Mixtape Memories: A Gala of Story and Song

Carly Findlay OAM is an award-winning writer, speaker and appearance activist. Her first book, a memoir called Say Hello, was released in January 2019. Carly edited the anthology Growing Up Disabled in Australia with Black Inc Books. It’s in stores now. She writes on disability and appearance diversity issues for news outlets including CNN, Vogue, ABC, The Age and Sydney Morning Herald and SBS. In 2022, Carly provided a testimony at the Disability Royal Commission, speaking about abuse in public spaces. In 2020, Carly Findlay received a Medal of the Order of Australia (OAM) for her work as a disability advocate and activist. In 2021, Carly received The Victoria Award for Excellence in Women's Leadership. She was named one of Australia’s most influential women in the 2014 Australian Financial Review and Westpac 100 Women of Influence Awards. She has appeared on ABC TV’s You Can’t Ask That and Cyberhate with Tara Moss, The Project, The CookUp, Studio 10 and The Drum, and has been a regular on various ABC radio programs. She has spoken at the Melbourne Writers Festival, the University of Western England, Ubud Writers Festival, The Australian Centre for Moving Image and Melbourne University – to name a few. She organised the history-making Access to Fashion in 2018 – a Melbourne Fashion Week event featuring disabled models. She has a Masters of Communication and Bachelor of eCommerce. Carly identifies as a proud disabled woman – she lives with a rare, severe skin condition, ichthyosis.

Mawunyo Gbogbo is the author of Hip Hop & Hymns: a memoir of loving hard, falling apart and fighting back, set to an unrivalled playlist. Published by Penguin Random House Australia, Hip Hop & Hymns is described by Books+Publishing as 'a beautiful and heart-wrenching memoir'. Mawunyo writes about growing up in the sleepy coal mining town of Muswellbrook, NSW, with her love of storytelling and budding journalism career taking her to the city that never sleeps – New York City. Mawunyo has worked in the media industry in Australia for 20 years including as Digital Journalist, Popular Culture for ABC News, a journalist for ABC NewsRadio, a segment producer for the Today Show on Channel Nine and as an associate producer for Insight on SBS TV where she won a UNAA Media Peace Award for Increasing Awareness and Understanding of Children’s Rights and Issues.

It is difficult to describe Paul's career easily. He has directed of some of Australia's most prominent festivals, composed nearly thirty feature film scores, and several works of music theatre, founded and lead for nineteen years of the Australian Art Orchestra, was an executive at the ABC, and currently heads up Monash University Performing Arts Centres. Whether as composer, teacher, television personality or advocate for the role of artistic expression as a defining attribute of contemporary life, this is all informed by his work as a pianist, and composer, particularly in the field of jazz, where, according to him, 'the piano never lies'. He has, and continues to collaborate with musicians from many countries, not least with the First Nations peoples of Australia. His many awards include eight ARIA Awards, the Melbourne Prize for Music and more. He was made an Officer of the Order of Australia in 2014.

Award-winning performer, Jess Hitchcock, draws inspiration for songwriting from her family origins in the Top Western Region of the Torres Straits and from Papua New Guinea. Jess performs as a solo artist and has also joined forces on stage and in the studio with Paul Kelly, Archie Roach, Tina Arena and Kate Miller-Heidke. For the last decade, Jess has worked with Deborah Cheetham AO at Australia’s Indigenous opera company, Short Black Opera, as a performer, composer and instructor, and has proudly contributed to Mission Songs Project and Dhungala Children’s Choir. This year has seen Jess in the Bangarra Dance Theatre production of Wudjang: Not the Past and in Tina Arena’s Songs My Mother Taught Me. Next for Jess, is the release of her anticipated studio album, Unbreakable. 

