Fred Gillen Jr. profile picture

Fred Gillen Jr.

About Me

An acclaimed singer-songwriter and busy independent music producer, within the last ten years Fred Gillen Jr. has established himself as a force of nature in the Hudson Valley, New York folk-rock music scene, earning praise for both his solo career and involvement in two of the area’s rising new groups, the Woody Guthrie-inspired Hope Machine and a duo act with Matt Turk known simply as Gillen & Turk. Gillen has released eight CD recordings of original music to date, and his new collection, Coney Island, shows a willingness to use new technologies to update the folk-rock subgenre, much in the manner of Beth Orton and Suzanne Vega. Having self-produced his previous recordings, Gillen turned to producer-engineer Koji Mabuchi for Coney Island and the results are hypnotic and compelling. As usual, Gillen’s songs are filled with messages of hope, love and spiritual transformation depicted in everyday details of the human condition, but the arrangements buttress Gillen’s stark acoustic guitar and plaintive baritone singing with drum programming, keyboards and electronica. While his tuneful gifts have long been admired and appreciated, Gillen’s work in support of the music community deserves credit as well. A past president of Tribes Hill, the Hudson Valley, NY-based singer-songwriter collective, Gillen continues to serve on the organization’s board of directors, and has served as a mentor to countless aspiring musical artists, including folk music phenom Anthony da Costa. And after engineering and producing countless independent recordings, Gillen opened his own state-of-the-art recording studio, Woody’s House, in 2006 and has since helped notables like Red Molly, Work o’ the Weavers, Julie Corbalis and Hope Machine colleague Steve Kirkman cut new albums. A Hudson Valley native, Gillen traces his love of music to the time when he was 5 and his mother brought him to hear Pete Seeger perform on the sloop Clearwater. Country music, folk and jazz records around the Gillen home provided other important reference points, and by the time he was 16 Gillen was already proficient on bass and guitar. In the early 1990s he helped form the Rain Deputies, an alt-rock quartet that gained a good deal of notice around New York until its 1996 demise. By this point, Gillen’s literary interests were becoming increasingly manifested in songwriting, and he decided to pursue a career as a songwriter, releasing his solo debut, Intentions as Big as the Sky, in 1997. Gillen’s next CD, the stirring Tales of the Misplaced, appeared the following year and served notice that a new songwriting voice had arrived. The album’s opening track, “Face of Love,” recounted the AIDS-related death of his foster sister. “One day I visited her in the hospital, and she told me how happy she was because so many people loved her,” says Gillen. “Seeing her experience and speak of this joy while dying turned my thinking right around.” “Face of Love” became one of those touchstone hits on the folk circuit, and Gillen’s reputation as a gifted singer-songwriter grew. Personal elements and unique storytelling remain strong on his fourth CD, Grace, which was finished a few days before the 2001 terrorist attacks, but from then he began to mix a more politically derived and socially conscious message into his work, emanating Woody Guthrie and Bob Dylan in a way that few musical artists dared to. He put together Hope Machine with Todd Giudice and Steve Kirkman after performing together at a hootenanny organized by Woody's granddaughter Anna Canoni, and after two years of bandstand experience they released their debut, March, in 2006. Gone, Gone, Gone, Gillen’s seventh CD, appeared later the same year, and he also won his third consecutive citation as “Best Folk Artist” in the annual Westchester Weekly Readers’ Poll. As always, new musical horizons awaited Gillen. On numerous occasions over the last five years he’d shared the stage with fellow singer-songwriter Matt Turk, who had some success with the jam-rock band The Hour in the 1990s, and the two troubadours became close friends. In early 2007 they joined forces as Gillen & Turk and immediately won worldwide notice when the Associated Press featured them in a newspaper article on artists auditioning for the Music Under New York program sponsored by the Metropolitan Transit Authority. (G&T got the job and have been playing for the commuter audience ever since at various subway and train stations around New York City.) The debut CD from Gillen & Turk, Backs To The Wall, was released in April 2008, and the duo supported the release with successful midwest and west coast tours. Audiences have taken to the duo’s energetic and earnest performances, where Gillen (guitar, bass, harmonica and washboard) and Turk (guitar and mandolin) complement each other’s musical gifts and personalities. A New York Foundation for the Arts grant recipient, Gillen is also a poet and spoken word artist. In December 2007 he was invited to recite his work at a New Year’s Eve concert hosted by U. S. Rep. Dennis Kucinich in Manchester, New Hampshire, and ideas are fermenting for a spoken-word recording. 2009 will see the release of a new Hope Machine CD "Big Green Hope Machine," as well as continued touring and a busy studio schedule.

