What's Up

Music composed and scored by G&T is on the Wyoming Channel.  

 
 

After volunteering for Clearwater on a sunset Hudson River sail at the Great River Revival and singing with accordionist Rob Morsberger, G&T jettisoned the sloop with Turk rowing.

Next, G&T met up with Catherine Michaels for Night Rhythms, weekdays 7pm-midnight on 100.7 WHUD. There was much good humor and live performances of "Devils Bluff," "It Really Matters" and others on this exciting show.
 

On May 2, 2009, Anthony DaCosta, KJ Denhert, Fred Gillen Jr., Steve Kirkman, Kathleen Pemble and Matt Turk sold out The Arts Exchange  at 31 Mamaroneck Ave. in White Plains, NY for the "Tribes Hill Songbook" Concert in honor of Pete Seeger's 90th Birthday.  Mary Shustack inked a fine cover story for the Journal News entitled, "They keep the circle unbroken."
WFUV's John Platt was present on the air and in Mary's article, all of which greatly helped fill the Arts Exchange with singing and song.   Contributing guest musicians included The Ya Ya's Catherine Miles, Curtis, Eric Puente and Chandra Lee Mann.  The Tribes Hill Songbook will soon be appearing on line, http://tribeshill.com/ followed by a published book for your voice, piano and guitar due out later this year.

(photo Joe Larese/The Journal News)

Gillen & Turk had an awesome Purple States tour of California which included shows in San Francisco, Los Angeles, Bolinas, Point Reyes, Santa Rosa, San Luis Obispo, Felton, Monterey, KPIG and KWMR radio. The Monterey Herald's Mac McDonald says, "Backs to the Wall is a strong, confident work of folkish-rootsy rock with political and social consciousness."

Highlights included San Francisco's show at Revolution in the Mission where G&T delivered a total acoustic set, with no sound system, just swagger. Folks were singing Leonard Cohen's "Hallelujah" together. In Felton, G&T hooked up with the innovative Lindsay Mac for a great show. On the air at KPIG with Sleepy John Sandidge and the Hippie from Olema at KWMR, G&T delivered live sets over the internet. In Monterey, Tracey Chesebrough sat in on cello while in LA, Matter producer and Heart bass player Ric Markmann was digging Fred Gillen's harp playing.
 
 
 

 

Purple States Tour took them throughout the midwest performing in Pittsburgh, Indianapolis, Chicago, Milwaukee, Duluth, Sheboygan, Cleveland and more.

Highlights included Madison's show at the Brink Lounge with The Stella Novas ' Mary Gaines and Chris Wagoner. The classic American Jazz duo performed on cello, violin, ukelele, mandolin with stellar vocals bringing classic American tunes by Gershwin and Ellington. In Milwaukee, Banjo foot stomper Colin O'Brien sat in with G&T at the Art Bar for a rootsy, dancing set.

G&T were live on the air at WNJR at Wililam Jefferson College with David Singer,  WORT in Madison with John Fabke and KUMD in Duluth with Maija Morton. In Sheboygan, Gillen & Turk met M.I.K.E., the mobile recording unit and stage, known as music integrated kiosk environment at the Kohler Arts Center.

Like a 21st Century Gladiator, Todd Rundgren conquered the Tarrytown Music Hall October 11.

In the final episode of NYC Soundtracks host Gillian Pensavale, East Pleasant Pictures and MSG corrected their error and misstatement made previously that "Gillen & Turk were on tour and unavailable to participate in the show and competition."   In the final episode she said "after hearing their passionate songs about peace and justice we picked Gillen & Turk as one of our 8 finalists.  Regrettably due to an administrative error we weren't able to have them in the contest this time.  We can't wait to hear them next season in NYC Soundtracks."  Segments of Gillen & Turk performing in Union Square singing "Peace Rant" and "It Really Matters" were shown. 

Gillen & Turk will perform at the College Music Journal's Music Marathon October 21-25, 2008 in New York City.
CMJ will announce it's full roster and line up soon.  "Fall Down" off G&T's latest release Backs to the Wall will appear on the CMJ CD compilation.

With great pleasure, Gillen & Turk appeared on John Platt's Sunday morning show "On Your Radar" which airs on WFUV, 90.7FM and calls Fordham University in New York City its home. The interview and live session will be in WFUV's archives.

The live installation of "On Your Radar" is September 9, at 7PM at the Living Room, 154 Ludlow St. New York City, and will be hosted by John Platt. G&T will appear with Sloan Wainright and Fools for April. Buy tickets here.

With a slight swagger, Gillen & Turk sat in with morning show host on WDST 100.1FM RadioWoodstock. G&T's set, swagger and interview was inspired in part by Congressman Dennis Kucinich's speech: "Wake Up America!" Visit MySpace to watch "Wake Up America" embedded on the page. Gattine and 'DST were great in supporting G&T's Ashokan Farm performance and folks that came said they heard it from Greg. G&T performed live in the studio and Greg offered up some high praise for the new Gillen & Turk release, Backs to the Wall.

Many of you are wondering what happened with Gillen & Turk and MSG's
show NYC Soundtracks. We are as well. We were on the show, in the
competition and in the round of 16 and, like you, looking forward to
this past Sunday's episode. If you saw Sunday's episode you heard
that Gillen (who's name was misspelled as Gill) & Turk "got a touring
gig" and could no longer be on the show. This was news to us. We
toured back in May and June and will now be pretty local until
November when we hit the midwest again. We were pretty shocked to
hear on television that we were currently on tour. You'd think that
someone from MSG and NYC Soundtracks would have informed us we were
off the show because of our touring schedule before they broadcast it
to their viewers. Considering that two days after that 8/10 show was
aired we were in NYC again playing in the subway at 125th and 8th, the
story they told of us "being on tour" seems a bit ridiculous. You'd
think they would have at least checked our website which shows our gig
schedule before they broadcast this. We would have appreciated a
courtesy phone call before the show was broadcast. We would have
appreciated and welcome a public apology from MSG and NYC Soundtracks.
As it is we have received a private apology from production and have
been offered a short list of possible opportunities (gigs, radio
appearances, MSG website coverage, etc...) for MSG to make this up to
us. Did someone just screw up or was there some other reason we were
pulled from the show? We are trying to get to the bottom of this
question and will keep you informed. To be honest we weren't too
excited about the contest aspect of the show, but felt honored and
flattered to be in a show with Gibran Soul, Matt Nichols, Dorian
Spencer, Trevor Exter, and all of the other artists, some of whom we
know from the subways or from their music careers outside the
subways...

Many of you know how much we enjoy playing in places like 125th and
Lex, in the subway. You know how grateful we are to be a part of
Music Under New York and to work with the M.T.A., New Yorkers, and
music community. We will continue to play in the subway, our freedom
of speech intact, protected by the First Amendment.

When we were kids, one of the first things we saw on MTV was "Video
Killed a Radio Star." For anyone who thought reality TV is real,
consider our current experience and we challenge songwriters to write
the new song, "Gillen & Turk killed Reality TV"

If you'd like to communicate with MSG directly, please email
msgnetpr@thegarden.com

A new film project directed by John Mournier, with music by Gillen & Turk will soon launch on the net.  In segments ranging from five seconds to three minutes,  Mournier shoots Wyoming's tremendous scenery, capturing it.  The music is serene and uplifting with acoustic guitar, mandolin and harmonica.   Fred Gillen Jr. recorded and mixed the project at "Woody's House" in Croton-on-Hudson, NY.  Gillen & Turk both agree that John Mournier's images of soaring clouds, roaming bison, enormous mountains and endless sky made it easy creating music for the Wyoming Channel.