{"id":221906,"date":"2023-09-20T15:14:20","date_gmt":"2023-09-20T19:14:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.montclair.edu\/newscenter\/?p=221906"},"modified":"2023-09-27T09:56:09","modified_gmt":"2023-09-27T13:56:09","slug":"these-professors-rock","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.montclair.edu\/newscenter\/2023\/09\/20\/these-professors-rock\/","title":{"rendered":"These Professors Rock!"},"content":{"rendered":"

A handful of Montclair State University professors really rock. Quite literally. When they’re not teaching, conducting research or fulfilling other professorial \u2013 or in the case of one, department head \u2013 duties, they’re playing in their respective bands and entertaining crowds.<\/p>\n

Family Science and Human Development Professor Jon Caspi, Anthropology Professor Chris Matthews, who is also department chair, Associate Anthropology Professor Julian Brash and Montclair adjunct professors Chris Freid, Social Work and Child Advocacy, and Glen Fittin,\u00a0Theatre and Dance, have all found both musical and academic success.<\/p>\n

An expert and author of books on sibling relationships, Caspi has been teaching for almost 23 years. He\u2019s been in the indie, alternative and punk scene even longer. While in college in the 1980s, he fronted Bouncing Off Bob, which as Caspi puts it \u201ctoured and received enough radio play to appear on the Top 100 college radio charts, one spot below Tracy Chapman and a few spots higher than Bon Jovi.\u201d For the last 12 years, he\u2019s been the leader and guitarist for Jon Caspi & The First Gun, a band labeled with its own genre of \u201cHeartland Punk\u201d by the Asbury Park Vibes website and \u201cNew Jersey Americana fueled punk\u201d by ThePunkSite.com.<\/p>\n

\u201cA lot of people think of professors as sort of stodgy and that they don\u2019t have a life,\u201d says Caspi, whose band is releasing new music this month. \u201cAll of us have these completely different, separate lives that people don’t know about.\u201d<\/p>\n

He and fellow professors-by-day-musicians-by-night will prove their \u201cmetal\u201d at Tierney\u2019s Tavern, a Montclair institution, on Saturday, September 23. They will be opening for the British punk rock band Vibrators V2. Tickets for the show may be purchased on Eventbrite<\/a>.<\/p>\n

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Family Science and Human Development Professor Jon Caspi is the lead vocalist and guitarist for Jon Caspi & The First Gun, which has performed at the legendary Asbury Park venue The Stone Pony.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Caspi and Matthews both fell into academia as a Plan B. Caspi\u2019s band at the time, Bouncing Off Bob, was touring, signed to a label and receiving radio airplay. \u201cThen the band broke up, and I didn’t really know what to do with my life,\u201d he says. \u201cI met a guy who had a master’s degree, and I said, \u2018How long does it take to get a master’s degree?\u2019 And he said two years and I said, \u2018I could do that as a backup\u2019 \u2013 and here I am.\u201d<\/p>\n

Caspi\u2019s master\u2019s led to a PhD in 1997, which launched his teaching career and in 2002, he joined the Montclair faculty.<\/p>\n

Long before Matthews arrived at Montclair in 2012, he was a founding member of the Washington, D.C.-based punk band Shudder to Think and penned much of the band\u2019s music. Formed in 1986, the group recorded four albums for the indie Dischord record label. \u201cBeing in a band when you’re in your late teens or early 20s is a lot of fun,\u201d he says. \u201cBut when I was 23 or 24, I started thinking, I don’t think I can do this forever. I\u2019d majored in anthropology, and I was looking around at my options and applied to [Columbia University] graduate school and got in, and I was like, \u2018Okay, I guess I’m changing the focus of my life from music to whatever anthropology is going to be.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

What anthropology turned out to be was the path to a successful career as a professor, as well as the department chair and now also the co-director of the Native American and Indigenous Studies program. Musically, today Matthews writes songs for and leads a new band, Quiz Show, formed in 2016. The trio is on the Magic Door Records label and has released two singles, two EPs and are working on a new EP to be released next year. Matthews\u2019 band includes two professional musicians \u2013 Jesse Krakow on bass and Joe Billy on drums \u2013 who \u201cindulge me by playing in my band,\u201d he jokes, \u201cbut they play in other bands and have their own things going on.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Montclair Anthropology Department Chair Chris Matthews, left, performs with his band Quiz Show at Tierney\u2019s Tavern.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Some of the rockin\u2019 professors met one another through musicians\u2019 circles and discovered they worked at Montclair, while some met at the time of the photo for this story. Associate Anthropology Professor Julian Brash, who works in the same department as Matthews, knew that Matthews was from the Washington, D.C., area and was familiar with the D.C.-based punk band Shudder to Think when he lived in the area. \u201cSo, he just sort of asked at one point, \u2018Are you that guy?\u2019\u201d recalls Matthews, who responded with, \u201cWow, yeah.\u201d<\/p>\n