Written, recorded, and produced in a small studio apartment during her first year of living alone, Pop Music for Normal Womenis an inventive, energetic, intense and amusing journey through eight new pop songs by singer/songwriter/producer June Jones. The album marks a move away from the slower, more contemplative art pop of Jones’s first two albums, Diana(2019) and Leafcutter (2021) to a more upbeat and playful sound, while retaining the candid emotionality that Jones is known for. Themes of identity, loneliness, connection, illness, and transformation recur throughout Jones's semi-confessional songwriting on this album. The gravity of these themes – inspired by the singer’s experience as a disabled trans woman – are offset by moments of wry humour, bouncing synths, and anthemic choruses. At various moments on the album, Jones describes some of the things that she is (a gamer, a goblin), things that she has been (an extrovert, a sensitive child), and things that she might become (a hoodie girl, a Kawasaki motorcycle). Jones' penchant for shapeshifting comes through not only in her imaginative lyrics, but also in the wide variety of sounds and styles found throughout the record, as well as her music career as whole. With a title that is only semi tongue-in-cheek, Pop Music for Normal Women is indeed a collection of pop songs, though it is clear that June Jones appreciates the elasticity of this ill-defined and ever-evolving term. While previous releases have seen her channel art pop inspirations like Kate Bush and Björk, the new album is also reminiscent of nouveau pop singers such as Charli XCX and Caroline Polachek, as well as the bittersweet pop punk of the first album Jones ever loved, Avril Lavigne’s iconic debut Let Go. On Pop Music, Jones manages to channel all of these distinct inspirations into her own unique palette of contrasting but complementary colours. In just shy of 30 minutes, the eight songs on Pop Music carry the listener from a playful and bittersweet first act, into an angsty and frenetic middle, and then a final act that explodes with intensity, followed shortly by a hopeful denouement. This album is also Jones’s first to include feature artists, with each collaboration complementing the song perfectly, whether it's the yearning duet and second single, ‘If Only’ with Katie Dey, the grunge pop ballad ‘Extrovert’ featuring Alice Skye, or the cyber pop punk finale ‘Motorcycle’ featuring co-production from Geryon. Mixed and mastered by Doug Wright and Becki Whitton respectively, with album art by Nadeemy Betros and music videos by Geoffrey O’Connor and Daniel R Marks, this is an album that both sounds and looks more crisp, colourful, and pop than anything June Jones has done before. Her aspirational drive to keep transforming and improving on her past work and selves is epitomised by the closing chorus, “Every day I wake up and wish I was a Kawasaki motorcycle / Every day I wake up and wish I was a lime green machine." On Pop Music for Normal Women, June Jones reminds us that we are all forever in transition, at once heartbroken and hopeful, holding contrasting realities at all times, and that's kind of... normal.

House band pianist Sam Keevers has lived in Melbourne since 1991 and is a graduate of the QLD Conservatorium of Music, Victorian College of the Arts and the Australian Film Television and Radio School. He was a Wangaratta Jazz Awards finalist in 1992 and 1999 and a Freedman Jazz Fellowship finalist in 2005. Sam has performed and recorded with many national and international artists including Scott Tinkler, Jamie Oehlers, Dale Barlow, Katie Noonan, Kate Ceberano, Stephen Magnusson, Gian Slater, Josh Kyle, Michelle Nicolle, Chris Potter, Jamie Haddad, Bobby Previte, Joe Lovano, Lewis Nash, Ron Carter, John Scofield, Joss Stone, Ricky Lee Jones and Archie Roach. He played with Vince Jones from 1996–99, formed the Afro-Cuban latin jazz group Los Cabrones in 1996 and has been music director for cabaret artist Ali McGregor since 2008. Sam received a Green Room Award in 2021 for Best Cabaret Musical Direction.

House band drummer James McLean is from Melbourne, Australia and works at the intersections of movement, rhythm, and improvisation. James’ practice sees him working as a solo artist, a bandleader, and an ensemble member in numerous ensembles and styles, spanning from modern jazz to experimental improvisation. In 2016 James was awarded the Freedman Jazz Fellowship, becoming the first and only drummer to receive the award. He is featured on recordings by artists such as Spirograph Studies, Andrea Keller’s Five Below, The Marc Hannaford Trio, The Eugene Ball 4tet, and the Nick Haywood Quintet with Petra Haden, and has been a finalist for the National Jazz Awards (2018) and the Young Australian Jazz Artist of the Year (2016). James has also released three solo drum set recordings: Counter Clockwork (2015), Oscillator (2018), and Interstitial (2021).

Loretta Miller is a musical shapeshifter with a voice that can slip between genres with ease. Often referred to by her peers as one of Australia's finest vocalists, Loretta was recently chosen to perform the vocal parts for the new Australian feature film "Seriously Red." As front woman of Melbourne outfit JAZZPARTY Loretta already has a large fanbase that's surely set to grow with a debut solo record on the way.

