Cardiff singer-songwriter digging local scene

By: JIM TRAGESER - Staff Writer | Wednesday, January 23, 2008 2:42 PM PST ∞

For Cardiff's Eric Polyn, it was the need to get his own compositions heard that led to him becoming a performer.

"I started playing guitar when I was 12 or 13," he said by phone last week of his introduction to music. "It wasn't really something I was making a big deal out of. When I was about 23, I really wanted to get focused on it and do something with the music. I started getting more focused ---- I sat down and wrote a bunch of songs.

"Then I thought, 'Well, if I'm writing these songs I'm going to have to sing them.' I didn't really like singing for people, but once I started doing it, I really loved it."

Polyn (who plays Friday night at E Street Cafe in Encinitas) arrived in San Diego County in the summer of 2004, settling in Cardiff after a couple of years living in Pacific Beach. He grew up on Long Island in New York, moving to Virginia in 1997 to attend college.

But he said he didn't really get serious about music until he was 23 ---- and began performing only a few months before his move West.

"I started doing some open mics ---- one in a restaurant, one in a coffee shop," he said of his first performances while still living in Arlington, Va. "It was soon after I started doing that that I moved here."

Once relocated to paradise, though, he wasted no time in getting his music career back up and running.

"The very first week I was out here, I started playing, started doing an open mic night."

While he has a kind of edgy alt-rock feel to his music, he is an acoustic performer who prefers coffeehouses to bars.

"It was only in November of 2006 that I started going to coffee shops instead of the bars, which is something I enjoy a lot more. It's more like a theater atmosphere than a loud bar. I like playing bars, and I like playing coffee shops, but they're different, and it's nice when you have a responsive audience that's there to listen to you."

Some locals may know him by his frequent stage name, EJP, which is what's plastered all over his MySpace page (myspace.com/ejpmusic). He said he plays both under his own name (as he is Friday night) and EJP, depending on the venue.

"For the most part, it's EJP. My last name is kind of weird to spell, so I figured EJP would be easier for people to remember."

He's working on recording his debut CD, although he has a couple of live recordings he hands out to fans at his shows. With a day job painting prices on windshields at car dealerships, Polyn has the flexibility to work on his music career as hard as he wants.

While he didn't play long, or even go out too often when living in Virginia, he said one difference between the San Diego music scene and the one he left behind is a stronger sense of camaraderie among musicians in San Diego.

"I was only involved in the very surface of that music scene in Virginia, and I only went to a few different venues. That was really me just getting over some stage fright issues.

"Here, there's a nice music community. I'm meeting a lot of great people. I'm enjoying the heck out of this music scene, and still I'm just scratching the surface of it. There's a whole band scene here, but I'm involved in this acoustic scene. I'm enjoying it right now; it's great."

Eric Polyn

When: 8 p.m. Friday

Where: E Street Cafe, 128/130 W. E St., Encinitas

Admission: Free

Info: (760) 230-2038 or estreetcafe.com

Web: myspace.com/ejpmusic

First name only. Comments including last names, contact addresses, e-mail addresses or phone numbers will be deleted. Attempts to misrepresent your identity or impersonate any person will not be approved. All comments are screened before they appear online, so please keep them brief. Comments reflect the views of those commenting and not necessarily those of the North County Times or its staff writers. Click here to view additional comment policies.