🕸️ Mickey’s Corner: Debridement, Dark Fairytales & The Un-Dead Air
- Mickey Fingers
- Oct 16
- 6 min read
Updated: 5 days ago
On the birth of Gala Violet, the Artist’s Way sessions that unearthed a musical, and how Mickey’s Magic gave our shadows a voice.
🎤 “So it was just… the six or seven of you?”
TEA:
Yes, and no. It was us… but it sounds like a cast of thirty thanks to Mickey’s Magic™. Somehow, with sampling, vocal modulation, character work, and maybe a little possession, Mickey turns a handful of weirdos into a full-fledged cabaret ensemble.
We play multiple characters. We swap voices. We sing in ghost choirs.
And no, we don’t entirely understand how he does it.
It’s part sound design, part alchemy, part trust.
That’s why we just call it what it is:
Mickey’s Magic. 🪄
MICKEY:
You’d be surprised what you can do with a few weirdos, some MIDI magic, and a haunted microphone. One of us hums a phrase, another mutters a poem, and suddenly we’ve got a scene. A spell. A whole cabaret of shadows.
🖋️ Where It All Began
MICKEY:
Back in 2020, I started an Artist’s Way group for Spoonie artists. I wanted to create a space where we could write, create, and reconnect with our spark... no pressure, no performance. Just honesty and play.
I remembered Tea’s Gala Violet lyric journal from years earlier. When she joined the group, something lit up.
She had this rhythm in her voice, even in casual sentences.
It was like her soul knew where the music lived, but her heart hadn’t been given permission yet.
So I gave her prompts. Shadow work dives. Morning page mischief. Memory spelunking.
She’d voice-text her responses, and I’d reply: “Go deeper.”
And she did.
TEA:
Every time I opened my mouth in a Zoom session, Mickey turned it into another assignment. It became this hilarious and healing ritual:
Speak → Prompt → Cry → Write → Repeat.
But it worked.
I found myself again.
And he held the space for that.
MICKEY:
…and if you’re wondering whether I knew what I was doing back then?
Only sort of.
I just knew if you handed Tea a prompt and a piano loop, something true would rise up.
Usually from the parts we were trying to ignore.
🎶 Gifts from the Sirens: Healing in Layers
TEA:
When Mickey heard what happened to my original lyric journal (how my voice had been silenced), he gave me even more prompts.
Out of that came Gifts from the Sirens.
That first album was never meant to be public. It was just for us,
a place to play, to explore, to remember.
Most of us had trauma, chronic illness, or had just lost touch with our creative spark.
Mickey walked me, Silent Mike, and Collin through it... sometimes line by line.
Belle, Charlotte, and The Other Mike joined as the energy grew.
We recorded in isolation.
Layered harmonies in pajamas.
We weren’t even sure we’d finish.
But we did.
And Mickey surprised us with a release date:
“Tea’s half-birthday. It’s raw. But it’s ready.”
MICKEY:
Honestly? I thought we were just healing.
Didn’t realize we were laying the foundation for a whole Masquerade.
But I did know this: if we gave ourselves permission to play, the ghosts would sing.
🧺 And Then the Shadows Spoke Back…
TEA:
I was writing intense shadow pieces. Mickey gave me a prompt to write “F-U Letters” to the people who made me feel small.
It got raw.
I cried.
I yelled.
But I also named things.
I got my voice back.
And then, the story fragments came…
The tent. The velvet. The strings.
The seduction. The control.
The mirror.
We realized something new was growing:
A Dark Fairytale.
We fed it songs.
We fed it symbols.
And it grew into a monster.
That’s how The Puppet Master was born.
A character, a warning, a mirror.
A magnetic villain who tried to rewrite the ending.
(And maybe almost got away with it.)
MICKEY:
That Puppet Master?
He didn’t just arrive one day.
He slithered in, line by line.
In every “what if,” every character sketch, every missed call echoing in the reverb.
A seducer. A liar. A mirror, cracked just right.
💀 Masquerade of Shadows (and the Albums That Led There)
Core Recording Circle:
🖤 Gifts from the Sirens — Mickey Fingers, Tea Kinsington, Belle, Charlotte, Silent Mike, Collin, The Other Mike
🖤 Necromancy Coffee House EP — same team
🖤 Masquerade of Shadows — same team
(Charlotte stepped back near the end; final edits were completed by the rest of us)
🩹 Debridement — Literally & Metaphorically
TEA:
Shadow work is like surgical debridement.
