The Jordyn Show is a performer and promoter with “huge and unrealistic dreams and ambitions” that include becoming the greatest performer of all time and saving the world one piece at a time. In an effort to do both, The Jordyn Show has launched Queerspace, a monthly event that is designed to showcase and inspire amazing local queer performance of all kinds — drag, burlesque, poetry, stand-up, singing and visual arts — to bring a sense of community and charity to the Philly music and arts scene.
PGN: Tell me about the name. And can I call you TJS?
TJS: Yes, well The Jordyn Show is my artist name. I do everything under that. When I was 12, I found my stepdad’s video camera in the basement and from that moment on I taped everything. I started filming little skits with my dolls and calling it The Jordyn Show. The last tape I have was of my band practicing in high school. I never really knew how to navigate the world unless I was entertaining. That’s just me, The Jordyn Show.
PGN: Native Philadelphian?
TJS: I am, I’m a fourth-generation Fishtowner. We’ve been here forever! It’s a totally different place now. When I was a kid, it wasn’t a cool place to be in or from.
PGN: Tell me about the fam.
TJS: I was an only child until I was 13. Now I’m the oldest of six. I grew up with a young single mom; she and my dad were a couple of teenagers who made a mistake and here I am! They didn’t stay together for very long, though. They both remarried and had kids.
PGN: What was life like growing up in Fishtown?
TJS: I was a total homebody as a kid. I stayed up in my room drawing or singing, so I didn’t really interact much with other kids or people there.
PGN: Did you have an imaginary friend?
TJS: Oh, I had thousands and millions and they’re all part of me.
PGN: I didn’t have an imaginary friend, but my parents had one of those three- sided mirrors like in a fitting room, and I could look and see an infinite number of Suzis and we’d talk and go on adventures for hours.
TJS: Hell yeah man, that’s awesome. My grandmother had the same set-up in her bathroom but she also had a full wall mirror behind the sink mirrors, so you could open it up and see thousands behind you and in front and everywhere. So I did a lot of that shit too when I was a kid.
PGN: Did you always want to be a performer?
TJS: Always. It was the one saving grace in my life that got me through the hard times. Since I can remember being able to think, I had that one dream, always, always, always.
PGN: And what was it you were going through?
TJS: Just being so young and being scared at home of whatever was going on in the other rooms in my house. As I said, my mom was young and single so she’d have guys over and they’d do things in front of me or I’d walk in on something, so I was always kind of paranoid that something nasty might go down if I wasn’t there. I vividly remember sitting in the bathtub at 5 years old being terrified and singing as loudly as I could to make myself feel better. Music was always my safe place, the way to make sense of the world around me, which could be pretty awful.
PGN: Did you take the role of protector?
TJS: Not really, I was too young to know how to be my mom’s protector, but I knew even then that I hated the guys she was hanging around. I was expected to be pretty independent and pretty adult-like at a young age. I don’t want to sound ungrateful but I had to kind of raise myself in a way. Looking back, I realize that most of the adults around me weren’t really giving me the stuff I needed.
PGN: So music was your solace. Where or when did you first perform?
TJS: My first time on a stage was when I was 12 at the studio where I was taking voice lessons. They had a little showcase at the end of the semester. I sang Sarah McLachlan’s “Angel.”
PGN: At 12?
TJS: [Laughs] Yes, I was always ballsy with my song choices. In that memory I described of me singing in the bathtub, I was singing Whitney Houston’s “I Will Always Love You.” I was always about the divas and belting. And singing about things that were beyond my span of knowledge.
PGN: How old are you now?
TJS: I just turned 24.
PGN: A baby!
TJS: [Laughs] Not really, I’ve lived for thousands of years.
PGN: What type of music do you predominantly sing?
TJS: I like to sing a little of everything but my voice goes with a lot of sad, emotional ballads. Soul, jazz and blues are big in my wheelhouse.
PGN: Give me one of the last songs that you performed.
TJS: “White Rabbit” from Jefferson Airplane.
PGN: [Laughs] That’s more rock and roll than R&B!
TJS: I know. I like it all, as long as I can put some emotion into it. I recently gave myself a concussion on stage singing a tough song. I spent the night trying to get into a dark place so I could sing it properly and I got there. At one point I was on my hands and knees and I smacked my head down. It hit the stage with a thud that you could hear throughout the venue. I was not right for three days; I was talking really funny and my personality was changed, I wasn’t typing right. It was disturbing, but one of many performance injuries.
PGN: Were you in theater in high school?
TJS: School was like heaven and hell for me. In eighth grade I had no friends in the world, no one who understood a fucking word I was saying, stuck in a world where I was too nerdy for the Fishtown kids but too Fishtown for the nerdy kids, in a bubble by myself. Then I went to CHAD, the Charter High School for Architecture and Design, and it was like being in a candy store. It was full of kids who felt the exact same way. We all were creating art and bonding together and it was wonderful until my stepdad decided to upheave us and move to the middle of Buttfuck, Pa. I lost connection with all my CHAD friends and with Philly itself. I mean, this city was my best friend and it was an hour-and-a-half away, so the last two years of high school were rough. The only light was that I got to front a cover band in my senior year and play a few shows, basement parties, etc. It was a dream come true.
PGN: What did you do after high school?
TJS: I got the hell out of there and went to Temple to study theater for four years. I had a brief foray into art education that almost led to a suicide attempt. I was so lost but I got back into theater and had an epiphany. I broke up with my boyfriend, stopped drinking and decided to dedicate my time to music. It was big.
PGN: Speaking of big, tell me about the Queerspace project.
