Expressit!

I had the opportunity to travel down to South Jersey and visit another Open Mic that is held in a coffee shop called Expressit, in Hadden Township, NJ. It is hosted by a very talented guy named Tom (above), who sets up his own three speaker sound system (jealous already), and plays acoustic guitar, and sings mostly his own material, or a redone cover song.

Having the privilege of going second and being the only poet was...well felt the same as when I perform my Open Mic, but I survived. They get a crowd that is there to watch, and perform very similar to what Cultural Art Expression has been doing the past year.

I meet Vito Frattale (above) down there, he had attended our Classic Book Store event, and invited me down south. He was just as great as that day, and is a really nice all around guy. I am hoping he and I can do a duet, 'Jackson' by Johnny Cash, that I will be working on. Vito has also volunteered to transfer our Open Mic sessions to our youtube.com site and I will let you know when that is up.

Vito also was really networking for us, and invited many of these people to come up North once in a while to join our group. He was very positive about how well we are doing, and I appreciate that! I do believe we should ban together and it seems Open Mic for poets, acoustic musicians, comedians, and such have many homes down in that area, so I am hopeful we can also expand in the Central parts of Jersey.

This young man was just walking by, he is only 17 years old and has been playing since he was ten. His father plays the drums, and with that influence he has written his own songs, and what a finger picker this kid was. I took a photo so that I could say "I knew him when"! This was his first time to perform in front of anyone...

Read, Write, Sing, Play, Perform, and Peace to All!

Chef E

Expressit! 18 Hadden Avenue, Hadden Township, NJ Phone: 1-856-854-1001