KEITH MONACCHIO has been bringing his incredible songwriting abilities to listeners up and down the eastern seaboard for quite some time now. Fortunately for me, he was available this past Sunday evening for a sit down interview with ROCK ON RADIO.

Monacchio, after years in two very well-known and successful bands (The Semi-beings & The Commons), has decided to launch a solo career. His debut solo CD, titled "The Long Evening," is due to be released at his CD release party on February 5th in Princeton, NJ.

"The Long Evening" is a nine-song collection based on life experiences, lost love(s), and years of hard knocks. Narrowing "The Long Evening" down to its nine-song content was no easy task. Monacchio started by looking at the forty-song catalog of material that he'd even consider for a full-length CD. From there he narrowed it down to sixteen, then eventually down to the final nine.

He chose the final nine based on a theory: this being that he wanted the songs to run in a sequence where the listener would not want to "turn the CD off." Off of the CD we played two tracks: "Novocain" and "Under The Streetlight," the latter a duet with Jersey's own JO WYMER.

Live in studio Monacchio performed two more, "Indaian Jones" and "She Stumbles Gracefully."

Look for Monacchio on TV also. Previously, he's had songs featured on MTV's "8th & Ocean," "The Real World," and several other shows on various networks. This season his music is supposed to be featured on The Discovery Channel's "Deadliest Catch."

When I asked him how he achieved this feat, his response was one of persistence. He mentioned how he would watch the credits at the end of shows, find out who the music coordinator was, and then began to send e-mails and MP3s as often as possible. "Once you get friendly with one, they talk among each other" he said. Going on to state "you need to be thick skinned in the music business. Don't be afraid to hear the word NO."

If you would like to find out more about one of the more popular singer/songwriters in the state of New Jersey, you can do so at www.reverbnation.com/keithmonacchio.

His CD release party for "The Long Evening" is scheduled for February 5, 2010 at the Paul Robeson Center, which is located in Princeton, NJ at 102 Witherspoon Street. This is a Friday evening and it's an all-ages show.

This Sunday, Jan. 10, my guest on ROCK ON RADIO is Trenton, NJ-area artist KELLY CARVIN (www.myspace.com/kellycarvin). This incredibly talented singer/songwriter has made it through a round of the "American Idol" competition as well as been featured on TV and in print.

I'm happy to announce that ROCK ON RADIO can now be heard live on four outlets. They are as follows:

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