Rock Concert in East Village this Friday to Raise Money for Cancer Research

Words by Bennett Kelly

A rock ‘n roll fundraising concert for cancer relief will take place in the East Village this Friday, April 29, at Drom, located at Avenue A and E 6th Street near Tompkins Square Park.

Rockers JW Farrell and Unruly Mane and comedian/host Sean Nelms will perform in support of the JDJ Charitable Foundation, raising money for cancer research and impacted families.

Tickets are $15 and event shirts are $25, said JDJ president James Blauvelt, who hopes to raise $1,000-$2,000 through the event.

Proceeds will go towards their cancer support program, which helps alleviate the financial burden for families on hidden costs like home medical care equipment, living space redesign, transportation and rent reimbursement, groceries and more.

“Normally when we offer assistance to a family, it's in the $2,000 to $5,000 range,” Blauvelt said via phone. “So hopefully we can help one family with what we raise from this.”

Blauvelt, who lost his mother to lung cancer and breast cancer in 2015 and then his father to glioblastoma, which is brain cancer, in 2016, has helped raise over $350,000 for Memorial Sloan Kettering through JDJ since 2017.

“What happened was we rented out a soup kitchen to do some volunteering on the anniversary of my mom, and we had about 30 people come,” Blauvelt said. “And then the following year when my dad passed, we went to Cycle for Survival and we raised $90,000 the first year.”

That was the lightbulb moment in which they decided to build a public, community foundation that would host fundraising events through similar initiatives.

“And things have really just taken off, from who you meet, and who connects who,” Blauvelt said. “This is a prime example. I never thought we would host a rock show [laughing]. It’s awesome. What has resonated with people is we’re just volunteers. There’s no expenses. Every dollar that comes in goes to an initiative that we’re supporting. So that’s a huge part of why I think we’ve found success.”

Blauvelt heads the organization along with his wife, vice president Alyson Blauvelt, and two friends, treasurer Joe Gucciardo and community engagement director Jeffrey Watkins.

JDJ has hosted several fundraising events in the past few years in New York and New Jersey: a Monte Carlo night at the New York Athletic Club in 2019 raised $13,000, a softball tournament in Belmar last August raised nearly $4,000, and their second annual 3v3 basketball tournament hosted at Xavier High School in Manhattan raised over $7,500 in February.

The organization is participating in its 6th Cycle for Survival event in May at Hudson Yards.

This is also not their first foray into the music world. JDJ previously hosted singer-songwriter JW Farrell and Steven Scarola of Unruly Mane for a fundraising, acoustic set in Hoboken this past November.

That sparked the idea for the musicians to get their full bands together in a charity show. Scarola performs in Farrell’s band, and the two were in a band together while undergrads at Fordham called La La Lush.

“Both bands are heavily involved with each other,” Farrell said of the performers in Friday’s event. “It's pretty much all the old members from La La Lush, and we’ve all been sitting in on each other’s projects.”

The show will be “very much a collaborative effort,” he said. “It's not as much like, Hey here’s two bands playing two different sets. Not to reveal too many tricks, but it's everybody helping each other to do some new twists on these songs that we’ve either released or have been working on.”

Farrell and Scarola booked the Drom show together and then pitched it to fellow Fordham grad Blauvelt, who quickly came on board. “A lot of the events we try to do, I always try to tie it into my parents in some way,” Blauvelt said.

“What made me excited about this was my dad was a huge rock and roll fan,” he said. “He used to drive me to school and we would listen to Q104.3, and he could name - this was before the car would tell you the what the song is - he would be the walking encyclopedia and tell me literally what side of the record it was on, the name of the album.

“One of the things my dad used to do was he had all these albums framed, and he called it his personal Rock Hall of Fame. He’d have like 15 records on the wall in our basement and anytime my friends would come over he’d always grill them, like ‘Do you know who this is?’ Telling them all this stuff about music whether it was Bruce Springsteen, Pink Floyd, Led Zeppelin. So that was always a big part of me,” he said.

The event poster, designed by Lauren Abrams, is modeled after the Rolling Stones’ Rock and Roll Circus production from 1968.

Drom has a “great stage and sound system and were kind enough to put us up for this,” said Farrell. They went back and forth on dates for the show before finalizing the schedule in March.

“They have a bunch of international acts that come through, so their scheduling is just kind of crazy.”

Drom aims to serve local and global music communities, “celebrat[ing] cultural diversity in the performing arts field by providing a physical space for artists from around the world to present their music, art and creative experiments,” per its mission statement.

“They were very supportive once we brought the idea to them,” Farrell said.

“It's a group effort,” he added. “Everyone’s doing their part and we’re hoping that shows, and comes through in the music and the event.”

“My dad would get the biggest kick out of this,” said Blauvelt.

Tickets for the 7pm Friday, April 29 JDJ Charitable Foundation fundraising concert at Drom, featuring musicians JW Farrell, Unruly Mane and comedian/host Sean Nelms, are available on the Drom website. Event shirts will be available in person.