and drive them out of the club the next. Forrest’s drug and alcohol addictions might have provided ready fodder for his lyrical concerns, but they were also pulling the band apart, leading to tensions in the band that sometimes spilled over onto the stage — drummer Weiss was fired onstage on at least one occasion. (The other band members were hardly straight-edge adherents, though; bassist Graves would eventually die of a heroin overdose).
Forrest departed the band — essentially breaking it up — in favor of working on a solo album. The record was not released, as the songs sank under the weight of two many superstar guests (including Tom Waits and Benmont Tench) and Forrest’s continuing substance abuse problems. The band reunited for Beautiful Mess (1992 Capitol Records), which contained some of the material intended for Forrest’s solo LP, and new material as good as anything they had so far produced. Forrest’s songs — essentially one long, frightening cry for help — are perfectly matched by the band’s performance. Still, drug problems continued to beset Forrest, and the band (now including guitarist Zander Schloss from the Circle Jerks) broke up once again following the album’s release.
Given up for dead by both fans and the music industry, Forrest surprised many with a new band named The Bicycle Thief and a new CD — You Come and Go like a Pop Song (1999 Golden Voice) at the turn of the millennium. Forrest’s lyrical themes of suicidal unhappiness and fear of love remain. But here they are squeezed dry of self-pity and contain a measure of optimism, no doubt resulting from his new-found sobriety. The Bicycle Thief show themselves to be at least the equal to Thelonious Monster and the CD benefits from a highly arranged and delicately shaded production.
A few years later, Thelonious Monster reunited yet again, releasing the CD California Clam Chowder (2004 Lakeshore Records). A collection of tributes and pastiches to and of Forrest’s favorite bands, the record is an able addition to the Monster’s catalogue. Forrest issued a solo album of largely acoustic covers in the same vein in 2006 Modern Folk and Blues Wednesday, (Lakeshore Records). He continues to perform in this format, and — irony of ironies — works a day job as a (sometimes singing) drug counselor on the VH1 Celebrity Rehab show.
