The Door Was Already OPen (part 1 of 2) | a half remembered mixtape left on a doorstep
- Mickey Fingers
- 2 days ago
- 10 min read
Updated: 14 hours ago
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THe Door Was Already OPen (part 1 of 2) | a half remembered mixtape left on a doorstep
July 8, 2026
with DJ Tea, Mr. Announcer Man & Mickey Fingers
1–3pm CST on WDRT 91.9FM | Listen Live »
By DJ Tea (DJ Celeste) & Mickey Fingers
✨ Eclectic Wonderland: Themed Show | Mickey Fingers ✨
THe Door Was Already OPen (part 1 of 2) | a half remembered mixtape left on a doorstep
Some mixtapes don’t begin when you press play.
They begin years earlier.
With a postcard tucked into a book. A cassette handed across a kitchen table. A strange little trinket picked up because it reminded you of someone. A note folded into the corner of a suitcase. A song discovered at two in the morning that simply had to be shared.
This week’s Eclectic Wonderland grew from that feeling.
Not nostalgia…
something warmer than that.
A conversation that’s been quietly unfolding for decades.
“The Door Was Already Open” wanders through dream pop, alternative classics, post-punk, college radio favorites, and unexpected detours that somehow all belong in the same little universe. The songs don’t announce themselves. They appear the way old friends do, as though they’ve always known where to find you.
Between the music, Mickey Fingers opens a weathered suitcase filled with curious keepsakes, forgotten cassettes, impossible souvenirs, and tiny stories that blur the line between memory and imagination.
Maybe you’ve kept boxes like that too.
Hat boxes.
Old drawers.
Little tins full of ticket stubs and seashells.
Objects that wouldn’t mean much to anyone else, but somehow hold entire chapters of your life.
This playlist feels like opening one of those boxes together.
The conversation doesn’t end here, either.
Part One opens the door…
Part Two steps through it.
So settle in, turn the lights down just a little, and let the tape play from the beginning.
It has been waiting for you.
💜
Video Playlist Click Here for Video Playlist for Keep Scrolling
Mickey's Corner
Mickey’s Corner 🎙️✨
A Fresh Coat of Purple Paint
Funny thing about old houses…
You don’t really notice them changing while you’re living in them.
You move a chair.
Hang a new picture.
Fix a squeaky door.
Then one afternoon you step back and realize the whole place somehow feels brighter.
That’s been our week here at Velvet Umbrella Radio.
The corridors have been getting a little attention.
Some new artwork found its way onto the walls.
The Mushroom Lounge has become a little more… us.
A little less borrowed from old storybooks.
A little more like the strange little world we’ve been quietly building together.
We also spent some time organizing the hallways.
Now, each show has a room of its own.
Eclectic Wonderland keeps all of its adventures together.
After Hours has its own late-night corner of the building.
Petals & Hooks finally has a home where every chapter of that underwater journey can live side by side.
Everything still lives beneath the Velvet Umbrella…
but now it’s a little easier to wander from room to room without getting lost.
We even finished a new welcome video…
introducing all of the shows and inviting visitors to explore.
Of course…
almost as soon as we finished it…
life did what life does best.
The schedule changed.
In the very best way.
Beginning next week, After Hours is growing into a two-hour overnight program, moving to Fridays from 1:00 to 3:00 AM on WDRT.
Which means…
yes…
we’re already making another update.
Some things around here never change.
And honestly…
we wouldn’t have it any other way.
The best part of this little universe has never been the walls.
It’s the people who wander through the doors.
Thanks for visiting.
We’ll leave the lights on.
Until next time…
— Mickey Fingers
📻 Signal Incoming From The Cosmic Lounge
🚪 Corridor Construction Report
The corridors have been unusually busy this week.
After several months of wandering…
moving furniture…
testing suspicious buttons…
and discovering more than a few doors that definitely weren’t there yesterday…
we realized something.
This week we stopped trying to make a Wonderland…
…and started making our Wonderland.
Turns out, they’re not quite the same thing.
The walls have shifted.
The lighting has changed.
The Mushroom Lounge finally feels lived in.
And somewhere along the way…
the whole place started feeling like home.
🍄 Recent Renovations
✨ The archives have been reorganized into their own neighborhoods.
📻 Eclectic Wonderland now keeps all of its adventures together.
🌙 After Hours finally has a hallway of its own.
🧜 Petals & Hooks has settled into a cozy underwater wing where every chapter can drift together.
☂️ Everything still lives beneath the Velvet Umbrella…
but it’s a lot easier to find your favorite room.
🎨 Decorating Department Report
New artwork has appeared throughout the corridors.
The walls seem much happier.
The mushrooms have offered no official statement…
although several have been observed smiling.
🎬 Programming Department
A brand-new Welcome transmission has arrived…
introducing the different shows…
where to find them…
and which strange little door leads where.
Unfortunately…
almost immediately after completing the video…
our overnight schedule changed.
Which means…
yes…
we’re already making another one.
The corridors find this hilarious.
🌙 Overnight Expansion Notice
Beginning next week…
After Hours expands into a two-hour overnight journey.
Fridays 1:00 AM to 3:00 AM CentralWDRT 91.9 FM
Apparently…
Side B really doesn’t end.
