Monti Amundson

Monti Amundson - The Mean Eighteen - 1993 - Munich Music

His name is Monti Amundson but most people call him Big Monti. Not just because of the man’s physical appearance, but because of his larger than life voice, guitar virtuosity, and sheer presence. When Big Monti takes the stage, it’s clear that there’s more going on than the usual extended guitar solos – the man plays and sings larger than life. Monti’s breakout band, The Blubinos (pronounced blue-bye-nose), were a dominant force in the Northwest music scene from 1987 to 1992 and shared concert stages with some of the biggest names in the business, including John Lee Hooker, Johnny Winter and Buddy Guy. In 1991 The Blubinos won Portland Music Association’s award for “Outstanding Blues Act”. In 1993 Monti signed on with Munich Records in Holland and promptly moved his headquarters to Amsterdam. Over the next six years Monti recorded five albums and toured extensively in Europe, developing a huge fan base. When Monti gets compared to Stevie Ray Vaughan or Johnny Winter he just says “thank you”. The fact is, the big man has his own style. “I’m a blues guitar player in a band that plays rock n’ roll,” is how Monti explains it. He doesn’t so much as straddle the line between the genres as bend it, ignore it, or race back and forth across it until both sides go up in flames. The blues of Big Monti comes straight from the heart, cuts through your soul and is as real as it gets. © 2009 Silverback Management & Monti Amundson http://www.montiamundson.com/bio.php

When Monti Amundson gets compared to Stevie Ray Vaughan or Johnny Winter he just says thank you. But the fact is the big man has his own style. His influences range from the aforementioned and fellow Texas rocker Billy Gibbons to B.B. King and rock legends Jimi Hendrix and Jeff Beck. The blending of these styles in combination with Amundson’s vocals is what makes him unique. Above all Monti Amundson is a great live performer who gets his point across. Whether it’s an acoustic slide number or an all out show stopper, Amundson knows how to move a crowd. Known to live out of a suitcase for years at a time, Amundson’s music has already made a great impression throughout Europe. In his home base Portland, Oregon his music has been highly valued for almost twenty years. The blues of Monti Amundson comes straight from the heart, cuts through your soul and is as real as it gets. © 2012 Last.fm Ltd. All rights reserved http://www.last.fm/music/Monti+Amundson

The 18 songs here (including 12 studio tracks from the "Straight Out!" and 6 bonus tracks from a live show at Key Largo in Portland) were penned by the great Monti Amundson, a veteran of the same Eugene to Portland I-5 axis that spun off bands like the Robert Cray Band, the Jackals, and Johnny and the Distractions. Monti sounds like a rough-and-ready rock'n'roll Everyman, except that not every man can play like this. Monti says "I'm a blues guitar player in a band that plays rock'n'roll," but Monti's music covers many genres of music and the rhythm team of bassist Debbie Smith and drummer Cory Burden struts, slams and shuffles with the best in the business. Monti and the band revs up the smoky soul of barn-burning Texas blues and translates it into their own take of great rock'n'roll music. Monti is often likened to to Stevie Ray Vaughan and Johnny Winter. He may not be as good a guitarist as these two legends, (few are), but he can still play some killer guitar and is a great songwriter. "The Mean Eighteen" is HR by A.O.O.F.C. Monti Amundson should be far better known than he is. Buy his great "Man On The Floor" album and support great blues rock. "MOTF" was recently on sale used on Amazon @$7.37 and is a real bargain. Check out Monti's website @ http://www.montiamundson.com/ [All tracks @ 320 Kbps: File size = 137 Mb]

TRACKS

1 Take A Walk 3:44
2 Cruel Is Your Name 4:12
3 Ninety-nine Below 2:46
4 Shake A Leg Meg 2:30
5 Lesson Or Two 3:13
6 I'm Wrong 3:25
7 Sin No More Blues 3:55
8 Female Dictionary 3:16
9 Purple Heart 2:52
10 In Over My Head 3:42
11 Big Block Rock 3:01
12 Broke Down Car 3:03
13 Rock Treatment 3:53
14 Brain Grenad 3:12
15 Red Hot Wire 2:59
16 Not A Day Goes By 3:38
17 Bad Day Rough Week 2:57
18 Lightning Strikes 3:11

All tracks composed by Monti Amundson

BAND

Monti Amundson - Guitar, Vocals
Debbie Smith - Bass
Cory Burden - Drums

BIO (WIKI)

"Big" Monti Amundson is an American guitar player who plays blues and rock and roll. His style has been compared to that of Stevie Ray Vaughan, and while commercial success has eluded him, he has built a reputation as a live act in the United States and in Europe, first as a power trio called Monti Amundson & The Blubinos, then under his own name. Amundson's first band was The Blubinos, variously marketed under that name and as Monti Amundson & The Blubinos. Besides Amundson, the band consisted of Debbie Smith (bass) (later replaced by Stan Becraft, then Johnny Wilmont) and Cory Burden (drums), and played Texas blues in clubs in Eugene, Oregon, from the 1980s on. The band recorded half a dozen records in Portland and Eugene, and was signed to a Dutch label after the second album, Mean Eighteen. The band played a farewell show in Eugene in 1992, but recorded two more albums until 1997. Distribution in the United States was problematic, and Amundson was so frustrated that in 1997 he had bootlegs printed of his own Man on the Floor to sell at shows in the US ("Man, I've done some bone-head shit in my time," as he later acknowledged), which led to a conflict with his Dutch company which, in the end, was amiably settled. Bothered by personal problems and a lack of commercial success, he was without record deal and didn't record any albums between 2000 and 2005, when he hooked up with Billy Triplett, a Portland studio engineer, and recorded Big Monti, now without the Blubinos, which was released in 2005. A side project of his is the Sultans of Slide, a group of slide blues guitar players that performed occasional shows starting in 2009, when it consisted of Amundson, Franck "Paris Slim" Goldwasser, Jim Mesi, Bob Shoemaker, and Ben Bonham. In 2011, the Sultans of Slide consisted of Amundson, Henry Cooper and Goldwasser, and released a record, Lightning Strikes, which was promoted with a tour in Europe. In 2010 he released a 4-CD compilation, gathering "30 years of songwriting"; he noted that he's been writing the same song since he was thirteen and penned "Woman": "I've been writing pretty much the same song ever since. Yeah, there's broke down cars and drinking songs, but mostly it's about love and loss. I've had both in spades."