NYC Performing Arts Legend Jennifer Blowdryer To Hold EP Launch Concert At Mercury Lounge

Jennifer Blowdryer will be performing at Mercury Lounge on January 17 to celebrate the release of her debut EP. Also performing will be Wavy Award winning band Theophobia, and Resurrection Song, a project by artist George Wallace & Friends.

Blowdryer, a legendary punk rock performer who has survived and thrived in New York City for almost 40 years, is following in the footsteps of her British grandmother, Theodora, a hoarder who enjoyed moving around Alphabet City solo. She fed stray cats, attended hundreds of SWAP meets and soup kitchens up until the day she passed at Cabrini Hospital.

Blowdryer is also an avid bartering enthusiast, most recently attending Lisa Lush's jewelry and accessory SWAP meet at Victoria Bar on Eldridge Street. Her Russian Jewish grandparents also lived in the city, calling a blessed-be rent-controlled rare find in the West Village home. Grandma Paley volunteered for a charity which helped NYC seniors go on vacations upstate.

Over the decades, Jennifer Blowdryer - 2012 poet laureate of the LES - has been a mainstay on the NYC underground scene. To name just a few of her many achievements:

1985

• - Performed spoken word at ABC No Rio, a nonprofit based out of a rundown building on 156 Rivington St. One such series was The Wide Open Cabaret, an anarchic training ground for reading prose out loud to outsiders.

• - Co-founded the "High Heel School of Journalism" alongside Veronica Vera and Annie Sprinkle in order to pay off her Columbia MFA tuition and get that diploma! Their Gonzo Reportage featured in Penthouse Hot Talk, Penthouse Forum, and Adam magazine.

  1986

• - Got the band together, Surftallica! They were accompanied by gogo dancers and musicians who later went on to play with Iggy Pop. Surftallica composed and practiced on Ludlow Street for their frequent performances at the Gas Station on 2nd and B. After a car had caught on fire there, the site was abandoned, leaving Ruben Garcia an instant outdoor nightclub in its wake. Blowdryer supplied their sound system and plentiful set-lists featuring other rockers, Elvis impersonators and Cool as Grits, a string-band from the Bronx!

  1988 - 1992

• - Founded, produced, performed and MC'd many a Smut Fest, housed at Harmony Burleque, a hardcore Lapdancing Parlour in Tribeca known for its lively criminal activity. Audience members had to pass through a metered turnstile for entry and sat on chairs used for 'mardi gras' (aka full-on-contact lapdancing) to watch Annie Sprinkle and Veronica Vera, among many other sex worker stars, do their thing on stage.

• - HBO filmed a Smut Fest show at the Angel Orensanz Foundation, a magnificent ruin. Named after the renowned sculptor, this former synagogue on Norfolk Street was gifted to Orensanz by his brother. Along with being featured on HBO's Real Sex, Smut Fest toured worldwide (Germany, Chicago, San Francisco, Baltimore and London).

• 1988 - 2007
  - Wrote columns for Downtown (Soho Arts Weekly) and New York Press about personalized restaurant and book reviews, as well as late-night neighborhoods.

  1985 to Present

• - Performed original music and Spoken Word at Nuyorican Poets Cafe, Bowery Poetry Club, Dixon Place, Surf Reality on Allen Street - basically everywhere with a stage! Rehearsed in a series of dumpy practice rooms on the Lower East Side. Currently at Rivington Rehearsal Studio.

• - True Blue, Blowdryer's latest book, is a compilation of essays on NYC.

• - Produced by Kevin Tooley of World Wide Vibe Records (Katrina and the Waves, Vinny from Sopranos, master drummer, often recorded Lou Reed), Jennifer Blowdryer's latest EP, Sometimes I Travel Just To Get Away, is now available on Spotify, Apple Music and Deezer. Featuring R&B king Baby Monroe, a former member of the SNL band (until he got fired for partying), as well as Robert Aaron, who composed and played with the likes of David Bowie and Wyclef Jean, this epic EP will be performed in full at her album release concert on January 17th at Mercury Lounge!

Tickets for the event can be purchased here!

Photo Credit: Annie Sprinkle

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