Horror-Day, The Baby Witch

The culture permeates and it’s reputation precedes it. I have a vision of black fluffy dice swinging from the rear view mirror of my father’s black chevy. Souvenir shot glasses, statuettes, snow globes and showgirl postcards in my mother’s bedroom. Neither of them had ever been to Vegas, and yet it had a presence in our lives, because they were rockabilly’s I guess? I’m sitting on my bedroom floor, cross legged, staring at a CD cover with Dean Martin’s face on it (who I had a crush on as a child and who’s CDs I would happily listen to alongside Britney Spears and S Club 7). He was colloquially referred to as the “King of Cool” and a founding member of The Rat Pack -who are synonymous with Las Vegas. I’m watching Viva Las Vegas for the first time with Anne Margaret in her black tights and perky pointy breasts in a burnt orange sweater, dancing like she had every ounce of life living fully within her; full of attitude, freedom and pizzaz, thinking -that’s who I want to be! I wanted to shine in Sin City one day.

A whole new world of sound exposed itself to me in the dusty backroom of a thrift store. A Yahama Electone home organ with a $150 sticker on it. An array of primary red, yellow and green buttons on an ugly shade of brown (that really is uniquely reserved for 1970’s catalogues). The appeal, for me, lay somewhere between the awe of a spaceship and the playful joy of a colourful children’s toy- but I knew it contained within it the depth and breadth of possibilities my heart desired in a musical companion. The foot pedals are big and weighty and the in-built amplifier sent out a cocoon of sound that wrapped my body up in a warm 360 degree embrace that could lift and protect my spirits from the pains of being and elevate me from the little goings on of us ants on an ant hill in the shape of a globe.

Playing Elliot Smith songs on my friend’s guitar, 14 years old

Playa Del Carmen, Mexico, 2019

“The Handshake of Commitment to Jazz”. Me, Dorian and Jack (a fellow jazz addict) at Bar Italia, 2013.

Our last drive to the airport.

TW: Miscarriage, violence, pet death, stalkers, black magick

There was a songwriter/producer who someone important at Radio 1 said was singularly going to “save radio” and it wasn’t me. It was a cute guy I met when I was fifteen years old at a cafe in Bondi Beach. He worked at Happy Hockers pawn shop and his long-haired girlfriend was singing folk songs on an acoustic guitar to a handful of barefoot and sandy drifters drinking dandelion tea. I remember thinking how bored I was of that soft, whispery vocal tone with an oddly inflected accent (is it Elvish?) and mundane lyrical content (akin to a still life painting) that became popular over laundry liquid commercials in the noughties and is now considered somewhat mainstream instead of just Sia ‘Breathe Me’/HBO series soundtrack territory. I also remember thinking he was cute and I’d like to date him when I was older.