Tamara Murphy (bassist/composer) is based in Melbourne, Australia. She has performed with Kate Miller-Heidke, Ali McGregor, Harry Angus, Clio Renner, Andrea Keller, Nat Bartsch, Paul Grabowsky and Stephen Magnusson and many more artists in addition to her own band, Spirograph Studies. She has toured nationally as well as internationally, performing in Japan, China, Europe, the UK and New York. She has over 20 years’ performing experience, has released 10 albums as leader (or co-leader) and appears on over 40 recordings by other artists. Her albums have been shortlisted for The Age Genre Music Awards, AIR awards and The Bell Awards, and she was awarded the inaugural PBS Young Elder of Jazz Commission in 2011. In 2019, she was shortlisted for the National Live Music Awards (Best Jazz Act). She has worked as a musical director and arranger for Women of Soul, Brunswick Music Festival and Monash University’s MLIVE Progress Festival.

Rhys Nicholson is a multi-award winning Australian stand-up, writer, actor and collager. With an enormous passion for live performing, their work continues to receive awards and accolades around the world. As well as numerous televised stand up performances in Australia, the UK and Canada, in early 2019 Rhys was hand picked to open for comedy legend Conan O’Brien on his Australian tour. A few months later this lead to Nicholson’s USA television debut as the stand up guest on Conan (TBS). 2019 proved to be quite a big year for Rhys (which is lucky because 2020 and 2021 have been a bit of a nightmare) when in November they recorded their third stand-up special. This time for Netflix worldwide, making Rhys one of only three Australians with a solo show on the streaming giant and earning them a nomination for Best Stand Up Comedy Special at the AACTA Awards in 2021. Alongside a booming stand-up career, Nicholson is a favourite across our small screens. From panel shows to documentary and acting roles, he clearly doesn’t like to sit still very much. Over the years Rhys has had a whole bunch of guest and supporting roles in a plethora of sitcoms across networks and countries. Most recently being cast as a series regular in the Netflix sci-fi comedy The Imperfects, to be released in 2022. Rhys was very excited about the fact they had a stunt double. You can also catch them on the judging panel of seasons 1 & 2 of RuPaul’s Drag Race Down Under. Not to let something like a devastating global health crisis from keeping them busy, the last couple years have seen Rhys continue to rise. From co-opening Melbourne’s newest live comedy venue, The Comedy Republic (Rhys cannot recommend you do that during a pandemic), to numerous acting roles and now setting their talents writing a book of essays, Nicholson is focused on continuing to work and diversify in the comedy industry they love so much. 2022 continues to raise the bar for Nicholson’s career where they hosted Melbourne International Comedy Festival All Stars Gala (ABC) & toured across Australia with brand new live stand- up show Rhys! Rhys! Rhys!. Rhys garnered multiple sold out seasons and won prestigious awards: Most Outstanding Show at Melbourne International Comedy Festival & Best of the Fest at Sydney Comedy Festival. Rhys will take this critically acclaimed show abroad where they will perform at the renowned and invite only Just For Laughs Montreal, followed by Edinburgh Fringe and more to come.

Amy Remeikis is a political reporter with The Guardian, helming its popular Politics Live blog and a regular contributor to The Project, The Drum, Insiders and ABC radio. She is also the author of the best selling, On Reckoning.

Em Rusciano is one of the most talented and in demand entertainers in Australia. Em is a comedian, singer, writer, storyteller and broadcaster. She hosts the Emsolation podcast which was Australia's first Spotify exclusive show. Em is also a regular panellist on Network Ten’s The Project. Em’s social media community is fierce, loud and passionately loyal. With a Facebook following of 279,000 fans, 35,000 on Twitter and 227,000 on Instagram, she has a weekly social media reach of up to 10 million. Em has two dogs, three kids and one husband. Is that the order in which she loves her family? Sometimes, yes. Em regularly encourages her family members to keep trying, to improve their spot in the order. Most importantly, she still finds time to watch every single episode of Ru Paul’s Drag Race. Priorities are essential.