TJS: The next event is Aug. 26 at Tattooed Mom’s. It was supposed to be our first event but after the shootings happened at Pulse, I felt I had to do something right away — those people needed shit immediately — so I told my producing partner, Ian Johnson, “We need to make something happen now!” and we pulled something together. It was magic, just mind-blowing. We raised $500! Queerspace is a safe space where all people — queer, trans, straight, anyone feeling disenfranchised — can come and feel welcome. I know I have to be reminded every once in a while that there are people out there who are positive and can appreciate me as I am and want to be part of a community. We set out to create a richer and loving and more open environment. The three main pillars are community, charity and fun. It’s always free, no cover. Two things I’m proud of is that we pay our performers a generous percentage of the bar sales and that we give them the space to put on weird, funny, innovative shit that won’t get booked in most places. We have drag queens, burlesque acts, musicians, singers, a few side-show acts. Last show we had stand-up and poetry; pretty much anything goes. Last time Ian and I opened the show with “Total Eclipse of the Heart,” which was a lot of fun; he’s an opera singer and I’m super corny so we had fun with it.
PGN: You’ve mentioned how important environment is to you. I’ve been to Tattooed Mom’s and to an outsider it could be intimidating: side-show acts painted outside and very carny-looking inside. A non-pierced, no tattoos, more “conservative”-looking person might have second thoughts about going in but I’ve found they’ve always been very sweet and welcoming. And they have the best pierogies!
TJS: They are a really loving group of people there. The owner, Robert Perry, is the sweetest guy. I’ve never been to a place like this where there’s support for you and all the people there feel like friends. I had people who just stumbled upon the show who, with tears in their eyes, told me that it felt like they’d found their people.
PGN: When did you first realize or identify as queer?
TJS: I didn’t feel a need to put a word on it until high school. I’d been girl and boy crazy since I was a kid, I still am! I fall in love every day. In high school, I was in love with this girl named Jasmine but it was intense because she was from a very Christian family. So she would call me and say, “I can’t do this, I can’t be gay, my family would disown me.” We worked through it and she inspired me to talk to my family about being what I called bisexual at the time. They were very dismissive and never brought it up again until recently, but at least the truth was out.
PGN: Who was your first celebrity crush?
TJS: [Laughs] I was enamored with Sporty Spice, Mel C. She was a goddess to me. She’s the person who first showed me the power you could have on stage. I’d rewind this one part of “Spice World” where she’d hit this note [sings] and tears the house down. It was a magical moment when I decided, wow, that’s what I want to do.
PGN: Something you can’t leave the house without?
TJS: My Ray-Bans. My eyes are completely useless without them. And they’re classic, man, they make you feel badass.
PGN: A performance you wished you could have seen?
TJS: Oh man, there are so many dead performers I would trade my left nut to see live. I guess the two I have tattooed on my forearm: GG Allin and Amy Winehouse.
PGN: Craziest adventure?
TJS: I was in L.A., doing meetings with record companies, and I ended up being chased by the LAPD with helicopters and everything. I was recording in a studio one night and apparently Justin Bieber was recording in the room next to me. When we finished our session, it was late and my dumbass manager suggested that we just sleep at the studio. The confidence with which he set forth this plan led me to say, “Sure, I’m beat. Why not?” Until he shook me awake at 7:30 a.m. saying, “C’mon! We need to get out of here!” I was like, “What the fuck do you mean? What’s going on?” He didn’t answer but dragged my lethargic ass out of the studio, where we tripped the motion sensor as we were climbing the back gate, summoning a slew of police cars and a few helicopters. We ran down a back alley and jumped on the first bus we saw, even though we didn’t know where it was going.
PGN: Do you write your own songs?
TJS: Oh yes, I’ve been writing since I was a kid. There’s a lot of crazy shit that I’ve been through and I write it all down.
PGN: You mentioned that you did an interview before but they refused to print it. What happened?
TJS: It was just an uptight reporter who was very judgmental. I’d told her that I had a brief foray doing some stripping for a few months trying to get money to move to New York and she didn’t want to hear the truth. She was a lame-o. I wasn’t hurt, but bummed out that she was so closed-minded. She wasn’t into hearing about real shit.
PGN: Well I’m all yours, give me your realest shit. Highest and lowest points.
TJS: Oh God, how much time do you have? Things seem to come and pass so quickly it’s hard to keep up. Right now I’ve been battling my eating disorder and the things that it makes me do. I’m aware that it holds me back from reaching my full potential, but it’s something that’s been on my back for years. For fear of jinxing myself; things have been exploding in a positive way for me right now. I’ve been getting bookings and people are paying attention to what I do, giving me a chance to say the things I’ve been wanting to say for so long. It feels like my dreams are coming true and it’s forcing me to really be about what I say I’m about, no bullshit. To tell myself that I have to learn to love myself. That’s something I’ve been grappling with. [Long pause] If I could impart anything, I’d try to tell people [to] give yourself love. Life would be so much easier … it really would.
PGN: Definitely, and there’s no reason not to. I’ve just met you and already can see that you have talent and a good heart and that you’re a survivor. Feel the love around and within you.
TJS: [Sniffs] Thank you, thank you. I do. Man, lately it’s been really beautiful. People I don’t even know have been showing me love.
PGN: Do I understand that the Aug. 26 show is another fundraiser?
TJS: Yes, we will be collecting clothes, socks, tampons and snacks for the homeless peeps of Philly. It’s a good cause so I hope people will come out to see some amazing performances and make new friends. We’re one big, happy queer family. Let’s make some big change and create positivity! It’s only going to get bigger, crazier and more memorable every time, so let’s get people to Queerspace!
For more information, see https://www.facebook.com/Thejordynshowmusic/?fref=ts.
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