Well, As you may have noticed by now, we are slowly ramping up our new event listings. Right now we are focusing our energy on New York & Philadelphia, but as the company expands, we will be focusing on other cities.  As we start hunting down leads and as event submissions start trickling in, it has really become apparent how lacking most sources are in cataloging things about town that appeal to our jaded sensibilities. There really isn’t anything concise that lays it all down without muddling in pompous wine tastings and shitty theatre.

Our NYC pick takes us out to Brooklyn for a Benefit for Jelly Boy the Clown who is still in the hospital after being caught in a house fire in Queens last week. This is a sick & twisted all star lineup benefit for an underground legend.

Fundraiser for Jellyboy the Clown
9:00 pm
Layla’s
424 A 3rd Ave
Brooklyn, NY
$4
More acts are being added with more details to come. Due to a tragic fire, Jellyboy is now in critical condition having suffered from smoke inhalation, and 3rd degree burns.A portion of the bar sales will go directly towards Jellyboy’s recovery efforts. The more drunk you get, THE MORE YOU HELP!!! Also a 50/50 RAFFLE with cash & special prizes.

Special Performances by NASSAU CHAINSAW DisGraceLanD DEMOLITION COMMITTEE
Squidling Brothers Circus Sideshow Featuring Matterz Squidling, Joe Lunchbox, Rose, Joy Nightingal, MacKenzie Moltov, Burlesque and Belly Dancing by Yareli.

squidlingbros.com

Our Philly pick for this week is Cabaret Red Lights Press Gang Privateers. This troupe puts on some of the best quality, original burlesque shows on the East Coast, all week end they are stripping down on a beautiful boat in the middle of the Delaware River. Get out for something truly original.

Press Gang Privateers
Aboard the Tall Ship Gazela
8:00 & 10:00 pm
Columbus Blv & Market Street Penn’s Landing
Philadelphia, Pa
$20
A new show by Cabaret Red Light, with Melissa Bang-Bang, Annie A-Bomb, Cubby Altobelli, Kimberlie Cruise, Shoshanna Ruth, Nick Gillette & the Devil’s Advocate – Peter Gaffney! Original music by the Blazing Cherries – Peter Gaffney, Evan Smoker, Mike Corso & Sarah Larsen.

cabaretredlight.com

Check here for all the event listings for New York & Philadelphia here and be sure to sign up for our newsletter on the side column.

Submit Your Event

Photos courtesy of squidlingbros.com & sex-drugs-rocknroll.tumblr.com

Submit Your Event

Friday July 8th

Carnivolution
8:30 am
The Ellen Powell Tiberino Museum
3819 Hamilton St.
Philadelphia, PA
$10

Jelly Boy the Clown has been injured in a fire, but this performance will go on as a benefit for him.

Unusual Sword Swallowing, mind boggling stunts upon beds of nails and broken glass with anvils, sledge hammers and a see-saw! Enjoy the Hula Hooper, be mesmerized by the Belly Dancer! Become lost in the visuals of Tiberino’s living murals. The Squidling Bros. are masters of “The Human Block Head” one of the oldest sideshow stunts around. Large nails, paint brushes, ice picks and power drills up the nose and out without a scratch. Extreme pierced weight lifting! Hooks in the eyes and flesh. See a man bend steel with his hands!

Live music by Play Boy Bunny Savage, Mary Squeeze Box, Captain Space Dock and The Shit Rocks and The Radarmen.Featuring: The Illustrated Penguin, Matterz Squidling, The Baron Von Geiger, Alpha Mouse McDonald, Miss Rose, and more! Aerialists, Geeks, Human Pin Cushions and Burlesque dancers!

The Squidling Bros. Circus

Saturday July 9th

Peek-A-Boo Revue presents Carnivalesque
6:00 pm & 10:30 pm
World Cafe Live
3025 Walnut Street
Philadelphia, PA

2 SHOWS Doors at 6pm and 10pm Show at 7pm and 10:30. Dinner Service available for the early show (18+) Cocktail service only for late show (21+)

Join Philadelphia’s Award winning Peek-A-Boo Revue as they dance, sing, and laugh through the grit and dust storms of the old carnival. Enjoy the beautiful cooch dancers, fortune tellers and our special guest, David Smith “the one man side show”. Peek-A-Boo Revue has not one, not two, not three, but 6 beautiful girls that will make you blush while they shimmy and shake their way into you heart backed by the musical stylings of Buzz Mouthpiece and the Striptease Orchestra

Peek-A-Boo Revue

Sunday July 10th

Rocks Off!
9:00 pm
Barbary  (2nd floorBarbarella)
951 Frankford Ave
Philadelphia, Pa

DJed by three dudes who live it every day and know it like no other, spinning classic punk, power pop, hardcore, street punk. mod, oi!, thrash, d-beat, uk 82 and more.

Eric Kohlhofer of the classic but now defunct street punk heroes The Ghouls and currently of boogie rock n rollers El Feguo.Daniel Kishbaugh of the proto punk/ power pop band The Midnight Beat and d-beat grinders Fucked Forever. Bill Coburn of the power pop band Mean Streets. Hosted and bartended by Edward B. Gieda of An Albatross fame and soul brother for the Turnaround Vs. Immediate Parties.

Drinks Specials, Open Bars, Guest DJs, Tribute nights, raffles and more!

