I’ve seen the Monks. Yes, those Monks. Two refugees from the Strawbs, Richard Hudson and John Ford, went from folk-rock respectability to writing “Nice Legs Shame About Her Face” and “Drugs in My Pocket,” and Britain mostly shrugged. Canada didn’t. Bad Habits went multi-platinum here, which says plenty about what this country wanted at the turn of the eighties: a bit of a sneer, a big chorus, and a band that clearly found all of it funny. I saw them in 1980 at the Roxy Theatre in Barrie, Ontario, and it was a riot. I mean a good one. Sweat, noise, a room full of kids yelling lyrics their parents would have belted them for repeating at the supper table.
Funny thing is, plenty of those parents were the reason we needed a night like that.
There’s a version of base-brat life people like to post about. Cheap housing, a gang of kids on every street in the PMQs, rinks, pools, a new province every few years, and the vague idea that you were part of something. Some of that’s true. I’m not going to pretend it was all grim. But the glossy version leaves out the mess, and I mean the actual Mess, with the capital M, where the beer was cheap, the rum was cheaper, and drinking hard wasn’t just tolerated, it was practically part of the job description. You didn’t drink? People noticed. Nobody called it a problem because nobody was sober long enough to compare notes.
So the parents drank, and the kids paid for it. Some of us paid in the head, some of us paid in bruises, and most of us paid in that low-level alertness you learn early: reading the front door, reading the voice, reading the room before you walk into it. We didn’t think of it as anything. That was just how houses worked. You only find out it wasn’t normal years later, when you’re out, sitting at somebody else’s family dinner where nobody’s bracing for anything and you realize you’ve been bracing your whole life.
Money was the other thing we didn’t know about. Unless both your parents were working, and on a base back then that wasn’t common, times were tight. We were poor. We just didn’t know it. Every family on the street was on the same pay scale, living in the same boxy house with the same furniture, give or take a rank. You can’t keep up with the Joneses when the Joneses are a corporal with the same lino floor and the same station wagon you’ve got. The whole competitive keeping-up thing, the fridge-size TV, the second car, the kids in matching brand names, hadn’t really landed yet. It came later, and frankly I don’t think we were missing much.
Which brings me back to the Monks. Their whole act was taking the piss out of everything, punk included, and kids like us understood that better than we could have explained. When home is a guessing game, a band that laughs at all of it, loudly and on purpose, feels like permission. For two hours nobody was reading the room. We were just yelling along with a bunch of English blokes who’d figured out Canadians would buy anything with a dirty joke and a good hook.
They weren’t wrong. We bought it, and some of us are still humming it.
I don’t write this to put the old man or the old lady on trial. They were products of their own lousy upbringing and of an institution that ran on booze and called it morale. Plenty of them were decent people doing it badly. But I’m tired of the nostalgia that sands all of that off. Base-brat life made a lot of us tough, sure. It also made a lot of us damaged, and those aren’t opposites. Most of us carry both.
Bad habits. The band had the title right, they just didn’t know whose.
The Monks
Two ex-Strawbs take the piss out of punk. Britain shrugs, and Canada buys it by the truckload.
“When home is a guessing game, a band that laughs at all of it, loudly and on purpose, feels like permission.” — The Retired Menace
🎟️ I’ve Seen Them — 1 Show
A base brat in a packed old movie house, yelling lyrics you’d get belted for at the supper table. It was a riot.
- 1Roxy Theatre — Barrie, Ontario · 1980Dunlop Street’s 1931 picture palace, full of sweat, noise and teenagers
Complete Timeline
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1973
Out of the Strawbs, Into Hudson FordOrigin
Richard Hudson and John Ford were the Strawbs’ rhythm section and wrote the band’s biggest hit, “Part of the Union.” They left in 1973 to work as the duo Hudson Ford. The songwriting partnership is the one the Monks would later be built on.