(Trust me ... I know. I once woke up with a brown recluse spider bite that led to actual debridement. A crater in my leg. Packing it daily. Gross. Real.)
But that’s what this album was too.
Pulling out emotional poison.
Unwrapping wounds we thought had healed.
Peeling back the illusion of sunshine to see what still festered beneath.
You can’t heal what you won’t name.
And Mickey (for all his smirks and synths)
was there holding the mirror.
Patiently. Unflinchingly. With headphones and hope.
MICKEY:
Debridement’s a hell of a word.
But yeah, this album wasn’t just songs. It was surgery.
Shadow work with a side of synth.
Sometimes you have to scream into a mic just to hear what your body’s been holding.
And I was there (headphones on, reverb dialed) ready when you were.
🕯️ Rocktoberrr: Honoring the Goth Within
Each Wednesday this month, we’ve released a new song on Eclectic Wonderland, paired with a fresh Mickey Fingers Station ID in his creepiest Puppet Master voice.
This week’s show (Un-Dead Air) is a graveyard glam feast for the shadow-dwellers.
MICKEY:
We all had weird childhoods.
Some darker than others.
Some of us grew up sick, silenced, or lost in the “shoulds” that shaped us.
But we found each other again ...
Through music.
Honestly?
Post-punk, goth, and darkwave saved us all.
MICKEY:
Goth isn’t just eyeliner and minor chords.
It’s the place you go when the world pretends you’re too much, or not enough.
We built Rocktoberrr as a home for the parts of ourselves we’d been told to hide.
The ghosts. The glamour. The grief.
And a damn good guitar riff.
🧛♀️ Track Spotlight: “Picnic for the Wicked”
TEA:
This week’s drop is “Picnic for the Wicked.”
Originally written for Masquerade of Shadows, it also appeared on Gifts from the Sirens in early form.
It’s the second track in the storyline,
the haunted gathering that introduces the Circle of characters.
Think:
Velvet. Dusk.
Strange laughter.
The feeling that someone is watching from behind the tent.
(The Puppet Master is never far…)
MICKEY:
The picnic was my idea.
A little haunted gathering under velvet skies. A hint of wrongness in the laughter.
It’s where the circle meets. Where the thread gets tangled.
And where you realize… you’ve already been invited.
💋 Final Notes
MICKEY:
If you made it this far, you’re already in the tent.
Mask or no mask.
We see you.
Just don’t believe everything the Puppet Master whispers.
That’s his trick.
But you, you’ve got better stories to tell.
If you’re reading this…
you’re part of the story now, too.
Thank you for walking with us through the shadow.
We’re still recording.
Still writing.
Still stitching wounds into words —
and songs into spells.
More coming soon.
Stay wicked, my loves. 🖤
— Mickey Fingers & Tea Kinsington
✨ About Mickey Fingers
Mickey Fingers is the co-creator of Velvet Umbrella Records and Gala Violet.
A multi-instrumentalist and engineer-producer, he moves between drums, guitar, bass, piano, and synth with ridiculous ease, building worlds inside Ableton Live.
Equal parts mystery and mischief, he’s a steady hand in the chaos and a spark in the shadows.
You’ll find him behind the curtain, buried in reel-to-reels and synth smoke.
🪞 Invitation to the Masquerade
“The curtain is rising. Everyone wears a mask. No one leaves unchanged.”
🎃 Pre-save the Singles:
🧺 Picnic for the Wicked — Sept 19
🪞 Mirror Mirror (On the Ceiling) — Oct 3
💥 Boom Boom Boom — Oct 17
🎭 Masquerade of Shadows (Full Album) — Oct 24
(Album covers embedded, each one clickable.)
✨ About Mickey Fingers
Mickey Fingers is the co-creator of Velvet Umbrella Records and Gala Violet.
A multi-instrumentalist and engineer-producer, he moves between drums, guitar, bass, piano, and synth with ridiculous ease, building worlds inside Ableton Live.
Equal parts mystery and mischief, he’s a steady hand in the chaos and a spark in the shadows.
You’ll find him behind the curtain, buried in reel-to-reels and synth smoke.
📖 A Glimpse Behind the Velvet Curtain
Exclusive zine-style previews of the Masquerade storybook.
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