When the talented young are seized by the spirit of rock-and-roll, they typically sing, write songs and/or take up the guitar. To say that DITO MONTIEL did this and more is the understatement of the year – or the last five years, to be more specific: Montiel’s extraordinary breadth of skill sets and imagination has taken him successfully to the rock-and-roll stage and the recording studio, and from there to bookshelves, movie locations and the award podiums of independent film festivals all over the world.
With the release of his first solo album, DITO MONTIEL , on Atco/Rhino Entertainment, and his second book, EDDIE KRUMBLE IS THE CLAPPER (PGW/Avalon), in the same month, Montiel again stakes territory for himself and rock-and-roll in every field of creative endeavor he can fit into one life.
Montiel, the son of a Nicaraguan typewriter mechanic who once boxed Sugar Ray Robinson, joined his first band, Major Conflict, at age 13. At 19 he was signed to Geffen Records as lead singer of Gutterboy in 1989. The major-label experience could be termed either a mixed blessing or a relatively high-profile failure, but it didn’t stop him from writing songs, and it put him on the surprising path that led to the making of his first solo album --taking a long and impressively accomplished way around.
In 2003, Montiel published his first book, A Guide To Recognizing Your Saints (Thunders Mouth/Avalon) a fictionalized memoir of his upbringing in Astoria, New York during the rise of hardcore music, and scored an immediate best-seller. He wrote a screenplay based on one of chapters, and the script was chosen for Sundance Screenwriter and Filmmakers Labs, a mentoring program. At the 2006 Sundance Film Festival, the resulting film, written and directed by Montiel, won the Dramatic Directing Award and a Special Jury Prize for Best Dramatic Ensemble Performance for the cast he directed, including Robert Downey Jr., Rosario Dawson, and Chazz Palminteri. The film of A Guide To Recognizing Your Saints also won the Critic’s Week award at the 2006 Venice Film Festival and drew several nominations at the Independent Spirit Awards.
As he established himself as an author, screenwriter and film director, Montiel continued to write songs, and, indeed, he maintains that music is intrinsic to the nature of all of his art. “I’m a songwriter first and always will be,” says Montiel. “The book was simply a song on paper. The movie’s a big one on a screen, and the ones on my album happen to have some music mixed in.”
And while his fiction writing has moved from a gritty rite-of-passage memoir to a pointed commentary on love, fame, privacy and the modern media-saturated life, the DITO MONTIEL album, with its streetwise poetry, indelible choruses and soaring melody, is plainly the work of a man still passionate and compulsive about rock-and-roll. “Making this album is just something I had to do. It would have existed whether I made 20 copies and gave them to friends, or got a record deal. I told a friend that I was going to get a book out, then make a movie and then come back and try to find a way to get these songs out. Ridiculous, right? But that’s how it happened. I’m not used to taking the normal path anywhere.”
In rock-and-roll, where the term “cinematic” is a metaphor of high praise for a song and a songwriter, DITO MONTIEL is the rare artist who has the first-hand experience and success that makes the term straight-up literal.
Dito Montiel Dito Montiel NYC based musician, songwriter and author Dito Montiel first rose to fame in L.A. in the late '80s when his alt-rock band Gutterboy landed a $1 million record deal, an extraordinary sum at the time. The band was dropped after one album, and Dito returned east. On his self-titled solo debut for Rhino, the multi-talented Montiel has recorded—with assorted friends and pickup bands—fifteen original songs written over the last fifteen years. A pop-saturated, soaringly melodic street opera, the disc spotlights Montiel's poetic, lyrical brilliance, and musical savvy on stand-outs including "Jimmy & Rey," "You And I (We Burn Like Satellites)," and the single, "Crossing Rivers."
For a man who is just next month releasing the first solo album of his career on April 24th, DITO MONTIEL (Atco/Rhino), the list of DITO MONTIEL’s “greatest hits” is already imposing. This month also sees the publication of Montiel’s second novel, Eddie Krumble is the Clapper (PGW/Avalon), and it joins the recent DVD release of his acclaimed self-directed film memoir, the Sundance Film Festival award-winning A Guide To Recognizing Your Saints.
Since his early teens, Montiel’s taken all the core qualities of rock and roll – the risk and discovery of self-examination, the thrilling rites of passage, the many hurts, accusations, loves and losses of youth, and, not at all least, the classic do-it-yourself mentality -- into an impressive list of artistic disciplines, all successfully. He maintains, though, that music remains the creative root of his many forms of expression. “I’m a songwriter first and always will be,” says Montiel. “The book was simply a song on paper. The movie’s a big one on a screen, and the ones on my album happen to have some music mixed in.”
The songs of DITO MONTIEL, with their raw poetry, indelible choruses and exuberant melodies, span the fifteen years since his stint as lead singer of the punk band Gutterboy, at the turn of the 1990s. The album itself was made in a two-month period with musical contributions from friends and pick-up bands, under recording conditions ranging from the minimal to the relatively luxurious. “I recorded these songs because I wanted to hear them so much, I found a way of making them,” Montiel explains.
Montiel’s ventures into extending his art have been notable for their immediate creative and commercial success: in 2003, he published his first book, the best-selling fictionalized memoir of his early life in Astoria, New York, A Guide To Recognizing Your Saints . He adapted an excerpt as a screenplay, which was chosen for a Sundance Film Festival mentoring program, and the resulting film won Montiel the Dramatic Directing Award, and the cast a Best Dramatic Ensemble Performance Award at its 2006 Sundance debut.
Montiel will continue to rock in all of his chosen art forms: he is currently on a national book tour, and is planning his second film project. “Crossing Rivers” is the first single from DITO MONTIEL .
Tracklist
1. Jimmy & Rey
2. You Were So High
3. Fade Away
4. Crossing Rivers
5. Song for Michael
6. I'm Not the One
7. 1987
8. Helpless
9. Baby Don't Let Me Down
10. You and I (We Burn Like Satellites)
11. You Stay Right Where You Are, Benny
12. Just Give Me Something to Dance To
13. End of the Century
14. Eddie, When Will We Ever Learn to Live With God
15. A Different Kind of Fading Away
TRACK BY TRACK NOTES 1.) JIMMY & REY Jimmy was a guy named Jimmy Fleetwood who lived in a hotel in Chelsea. Not the Chelsea Hotel. Just one in Chelsea. My good friend Jerry Muller, who is without question one of the best songwriters and maniacs Ive ever known, brought me to Fleetwoods house once. His girlfriend, Rey, was a stripper. Jimmy had a hollow body guitar and played rockabilly songs REALLY, REALLY LOUD while neighbors BANGED on walls and Rey put on her stripper gear. That image never left me. I was about 15 when I was there, and I found that very magical. So I wrote the song with them in mind. The chorus says, when it kicks in it feels like nothings ever gonna be so wrong again. Thats something Rey said when she was getting high.
For more of Dito Montiel's Track-Notes, click HERE!
Draw a crazy picture Write a nutty poem Sing a
mumble-gumble song Whistle through your comb Do a
loony-goony dance 'Cross the kitchen floor Put
something silly in the world That ain't been there
before.
re:peebs message...i tell you what you can't do...you can't drive the baseline on me!! better stop all this artistic stuff and get out on the court man. yo dit i will see you soon my bro. btw, nice tunes. where's the hat?
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