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1979
The Monks Form · Bad Habits ReleasedAlbumLineup
Hudson and Ford team up with singer and synth player Terry Cassidy and drummer Clive Pierce. The three writers produce Bad Habits themselves for EMI. It’s twelve tracks of punk and new wave send-up, including “Johnny B. Rotten,” “Spotty Face,” “Out of Work Musician” and “Skylab (Theme from the Monks).”
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1979
“Nice Legs Shame About Her Face” — UK #19Hit
The first single reaches #19 on the UK Singles Chart, which turns out to be the band’s only real British hit. “Ain’t Gettin’ Any” and “Johnny B. Rotten” follow as singles. In the UK the album barely moves, and in the U.S. it does nothing.
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1980
“Drugs in My Pocket” — Canada BitesHit
In the fall of 1980, “Drugs in My Pocket” becomes a Top 20 hit in Canada (#18) and reaches #4 on Toronto’s CHUM Chart. Bad Habits starts selling here in numbers it never came close to at home. “Don’t Want No Reds” is also released as a single.
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1980
The Retired Menace at the Roxy, BarrieI Was There
With Bad Habits taking off in Canada, the Monks play the Roxy Theatre in Barrie, Ontario, and one base brat in the crowd gets the best night out of the year.
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1980
High SocietySide Project
The same crew tries out 1930s-style dance-band music under the name High Society. It’s further proof that these lads would try anything that made them laugh.
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1981
Suspended Animation — Canada-Only, GoldAlbumGoldLineup
The second album, Suspended Animation, comes out in Canada only and isn’t released in the UK. It goes Gold. Former Strawbs guitarist Brian Willoughby and keyboardist Chris Parren join the lineup. “I Can Do Anything You Like” is the single.
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May 1981
21-Day Ontario Tour · Massey HallTour
The band plays a 21-day tour of Ontario, including Massey Hall in Toronto. Documented dates include Centre in the Square in Kitchener (May 13), the Galaxy Club in Oakville (May 14), the National Arts Centre’s Southam Hall in Ottawa (May 19) and North Bay Memorial Gardens (May 29). They were playing the kind of big rooms the Strawbs had played in their prime.
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1982
Bad Habits Goes Double Platinum · Last Tour2× PlatinumLineupTurning Point
Bad Habits is certified Double Platinum in Canada. Another Canadian tour follows, with Huw Gower on guitar in place of Willoughby. After that the Monks call it a day.
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2004
Ford Revisits the CatalogueSolo
John Ford re-records two Monks songs for his solo album Backtracking.
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2012
Horseshoe Tavern Tribute · The Plaque ArrivesLegacy
Thomas D’Arcy organizes a tribute concert to the Monks at Toronto’s Horseshoe Tavern. The same year, John Ford finally receives his double platinum plaque for the album’s Canadian sales, thirty years after the certification.
Complete Discography
| Year | Title | Release | Certification (CA) | Key Singles |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1979 | Bad Habits | EMI | 2× Platinum | Nice Legs Shame About Her Face · Drugs in My Pocket · Johnny B. Rotten · Ain’t Gettin’ Any |
| 1981 | Suspended Animation | Canada only | Gold | I Can Do Anything You Like |
Essential Facts
- Founded by Richard Hudson and John Ford, the former Strawbs rhythm section who wrote “Part of the Union”
- Original lineup: Hudson, Ford, Terry Cassidy (vocals, synths), Clive Pierce (drums)
- Bad Habits (EMI, 1979) was produced by the band’s three writers: Hudson, Ford and Cassidy
- “Nice Legs Shame About Her Face” reached #19 in the UK, their only British hit
- “Drugs in My Pocket” reached #18 in Canada and #4 on Toronto’s CHUM Chart in 1980
- Bad Habits was certified Double Platinum in Canada in 1982, with almost no sales outside the country
- Suspended Animation (1981) was released only in Canada and went Gold
- Toured Ontario for 21 days in 1981, including Massey Hall
- Released 1930s-style dance-band music as a side project under the name High Society
- Disbanded after their 1982 Canadian tour
- A tribute show took place at Toronto’s Horseshoe Tavern in 2012
Resources & Links
“Bad habits. The band had the title right, they just didn’t know whose.”