“A Complete Unknown”
When Dylan sang about “a complete unknown”, he might have been referencing artists like Archer Monk, a fellow Midwesterner from a small town in Northeastern Iowa, 15 miles away from the dirt of Bob’s Minnesota, perhaps the Hibbing of Iowa. Despite performing since he was 4 years old, Archer Monk has made a career out of being a complete unknown. It takes a lotta chutzpah (and a train to cry) to be a complete unknown. He’s never played The Beacon or either of The Greek's let alone The Parthenon. The Hollywood Bowl? Get real. He’s never shared a stage with any big stars and if he has, you’d never know about it. Glastonbury? Bonnaroo? Cochella? Give me a break. No impresarios have discovered his music. Albert Grossman left the building a long time ago. No glossy Netflix series has licensed his music for its season’s finale where the lead finally catches a bullet in the back and falls in the red and blue lit Hollywood Hills pool to a melody that begs you to Shazam the shit out of the air you breath. No social media youngster known for their 15 minute cheekbones or pufferfish lips has ever covered a song of his because, as a wiser fella once said, “sometimes you eat the bar, and sometimes, well, the bar eats you”. Blame it on the fountain of youth or a sinking gravestone but either way, souls enter and souls depart while the universe just shrugs and falls apart.
His latest album, “Beaches and Honey” is packed full of golden eggs ready to be cracked open. Its production shines like the sun off the back of a lost trout yet navigating familiar waters by the brilliant veteran producer Scott Mathews (The Beach Boys, Tom Petty, Elvis Costello, The Waterboys, Roy Orbison, et al). It was recorded in Mill Valley, CA with the help of the white witch of Mount Tamalpais and the ghost of Allan Watts.
If you’re reading this, you probably fall into one of three categories: family, friends, or some lucky, rabbit holin’ rando who just stumbled upon “a complete unknown” and if you’re in the third group, believe me, you just gained a bunch of street cred. Everyone loves saying that they knew an artist before they blew up. You catch someone at a coffee shop open mic. Now she’s on the cover of Rolling Stone. You’re a fly in the zeitgeist, finely tuned and looking to mate with a feeling. The discovery of a great album from a complete unknown only rivals the discovery of their back catalogue and Archer Monk has a backlog that, no doubt, will go for the big bucks one day or at least traded for a 1963 AMC Rambler Cross Country that won’t go into first gear or reverse.
So you’re welcome. Do yourself a favor. You could be the first to the Archer Monk party. Don’t be the last. It takes a fighter to be a complete unknown but it takes a seer to discover one.
Then again, perhaps it’s best to keep “knowns” completely unknown for everyone’s sake.
- Phillip Thomas, PhD
frequency illusionist, futurist and lecturer of the Baader–Meinhof phenomenon