Matthews learned that Caspi works at Montclair from some professional musicians. \u201cI know Jon’s band,\u201d he says. \u201cThey\u2019re a big deal.\u201d<\/p>\n

Jon Caspi & The First Gun has made a resurgence thanks to national airplay and some press about a rereleased fan favorite and New Jersey cult hit from the band\u2019s sixth album, \u201cRaise \u2019Em High!\u201d During the pandemic lockdown of 2020, the WFMU-FM disc jockey Glen Jones played the song and kept playing it every Sunday as \u201cThe 2 pm Toast.\u201d This weekly tradition spawned a life of its own, with a Facebook group where people post their toasting photos. Additionally, a \u201cRaise \u2019Em High\u201d beer is being rereleased by Alternate Ending Beer Co. in Aberdeen, New Jersey, on the same day as the Tierney\u2019s Tavern show. Caspi will perform at the brewery that afternoon before heading to what he calls the \u201cProfessors That Rock\u201d show at Tierney\u2019s. In addition, the song\u2019s momentum led to local label Fake Chapter signing Caspi\u2019s band, which has new music releasing this month, including a new live version of \u201cRaise \u2019Em High\u201d to be released September 22.<\/p>\n

While their academic and music worlds are generally compartmentalized, there is some spillover. \u201cThe material I teach on relationships has informed my writing. I think it would be impossible for it not to,\u201d says Caspi. \u201cI have deliberately included siblings in a couple of songs because of my work. My band does have a song called \u2018Ghosted\u2019 out which was inspired from in-class discussions with students about the relational behavior of ghosting.\u201d<\/p>\n

Matthews also says there\u2019s some overlap between his music and his anthropological work. \u201cI work a lot on social inequality and racism,\u201d he says. \u201cSometimes this is fairly clear in the lyrics, and sometimes it\u2019s metaphorical. For example, there are [song] lines about W.E.B. DuBois and David Harvey, who have been intellectual guides in my career.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Adjunct professor of Social Work and Child Advocacy Chris Freid, or Chris Skel as he\u2019s known onstage, plays with three bands, including the New Jersey-based Celtic rock band The Skels. (Photo courtesy of Chris Freid)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n
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Chris Freid has been an adjunct professor of Social Work and Child Advocacy since 2005. Freid \u2013 or Chris Skel as he is better known in music circles \u2013 will open the Tierney\u2019s show with a solo acoustic performance. When he\u2019s not performing solo, he sings and plays guitar with The Skels, a New Jersey-based Celtic rock band known for its drinking songs, that has played throughout the northeast as a supporting act to the likes of the Dropkick Murphys and Shane MacGowan. A member of the Skels since 1995, Freid rocks on in two other bands, the rock trio Graveyard Ghost Story and the Celtic\/Americana trio The Coffin Ships.<\/p>\n

Glen Fittin, an adjunct professor in Theatre and Dance, was the drummer for Caspi\u2019s former band, Bouncing Off Bob. Today, he plays with two bands, the remnants<\/a> and One More Once.<\/p>\n

The remnants have been rocking for decades and were described this way by The Two River Times <\/i>of Monmouth County: \u201cIf The Beatles met the B-52s, The Clash and the Smithereens and jammed one night, they would make a wonderful noise a la the remnants.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

Brash, an associate professor in Anthropology, is the vocalist and guitarist for Tri-State<\/a>, a \u201cfour-piece jangle pop and indie rock band from Maplewood, New Jersey, that formed in 2010,\u201d according to Wikipedia. Their discography includes an LP (Hey Pal <\/i>in 2019) and three EPs, including 2021\u2019s Doom Loop<\/i>. The group has performed at the North Jersey Indie Rock Festival.<\/p>\n

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Montclair Anthropology Department Chair Chris Matthews in the 1980s with his Washington, D.C.-based punk rock band Shudder to Think, featuring (L to R)\u00a0 Matthews, Stuart Hill, Craig Wedren and Mike Russell. (Photo courtesy of Chris Matthews)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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Chris Matthews reunited with Shudder to Think briefly in 2013. Pictured L to R are Matthews, Craig Wedren, Mike Russell and Stuart Hill. (Photo courtesy of Chris Matthews)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Story by Staff Writer Sylvia A. Martinez<\/b><\/a>. Featured photo by University Photographer Mike <\/b><\/a>Peters<\/b><\/a>.<\/p>\n

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