CINDY STAGOFF
Freedy Johnston, left, and James Mastro at 503 Social Club in October 2025.
The fall musical season at 503 Social Club in Hoboken will begin on Sept. 26 with “Two Guys: Freedy Johnston & James Mastro.” Both singer-songwriters will be “swapping songs for this performance,” said Mastro, the venue’s owner, adding that “I’ve started recording a new record, so I plan on introducing some songs for the first time to see how they hold up.”
CINDY STAGOFF
FREEDY JOHNSTON
He continued: “Freedy and I have been friends since he first moved to Hoboken in the early ’90s. We were labelmates on Bar/None Records, and have worked together over the past few decades: doing the last recording session at the original Water Music Studio here in Hoboken, me accompanying him on tours, looking for the best ice cream parlors, etc.
“He truly is one of the best songwriters out there, so it’s always a treat hearing what songs he’s going to do from his rich catalog.”
“We will play on each other’s songs — if I know the chords,” joked Johnston, about whom I wrote an in-depth feature for NJArts.net in 2023. Since then, he has moved from the West Coast to Jersey City, and says he is doing “really great … a lot is going on. I have a new single coming out on Sept. 29 on Sunset Blvd. Records called ‘The Lonely Drummer’; it’s a song about a drummer being fired from a band.”
Johnston says he will tour in Kansas in October, playing at the Palace Theatre in his original hometown of Kinsley, among other venues. He also has fall shows in Oklahoma City and Nashville, and at The Old Franklin Schoolhouse in Metuchen (Nov. 13).
“Then I’m going on a three-month solo tour starting Jan. 13, from Key West to Los Angeles, and many points between,” he says.
CINDY STAGOFF
JAMES MASTRO
Johnston also has been working on a weekly webcast from various Hoboken locations with the assistance of Geri Fallo, Hoboken’s former cultural affairs administrator. When he isn’t playing music or booking his shows, he is designing posters and working on a book of handwritten lyrics that should be ready by January, he says.
Other fall shows at 503 Social Club will include St. Divine (featuring Judy Ann Nock) and Secret Monkey Weekend, Oct. 4; storytelling by Adam Wade & Friends, Oct. 9; Lenny Kaye, Oct. 10; and James Maddock, Dec. 5.
On Sept. 19, the club, which doubles as an art gallery, will hold an opening reception for an exhibition of Tim Daly’s 1980s paintings and drawings titled “Salad Days.”
Mastro — a member of the influential Hoboken rock band The Bongos who has also backed Ian Hunter and many other artists, and owns Hoboken’s Guitar Bar — will play guitar for Amy Speace at City Vineyard in New York on Sept. 23. He played a spectacular set there in 2024, opening for Speace with songs from his then-new album Dawn of a New Error.
For more information about the 503 Social Club show, visit TwoGuys.eventbrite.com.
Here is a video of Johnston and Mastro performing with drummer Steve Goulding at The Outpost in the Burbs in Montclair, in 2023:
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