The Setlist is RMC Studio's Monthly newsletter! It's jam packed with awesome pictures, videos, and news that you won't want to miss. So make sure you always keep your eye on the setlist, you're gonna want to know what's coming up next!
This Week's Set List:
- The Set List is Back to Rock!
-Is it Halloween yet?
- Welcome Wagon
- The Lit List
- Monster Mash
- Derrick McKenzie Blows Minds
- EJ's Deep Thoughts
Welcome Back!
Welcome back to The Set List! We hope everyone had an awesome summer and is ready to get back to ROCKING! The Set List is going to be in a monthly format this year, so be on the look out for a new every month. September was a busy month for us here at the studio. Rock Shops, Vox Shop and Drumline are back in full swing (there's still time to sign up if you haven't yet!), Derrick McKenzie, drummer of Jamiroquai, put on an unforgettable masterclass for our students, and the studio is full to the brim with students coming in for their private lessons.
So let's take a look at what's been going on!
Rocktober
RMC Rocktober Party:
10/25/2019
7-9 PM
Is it Halloween yet!? We're counting down the days until our Rocktober Party/ Open Mic because this year's party is going to be bigger and better than ever! Enjoy the open mic, a bounce house, the candy bar, Johnny Big Wig's escape room, a game room, and a zombie hunt! If you've never been to one of our Halloween parties before then this is the perfect year to join in on all of the fun. You can sign up for the open mic here:
The Welcome Wagon
We have some new students to welcome to the studio! A very warm welcome to the following students:
Ian Zaninovic / Guitar / Desiree Carrero
Luka Zaninovic / Guitar / Desiree Carrero
Matthew Robertson / Piano / Molly Delonas
Amelia Donnelly/ Clarinet / Dan Hutchinson Ava Handler / Guitar / Kara Delonas
Payton LaPierre / Voice /Asia Johnson
Reagan LaPierre / Voice / Asia Johnson
Alex Davlouros / Drums / George Maher
Nikos Davlouros / Piano / George Sheehy
Dylan Madara / Drums / George Maher
Emma Petrassi / Voice / Liz Robbins
Ava Kurilew / Voice / Molly Delonas
Kyra Gallagher / Violin / Eric Lin
Lyn Schraer-Joiner / Bass / Antonia Kitsopoulos
Nazariy Katerynyuk / Trumpet / Dan Hutchinson
Caleb Safchik / Piano / Guitar/ George Sheehy
Constantine Sidorov / Guitar / Dustin Sebes
Mason Marino / Guitar / Dustin Sebes
Pati Walentek / Piano / Caitlin Riccardi
Stas Walentek / Guitar / George Sheehy
Aria Rubinsky / Piano / Caitlin Riccardi
Nicole DiMattina / Guitar / Voice / Desiree Carrero Samantha Martin / Piano / Desiree Carrero
Nicholas Calandra / Dan Hutchinson /Saxophone
The Lit List
Having trouble figuring out what's hot this month? The Lit List's got you covered! Here's what's in and what's out this month at RMC studios:
Lit:
Mario Kart Tour
Virtual Insanity
Fortnite Mechs Exploding
The Monster Mash
Everybody knows the "Monster Mash." It's a timeless Halloween classic that burrows it's way into your head at the beginning of October and doesn't really leave your head until mid November. Where did this song come from? We all know it, but most of us don't even know the artist who wrote it (I certainly didn't before this). So let's take a look at the history behind "Monster Mash" as we gear up for Halloween!
"Monster Mash" was released in 1962 by a man named "Bobby Boris Pickett" and people fell in love with the tune immediately! During the week of October 20-27, 1962, the song hit #1 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart. Pickett got inspiration for the song from horror movie actor, Boris Karloff performing the song "Little Darling" by The Diamonds. Pickett would perform with his own band, The Cordials, and do an impression of Karloff that the audience loved.
It's also worth nothing that one of the elements that made "Monster Mash" so unique was the choice to use foley art as a means of setting the spooky mood in the song. Foley is the art of using all manners of objects to create specific sounds. This technique is used extensively in film and television. Some of the most iconic sounds in movies are not what you would expect at all! The producers of "Monster Mash" used a rusty nail being pulled out of a board to mimic the sound of a coffin, blew bubbles into a glass of water with a straw to create the sound of a cauldron, and dropped chains on a tile floor to simulate the sound of a shambling monster in chains.