Barbary

Photos courtesy of -decadence.tumblr.com

Over the weekend, Jelly Boy The Clown from the Squidling Brothers Sideshow Circus was burned in a fire in a Queens Apartment. He was staying at a friends house after gigging in Coney Island. Oddly enough, the fire wasn’t a death defying stunt gone wrong, but a run of the mill house fire tragedy. Reports are saying that both he and his friend passed out from smoke inhalation after their escape was blocked by the fire. They both suffer from severe burns and smoke inhalation and Jelly is currently in critical condition.

My connection to Jelly Boy and the creation of Swellco & Swellco are almost synonymous. I met the clown five years ago while developing a reality show pilot called Sideshow Nation. Jelly was just starting out at that time. He was a new comer who was encountering serious resistance from the sideshow community. His desire to push boundaries and his outsider status made him perfect for the show. After a year of work and a year of shopping, we were picked up and dropped by A&E all within 48 hours. My partners and I decided to transition the concept of Sideshow Nation into our own DIY company-Swellco & Swellco. Initially Jelly Boy was slated to be a main component in S&S as he had been in Sideshow Nation. But a whole lot of stressors and resentments had built during Sideshow Nation (there is a lot to mistrust in reality T.V.) and we had a falling out.

I still highly respect him as a performer and I think he is extremely IMPORTANT. He has developed, through sheer force of will and perseverance, into a major player in a community that once shunned him. We here at Swellco & Swellco value creativity, talent and dedication over all other things. The clown is a role model in our eyes and his hospitalization cuts deep. He and his troupe exude a beautifully twisted mastery over their art and strive to exist in a world that they create. They live our mission statement.

Like so many performers who choose to live on the precipice of society, we know Jelly does not have many resources and he is going to need your help.

-Nasau Chainsaw has started a paypal donation to help with his hospital bills.

-There will be a benefit show to help raise more money for his care held on Saturday, July 14th in NYC.

-Tattooist Mike Deering of Citizen Ink on Ave U and 16th st in Bensonhurst, Brooklyn will be donating 40% of his profit to help Jelly and the squidlings with the hospital bills. Call or email to set up an appointment. MikeDeeringInk@aol.com

-A FB page has been set up to help co-ordinate benefit efforts

-If you are a performer interested in helping to put together a Philadelphia Benefit, please contact us: info@swellco2000.com

Jelly Boy, we wish you a speedy recovery.

-R.E. Brown
Swellco & Swellco 64312b

Photos courtesy of facebook.com/people/Squidling-Brothers

The best in sexy, creepy, strange.

I was lucky enough to see The Squidling Bros. two times at Cha Cha’s in Coney Island. I feel blessed by what ever dark gods rule the strange and bizarre. This troupe is quite possibly one of the most twisted, bizarre group of performers alive today and I personally have a massive girl crush on their female star Betty Bloomerz

Right now they are traveling Europe but with any luck they will be back on the East Coast and in Coney Island where all good Circus people dwell. Like S&S corporate, they are based down in Philadelphia and run monthly event called Carnivalution that is supposed to be AMAZING.

Considering that they are both in Philly, and considering  I know for a fact that they all know each other. I find it really odd that they don’t work together and I’m on a mission to get to the bottom of it. When I went there for the WRATH party, I asked Louise LaTease when she was going to book them for the Video Circus. She put her hands up and said
“hey, I want them too. You better ask Black.”
I asked Black.
He shook his head and said “you better ask Brown.”
I asked Brown and he manically laughed like a super villain and said
“why don’t you ask the clowns?”

Well I’m going to when they come back home because this lack of sick & twisted solidarity simply will not do. COME HOME SQUIDLING BROS. I MISS YOU!

Be sure to check out their site and see when they will be in your area.

-Felicia Jackson
Swellco & Swellco 22397b

Photos courtesy of squidlingbros.com & Squidling Bros. FB

This entry is brought to you courtesy of Swellco & Swellco’s month-long homage to Women’s History Month, “The Female Power Project.”

I’m a huge fan of the sideshow. I know the term is thrown around here as a perpetual metaphor, but I mean real sideshow, real circus. I prefer the small down & dirty DIY troupes over the over produced Circus De Soleil stuff. Generally these troupes aren’t in it for the money, it’s far more of a lifestyle than a job. The downside is that the term star power and crust punk don’t really go together very well. Many of the performers don’t really have the charisma that you see in other performance arts. But there are exceptions.

Enter Betty Bloomerz. Drop dead beautiful, physically flawless, engaging on stage, charismatic & pretty much an all in one sideshow act. Much like Debra Harry was to 70′s New York punk;  Betty adds something the sideshow scene has been needing for a very long time. She’s a movie star power cliche breaker in the face of the sleazy carnie stereotypes.

If Swellco & Swellco is the new authority for all things strange, then this humble writer nominates Betty Bloomerz to be the poster girl.

She has performed with a ton of different troupes, but her heart belongs to the Squidling Bros. Circus who she is currently on tour with. Check them out.

-Felicia Jackson
Swellco & Swellco 22397b

Suspension of disbelief can be applied to all aspects of life.

To be “mentally” reconditioned means that Swellco & Swellco’s Video Circus process “quickens” (or makes alive) our numb mind. When a consumer believes in the process of the Video Circus, trusting us alone to encourage all perversions- then Swellco & Swellco come’s into one’s mind in the form of a new and better reality.