My Interests

Music:

Member Since: 8/31/2005
Band Website: http://www.fredgillenjr.com
Band Members: a nice bunch of guys named Fred Gillen Jr.
Influences: You should create your own MySpace Layouts like me by using nUCLEArcENTURy .COM's MySpace Profile Editor ! ............................................................ ............................................................ ........Woody Guthrie, Bob Dylan, Ani DiFranco, and Dan Bern for the words, Pete Seeger for being a real-life accessable elder, James Brown, The Beatles, Stevie Wonder, The Who, Black Sabbath, and a zillion others for the music, Elliott Smith for everything and I wish he was still here so I could hug him, Radiohead, Tom Waits, Aimee Mann, Johnny Cash, Public Enemy, Jane's Addiction, X, The Clash, Daniel Lanois, Martin Sexton, John Coltrane, Steve Kirkman, Mary Lou Lord, Elliott Smith again, Neil Young & Crazy Horse, William Blake, William Shakespeare, Linda Jean Fisher, Rush, John Trudell, Robert Johnson, Eliza Gilkyson, EmmyLou Harris, John Steinbeck, Lou Reed, Steve Earle, AC/DC, Black Sabbath, Rage Against The Machine, Julia Cameron, Marcy B. Freedman, Smashing Pumpkins, Suzanne Vega, Jackson Pollack, Kurt Vonnegutt, Ray Bradbury, Johnny Miles, Anne O'Meara Heaton, Bruce Balmer, Chris Moore, Linda Jean Fisher and too many to list!!! ............................................................ ............................................................ ........ ____________________________________________________________ ___________ ............................................................ ............................................................ ....... PERFORMING "FALLEN ANGEL" AT WESTCHESTER ARTS COUNCIL MAY 2, 2007 .. .. .. ............................................................ ............................................................ ........WITH ABBIE GARDNER & FRIENDS COVERING LEONARD COHEN'S "HALLELUJIA" .. .. ............................................................ ............................................................ ......... ............................................................ ............................................................ ............................................................ ............................................................ ................. ............................................................ ............................................................ ........
You are now marked on my profile visitor map!........................................................ ............................................................ ............ "Going to hear Fred Gillen jr play his music is like seeing the Grand Canyon for the first time. It totally revolutionizes your perspective on life and how amazing it all seems. Everyone who was there felt like they got away with something, it was like having a private concert in your living room with the combined spirits of Johnny Cash, Woody Guthrie, and every ghost of a heartbreaking memory you've been through." Leo Phrog, Utica Pulse ............................................................ ............................................................ ........ "Uplifting, passionate, and emotional performer" -Donegal Democrat, Ireland_____________________________________________________ ____________________ WAKE UP AMERICA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!_________________________ ____________________________________ _______________________
Sounds Like: Elliott Smith on speed having a collision with Preacher Casey in a trailer park somewhere in upstate New York and then having a beer together and singing a few Woody Guthrie songs with Elliott on washboard and Casey blowing harmonica plugged into an old Supro amplifier with Loretta Lynn singing some harmony as she walks by on her way to hang up the wash.
Record Label: dys records: alternative media since 1995
Type of Label: Indie

My Blog

FAME Review: Hope Machine - Big Green Hope Machine

http://www.acousticmusic.com/fame/p05494.htm The First Review Of The New CD Big Green Hope Machine
Posted by on Thu, 23 Apr 2009 08:30:00 GMT

Love

Do you see yourself in me? I see myself in you. I am trying to love myself.... the more I do the more I can love you. It's kind of a cool system really.
Posted by on Tue, 06 May 2008 09:59:00 GMT

Broke

It was only when I broke myself that I finally understood how to begin to truly love the broken of this world, without fear and without judgement. I found myself at the bottom with no hope and no fai...
Posted by on Sun, 24 Feb 2008 20:30:00 GMT

HOPE MACHINE

Hope Machine sings songs which are universal. Pete Seeger and Woody Guthrie did that. Phil Ochs wrote a few universal songs, but really his songs were more PERSONAL. Even his "political" or so-call...
Posted by on Mon, 11 Feb 2008 06:39:00 GMT

Dennis Kucinich

On New Year's eve I was asked to read my poetry at Dennis Kucinich's New Year's Eve event, "Resolution For Peace" in Manchester, New Hampshire. I'd been following Dennis and planning on voting for hi...
Posted by on Sun, 06 Jan 2008 19:44:00 GMT

NYPD

Matt Turk and I have been playing in the NYC subways as part of the Music Under New York (MUNY) program. We had to submit a CD, be selected to audition, and then be selected for inclusion. about 200 a...
Posted by on Thu, 03 Jan 2008 11:36:00 GMT

Hallelujia

My old God (me)expected perfectionand therefore, of course, I was a complete failureMy new God expects me to try my best and loves me for trying and failing.He also loves me when I suceed.When my feet...
Posted by on Wed, 30 May 2007 12:42:00 GMT