Pickett's song has become ubiquitous with the Halloween season. It set the stage for how we view the holiday itself. The song has helped to give Halloween it's unique flavor of spookiness mixed with campy fun and has become a timeless classic. Bands to this day perform covers of "Monster Mash" when Halloween rolls around (Like NJ band, The Misfits). So be sure to put "Monster Mash" on any of your Halloween playlists this season!
Derrick McKenzie
Learning from a master
September came up strong for the drummers as they had an opportunity to learn from Jamiroquai drummer, Derrick McKenzie, at a masterclass put together by RMC and Kean NAfME. Derrick is a master of his craft and left our students spellbound after watching him perform. Students had the opportunity to ask any questions they wanted and we were left impressed by the thoughtful questions asked by our students.
Be sure to check out his website and bio:
Check out some photos and videos from the event:
EJ's Deep Thoughts
Thucydides, Aristotle, Plato, John Locke... EJ. These people all have one thing in common. They think. They think DEEP. Take this journey with us to the deepest depths of pontification itself. Take this journey through... EJ's Deep Thoughts.
BACK TO SCHOOL EDITION
Quote I am Pondering:
"And all at once, summer collapsed into fall" - Oscar Wilde
Fall is my absolute favorite season and it appears to be the favorite season of many people. What I have come to appreciate about Fall is that it represents to me something that at times is difficult to embrace in my own life. Spring blooms and shows us birth. Summer peaks and shows us our time to reap. Fall transitions and shows us it is time for change. Winter cleanses and clears the landscape to begin again. In life, the beginning, the end, and the peak time are always the easiest to see and grasp. We may not always appreciate the peak time while in it... but we can identify it pretty easy after the fact. But what about the transitions? The times we let go, the times we feel the need to step onto another path or are waiting for the path to appear. Summer collapses into Fall. We do not always decide when it is time to go, to change or transition... sometimes life tells us.
We witness in nature the beauty of transition in the fall, yet it is tougher to see that beauty in us as we go through the same process. This time of year whenever I am fearful of change, or stressed, or questioning if I am on the right path... I come back to a mental image in my head of gorgeous multi colored autumn leaves dancing gently on a light breeze. Changing color, embracing uncertainty and traveling gracefully in the direction the winds of life take them. Then I pray I am not raked up, shoved into a hefty bag and put out on the curb! LOL.
Embarrassing Moment - High School Edition
My daughters live with their mother up in Westwood, NJ. Every year on the first day of school I drive up there to take them. This year my oldest is a freshman in high school. This is mind blowing to me because I was a freshman in high school yesterday...(well at least that is how it feels). So as my daughters took their annual, on the front porch in the first day of school clothes customary pic, I said to myself "EJ, this is one of those dad moments you need to rise to the occasion for. Your oldest, your first born child, is starting high school... she is going into that jungle of peer pressure, hormones, popularity, college stress and VSCO girls... she absolutely needs some deep thoughts from her father.
Up to this point I was questioning the legitimacy of whether Ariana was actually my daughter... she seems too mature, focused, and her vocabulary contains more then 15 words... none of them being dude or buddy...The whole drive I was writing poetry in my mind, words of pure wisdom that would inspire her to greatness and keep her out of harms way. Words she would repeat to millions one day when she was giving an acceptance speech for some major achievement that wouldn't have been possible without her fathers wisdom. I would peak back in my rearview and notice my child sitting quietly, looking down into her lap, with great stillness... it was clear she needed me now more then ever.
As we pulled up to the high school, I turned around in the car, looked at her with only the look a father can give and said "Daughter (first major mistake on my part... unless we are in Colonial America early 1700's) would you like my advice about how to handle the stress and pressures of high school?" This was my moment... I had my whole speech planned out. She finally looked up from her TIK TOK app (which was the reason she was looking down the entire time) and said "NOPE!" Opened the door, told me not to wave, call out, say her name, or linger, then proceeded to walk away. In that moment... I knew she was my daughter and all was right in the Gaub world.
POSTSCRIPT: A few hours later I received a text from this child. I said to myself...AH HA!! she is texting to thank me for being there for her and now that she is settled, wants this wisdom from her dad in text form so she can save it to reread whenever she needs. Alas...no it was a text informing me to no longer call her "daughter" cause "that was just weird."
Track I'm Listening To - Freshman Year Addition
Sooooooo... I went to North Plainfield public high school. Prior to that I went to a small school in town that was K-8th grade. My graduating 8th grade class had 12 kids in it. Only 3 were girls. I am pretty sure those girls must be in intensive psychotherapy from that experience of having 9 pubescent boys stare at them and fight over them for an entire year. Lets say the school dance and the roller skating parties got pretty intense during couples skate or dance.