In an era when the world is falling apart with such a deafening roar, Cash Savage’s voice rings loud over the cacophony. Songs of politics, grief, songs of rage – this is weighty music that has been written to cut through the noise. Savage’s band The Last Drinks are a powerhouse of fierce and brooding energy, every bit as committed to her songs and message. Every performance by this band is as epic as it is honest, raw and human. The band’s most recent studio album Good Citizens was universally lauded by fans and local and international music media. Good Citizens topped The Guardian’s ‘Top 10 Australian albums of 2018’ list, and also featured in The Sydney Morning Herald’s Top 10 albums of 2018 and The Financial Review’s Top 10 albums of 2018.

House band guitarist Fran Swinn has carved out her own sound in the Australian musical landscape. She has studied and performed extensively locally and internationally. Swinn has a diverse range, touring Australia with Circus Oz in 2009, and running her own band The Fran Swinn Trio. In 2011 her trio toured Australia (funded by the Contemporary Music Touring Program). The Fran Swinn Trio’s debut album Every Dog (2011) received glowing reviews, described as 'deeply satisfying from beginning to end. They have their own sound, and it's a glorious one'. (J.Clare 2011). In 2019 Swinn toured Australia and New Zealand with Tamara Murphy’s band Spirograph Studies in support of their debut album Kindness Not Courtesy. Fran has taught at Box Hill TAFE, the Victorian College of the Arts (University of Melbourne) and currently teaches guitar and performance at Victoria University. Fran is a member of several bands including Spirograph Studies, the Improv Mill, Big Guitar and the Louisa Rankin band.

The Australian music scene is no stranger to Thndo (fka Thando). The widely loved Zimbabwean-born ‘First Lady of Soul and R&B’ has commanded massive crowds at festivals such as Bluesfest, WOMAdelaide, Adelaide Cabaret Festival, Groovin the Moo, BigSound, Jungle Love, Woodford Folk Festival and more. Her sold out shows at Chapel Off Chapel have stunned audiences to a point of standing ovation; rave reviews following in their wake. Every performance is a statement – a triumph of powerful lyricism, rich-ranged vocals and smooth backing instrumentation – turning onward the wheel of live music, show by show. With the release of her latest EP Life in Colour (2021), the wheel is about to turn again. This second EP marks both a new chapter of immersive song writing, with high demand shows following. Life in Colour touches on thndo’s experiences of growing up black in Australia. Struggles with displacement, discrimination and a deeper understanding of black pride are interwoven with R&B, Hip Hop and Afrobeat’s elements to continue the narrative of her smash hit single Numb. “That’s where I first explored what it feels like to force myself to assimilate,” says thndo. “The consequence of being a palatable black person accepted by white Australia is losing every part of what made me special. This EP was an attempt to get that back. learning from others like me and learning how to be proud to be different.” With a statement as bold as her stage presence, Life in Colour is certain to continue Thndo’s trend of packing venues to the brim. Any die-hard music fan can resonate with her talent for song structure, dragging in elements of TLC, Queen, Ladysmith Black Mambazo and more to keep crowds fixated beyond the encore. With collaborations with crowd favourites such as Sampa the Great and Remi drawing positive reviews from Triple J’s Unearthed, and a long streak of successful releases, Thndo’s Life in Colour marks the start of a new wave of conscientious Soul and R&B in the Australian sphere. Book now for the show of a lifetime.

Myf Warhurst grew up in regional Victoria and studied music and fine arts at Melbourne University. After writing arts and music stories for The Age and street magazine Inpress, she became Managing Editor of Inpress in 1999. After her first radio gig as showbiz reporter on Merrick and Rosso's Triple J Drive Show, she moved to the Triple J Saturday night request show in 2000 and landed the afternoon shift in 2003. In 2008 she joined Peter Helliar on the Pete and Myf Triple M Melbourne Breakfast Show. Since then Myf has hosted the ABC Radio daily afternoon show, been a columnist for The Guardian and The Age and reports regularly for The Project on Network Ten. Best known for her seven-year stint as a team captain on ABC TV's Spicks and Specks, Myf currently presents the Bang On podcast with Zan Rowe, discussing the biggest issues in art, music and pop culture. She also lends her voice to popular ABC Kids show Bluey, and recently presented on Play School: Story Time. She entered the South African jungle for the sixth series of I'm A Celebrity...Get Me Out of Here! Australia, where she was one of the most popular contestants. Since 2017, Myf has hosted the Eurovision Song Contest alongside Joel Creasey. And Spick & Specks lives on!