VELVET UMBRELLA RADIO

VELVET UMBRELLA RADIO | Mickey Fingers

Curated. Unfiltered. Nocturnal.

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Mickey Fingers

Eclectic Wonderland | After Hours | Petals & Hooks

on WDRT 91.9 FM | Wdrt.org | MixCloud

Mickey Fingers is the co‑conspirator behind Velvet Umbrella Radio’s darker corridors.

He voices the intros and outros, designs the story‑spine of Eclectic Wonderland and

After Hours, and builds the cinematic sound beds and original music that turn each

show into a strange little movie in your head. He also obsesses over the tech,

flow math, and code that keeps the whole thing humming.

Once Upon A Time…

Once upon a time, on the north shore of Chicagoland, a quiet kid grew up orbiting the lake with a room full of music gear. Mickey Fingers started collecting instruments and studio toys as fast as he could talk his parents into them, taking them apart and rewiring them just to see what else they could do. His family expected him to run the business, he did for a while; but he was more interested in building strange little sonic worlds no one had asked for yet. Decades later, those same instincts are wired into Gala Violet and Velvet Umbrella - he’s the co‑conspirator behind the darker corridors, the sound beds, and the late‑night mixes that keep the shows humming.

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Something You Might Not Know About Me…

Something you might not know about Mickey Fingers: he writes songs with Celeste as part of a creative collective called Gala Violet. After six intense years of albums with their spoonie crew, everyone else is on a well‑earned break, but he and Celeste are still a little obsessed with creating together. He also co‑founded Velvet Umbrella Records, a tiny label for spoonie artists and musicians who’ve run into misogyny or other trauma in the music world - a softer landing spot for people like them.

Something you might not know about Mickey Fingers: he actually started writing music with Celeste 38 years ago, when he read her journal and asked to turn some of her lyrics into songs. He even recorded one of them on an old tape they’ve probably lost to time, but that was the start of this whole “we’re a little obsessed with creating together” thing.

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A Little Q & A

Got a question for the Velvet Umbrella crew? Send it our way and we’ll answer it in our own weird little fashion, as honestly (or evasively) as the moment requires.

Q: Why did you create Petals & Hooks if Eclectic Wonderland already has some darker corners?

A: Because there’s a difference between ‘we got a little weird on Wednesday afternoon’ and ‘you have officially stepped into the chapel after midnight.’ Eclectic Wonderland still has to function as a front door - families listening, people folding laundry, that whole thing. Petals & Hooks is where I stop worrying about that and just let the darkwave, post‑punk, and long-form spells run their full length without trimming them for daylight. It needed its own room so the main house didn’t tip over.

Q: How do your shows actually come together?

A: Most of the time it starts with one inconvenient idea that will not leave me alone. A phrase, a song that will not shut up, a half‑remembered night at Medusa’s, some dumb joke Celeste made in the kitchen – that is usually the first domino. From there I start building a spine: a loose arc, a few anchor tracks, and the kind of sound bed that makes you feel like you have walked into a specific room. After that it is just hours of digging, rearranging, and arguing with myself about whether I am allowed to make a three‑hour mix out of one feeling. The answer is usually yes.

Q: How did you get into music and DJing in the first place?

A: How did you get into music and DJing in the first place?

I was one of those kids who collected gear before I knew what to do with it. Guitars, pedals, cheap mixers, tape decks - if it made a noise, I wanted it in the room so I could take it apart and make it do something it wasn’t designed for. I fell in love with the studio side first, figuring out how to layer sounds and fake the feeling of a whole band in a bedroom. The ‘DJ’ part showed up later, when I realized I could do the same thing with other people’s records — build a story out of songs and make it feel like one long track. Once I started doing that, everything else kind of rearranged itself around it.

How did you get into the voiceover side of DJing?

Honestly, I was perfectly happy hiding in the background. I only started talking over things because Celeste kept asking for ‘that thing you did on Masquerade’ or ‘can you just say this one line the way you said it for the Puppet Master.’ The first few were basically accidents - little intros, station IDs, a talk bed here and there for fun. Then I realized the voice is just another instrument in the mix. Now half the fun is building these tiny monologues and stitching them into the sound beds so you feel like somebody’s actually in the room with you while the music runs.

Q: What’s your favorite thing about doing the radio shows?

A: My favorite thing is when it stops feeling like ‘a playlist’ and starts feeling like a place. I love that moment when the sound bed, the voice bits, and the songs click into one long corridor and I know someone out there is walking it in real time. With Celeste, it’s also the creation part - watching some weird idea we joked about turn into a whole late‑night world people can actually visit.

Favorite Shows

Q: What are your favorite shows right now?

A: My favorite shows right now are the Velvet Umbrella era ones Celeste left up from March and early April – the runs where I officially show up, we open the After Hours door, and Petals & Hooks starts talking back from Mixcloud. I like when Eclectic Wonderland, the shadow‑door after shows, Petals & Hooks, and those “Forking Around With Mickey” bits all live under the same portal, so someone can fall down the whole corridor if they feel like it. Celeste left that whole stretch sitting right under the current episodes on purpose, so if you start poking around, you will eventually trip over the moment “Whatever This Is” turned into what it was always supposed to be.

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Video Vault

Click To Visit Eclectic Wonderland Show Notes Find Your Favorites
Or Scroll To See Mickey's Favorites [Nostalgia Baby]

Mmm..Memory Lane

April Showers | This Corrosion

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COMIX & Spellwork

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"Don't Go Feral, Baby"

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Don’t Go Feral, Baby — Velvet Umbrella Radio

Almost Feral After Midnight and Feral After Midnight.

"Don't Go Feral, Baby" - Mickey Fingers

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Almost Feral After Midnight — Velvet Umbrella Radio

The first After Hours broadcast on WDRT. Darkwave, post-punk, and late-night radio atmosphere from Mickey Fingers & DJ Celeste Violet

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Feral After Midnight — Velvet Umbrella Radio (After Hours)

The unfiltered After Hours broadcast. Darkwave, post-punk, underground radio, and late-night atmosphere from Mickey Fingers & DJ Celeste Violet.

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Petals Before Midnight

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The Quiet Part

Petals & Hooks

Petals & Hooks - a long‑form dark-wave ritual mix curated by Mickey Fingers and DJ Celeste. Four hours of nocturnal synth, shoegaze, and shadow‑pop stitched together as one continuous spell.