Anywho... I then had to go to public high school. I had met a bunch of dudes via football which started earlier than school, but still... I was not really prepared to go from 12 kids to a freshman class of 300... and oh yeah, my mom did not realize there was a freshman orientation so I missed that and had never stepped foot in the high school until my first day. My family, at this point, for the last 8 years, would vacation religiously at the Ortley Beach down at the Jersey shore. It was usually the first week of August. My mother absolutely lived for winning prizes at the Seaside Boardwalk. She played those wheels with such intensity. She carried a fanny pack and change dispenser around her waist the way a wild west gunslinger carried his pistols. This particular year, going into my freshman year, she managed to hit big at the T shirt wheel. The crowd was going crazy as my mom went full Oprah and won everyone T-Shirts. YOU GET A T-SHIRT AND YOU GET A T-SHIRT!! When my time to win came she turned to me and said, "I am getting you the "Poison" one up there... you like that band right?" I actually preferred the U2 concert Tee but was told by her that was silly and apparently I was a bigger Poison fan unbeknownst to me. This is the front of the shirt:
First off, yes, those are men. Second, what you do NOT SEE is the back of the shirt. In huge print it said "HELP, I've been POISONed"...get it!? POISONed!?!? So clever because that's the band's name... ugh. Poison was also written in bright green. Anyway, the man smoking the pack of Marlboro Reds with one giant hair he used to wrap around his head to hide his balding, took the shirt down off the wall, and as he handed it to me, with my proud as all heck mother looking on, yelled out "HELP!!! THIS BOYS BEEN POISONED!!!!" then let out only the type of laugh a clinically insane individual is capable of. At that moment I knew this shirt would be trouble.
So come the first day of school... my mom insisted I wear her big winnings. I always had to wear a uniform to school prior to this, so today was my big chance to make my statement via fashion. Nope. Shut down. Denied. Over. My mom took out the Poison shirt, and a pair of jeans clearly sized for someone twice my build... however, she claimed all was good cause she "hemmed" the legs, which only served to make them look more ridiculous because she didn't change the taper. So my shoes were almost entirely covered.
As I reluctantly stepped out of the car and made my way towards the school doors, which seemed miles away, I heard what was the first of MANY voices shout out "HEY!! He's been POISONED!" A slew of profanities flashed through my mind as I quickened my pace towards the doors into the sea of people in the overcrowded hallways who continued to point out I was poisoned. The only relief were the few friends I had who asked if I was ok in the head... cause why wouldn't I be with a shirt of guys wearing makeup with a slogan on the back saying Ive been poisoned and also wearing clown pants? Eventually I had the genius idea that I will just turn the shirt inside out. That only served to make things worse... so after lunch I decided to revert back to wearing it normal and ride this day out, go home, pack my stuff, run away from home and start over in other town. It was the only logical choice. During the last period of the day some dude I do not know looks over at me and goes..."Hey man...Cry Tough....Poison" then stuck out his tongue, gave me the heavy metal sign and I think hissed...who knows at this point.
Todays song is CRY TOUGH -Poison
Cry Tough was released by Poison in 1986 as their first single and was a total flop. The song was originally written by the band after receiving the news they were playing a major concert venue called, THE PALACE in Michigan. The song was designed to serve as a testament to achieving your dreams. Although perhaps premature at the moment because the song failed to get onto the US Charts but hit 97 in the UK. Poison went on to have huge success with their following songs "Talk Dirty To Me" and "I Want Action" breaking away from uplifting and moving towards what Poison knows best.
WHAT THE HECK!? First off... how do you cry tough? Does that mean flexing your muscles while crying? Or doing Karate? Next, listen to these lyrical gems:
"You gotta cry tough...out on the streets, to make your dreams happen.
What kinda of dream is this? I'm not sure I want the dream that involves me crying on the streets. Which is where this band was putting me with the ridiculous T-shirt they created. I am sure at heart these gents were trying to take a break from writing songs about how sexy they are, and how hard they party, and how good they are at getting women to pen an epic uplifting motivational song. I will leave it to you to decide whether "Cry Tough" gets you fired up to go take on the world. We do have an pretty cool drum intro and a typical blistering hair metal guitar solo, so that is kinda cool. This song will always serve to remind me of my first day of school Freshman year...
Until next time friends!!!!
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