Fred Gillen Jr With Special Guest Milton

MILTON’S AUTOBIOGRAPHY

I’ve spent a good part of my life in the library, a good part of my life in music venues and a good part of my life next to the record player.  I grew up like most American suburban kids in the 1980’s, watching MTV and listening to top 40 radio.  I also raided my friends’ parents’ record collections for all of the cool old stuff they had.  “The Harder They Come” was one of the first albums I loved and it’s still one of my favorites.  My songwriting heroes have always been the really smart ones who write great poetry over great tunes:  Randy Newman, Leonard Cohen, Bob Dylan, Hank Williams, Bob Marley.  My favorite singers were always the real churchy ones:  Sam Cooke, Marvin Gaye, Roberta Flack, Ralph Stanley, Dolly Parton, Toots Hibbert, The Staples. I also love raspy, intimate rock singers like Rod Stewart and Paul Westerberg.  More than just about anything in life, I love a tune that you can’t wait to hear again, a story that takes you somewhere and a singer that you can feel in your heart. 

I started hanging out in Greenwich Village when I was 12 or 13, looking for old records, checking out poetry readings and watching punk rock matinees at CBGB.  My brothers had a band and I was often their roadie.  I went to college and studied English and Spanish literature in New York City.  I still live there today.  I love the city very dearly.  I love the country too, but I feel most at home in downtown Manhattan.

I started filling up notebooks with little rhymes and verses from a very young age.  In high school and college, I’d write songs in class while the teachers lectured.  I started playing my first gigs in coffee houses and bars, wherever I could.  I only knew a few chords and I knew nothing about singing.  I was lousy but I got better.  I learned a lot on the job.  I sent my first demos to a club called the The Living Room and soon I was a regular performer there. I put together a band to back me and we played all over the place.  I was playing a solo set at a music conference in Florida when I got approached to make my first album.  I sent it to my local radio station WFUV and my song “In the City” got a lot of airplay.  Since then I’ve played a lot of gigs in a lot places and put out two other albums.  I’ve written and recorded a lot of songs, I’ve played on TV and on radio stations around the country and I wrote the score for an HBO movie.

Just like when I was a kid, I’m still filling notebooks with rhymes every day and freaking out about great writing and great songs.   You can hear echoes of a lot of my old records in my stuff, whether it’s blues or country or Randy Newman or Jimmy Cliff or any number of things.  I love keeping the roots alive in my music and I love the intimate experience of a song.  I’d like to write a thousand more songs and play a thousand more gigs.  You might see me on stage singing by myself, with a trio or with a six piece band.  In whatever format I play, I’ll be going for something intimate and honest, trying to catch a good groove and tell you the story with all I’ve got.