🚪 New Discovery
Visitors have reported noticing several curious little doors scattered throughout the website.
This is not a bug.
Please continue opening them.
Some lead to music.
Some lead to stories.
Some lead to places we’re still trying to explain.
Maintenance recommends clicking anything that appears even remotely magical.
Current Status
☕ Tea is rearranging the furniture.
📼 Mickey is labeling cassettes.
🎙️ Mr. Announcer Man has the kettle on.
🤖 The robot insists everything is functioning exactly as intended.
🍄 The mushrooms remain suspiciously pleased.
The Magic Door is open once again.
Take a look around.
Push a few buttons.
Open a few doors.
And if you hear someone quietly humming somewhere deeper in the building…
don’t worry.
You’re probably heading in the right direction.
A Quick Note From Mickey One of my favorite things about Eclectic Wonderland is that none of this is created by one person.
It’s built by a wonderfully creative little collection of humans who somehow found each other through music…
art…
late-night conversations…
strange ideas…
and a shared love of stories that never quite fit anywhere else.
Some of us are spoonies.
Some of us live with connective tissue disorders, autoimmune adventures, and bodies that occasionally decide to improvise.
So, every once in a while, life asks us to slow down.
We do.
Then we get back to making radio.
Because that’s what music has always done.
It reminds us that even on the strange days…
we’re not wandering alone.
Whether we’re building impossible corridors…
painting curious little worlds…
recording voice-overs after midnight…
discovering another forgotten song…
or laughing about extraterrestrials discovering Wisconsin cheese curds…
this little universe is built with a lot of care…
a lot of curiosity…
and an awful lot of love.
So…
thank you.
For listening.
For wandering these hallways with us.
For opening strange little doors.
For believing that creativity still matters.
And for reminding us that kindness is still one of the strongest frequencies we know.
We’ll keep the lights on.
We’ll keep opening doors.
We’ll keep leaving the kettle warm.
And we’ll keep making things worth wandering into.
We’ll see you somewhere in the corridors.
💜
— Mickey Fingers for all of us at Eclectic Wonderland
🎬 This Week’s Promo Video
✨ Dive into the full playlist below — with videos linked for every track, so you can watch, listen, and wander through the eclectic flow.
Previews & Showtimes: Eclectic Wonderland | After Hours | Petals & Hooks
🌌 The Quiet Between Signals
Eclectic Wonderland Links (Links In Pink!)
Video Playlist
THe Door Was Already OPen (part 1 of 2) | a half remembered mixtape left on a doorstep
Okay, so this is my answer to about 38, 39 years of this weird collaboration I’ve had with Celeste. It’s been this back‑and‑forth of mixtapes, track numbers, and these random little objects we mail each other and sometimes mail back. We each have drawers and jars and boxes of stuff that would mean nothing to anyone else, but to us they’re like physical track titles. Today I’m gonna be pulling things out of the box, laughing about them, talking about them, and answering all of it in songs.
This little galaxy has both our fingerprints in the stardust.
Set 1
Intro
The Dresden Dolls – Coin-Operated Boy
Set One
Ladytron – Seventeen
Some songs don’t belong to a year.
They belong to a hallway.
A bedroom.
A first apartment.
The drive home after midnight.
You don’t hear them…
you walk back into them.
Broadcast – Come On Let’s Go
Tones On Tail – Instrumental Instrumental
Some records don’t need lyrics.
They just rearrange the furniture in your imagination.
Set Two
I Monster – Daydream In Blue
Portishead – Glory Box
Goldfrapp – Strict Machine
Then somebody changes the lights…
and suddenly everyone remembers they came here to dance.
Moloko – The Time Is Now
There comes a point where every good
mixtape quits asking permission.
It just becomes itself.
The Cure – Lullaby
Some songs never really sleep.
They just wait patiently…
until the room gets quiet enough to hear them again.
Cocteau Twins – Iceblink Luck
The Dresden Dolls – Girl Anachronism
John Foxx – He’s a Liquid (Instrumental Dub Version)
You know…
late at night…
instrumentals start sounding suspiciously like conversations.
Set three
Siouxsie & The Banshees – Cities In Dust
Bauhaus – Dark Entries
Open another drawer.
Turn another corner.
There’s always another room.
The Chameleons UK – Swamp Thing
Every mixtape eventually wanders off the road.
That’s usually where the interesting stories begin.
Station Break
IAMX – Spit It Out
Sometimes honesty isn’t loud.
Sometimes it just finally gets tired of whispering.
Harold Budd – L’enfant Perdu (2013 Remaster)
Not every memory arrives with words.
Sometimes it arrives like rain on a window…
or a room breathing around you.
Closer
Set Four
Belle and Sebastian – The State I Am In
Bat for Lashes – Daniel
There are songs that wave goodbye.
This one just watches the train leave.
Portishead – Sour Times
Nobody remembers the weather.
Everybody remembers the feeling.
Mazzy Star – Fade Into You
Siouxsie & The Banshees – Kiss Them For Me
A postcard from somewhere impossible.
Stamped.
Mailed.
Still arriving.
I Monster – Heaven
Sometimes heaven isn’t a place.
It’s the five minutes when the right song finds you.
Lush – For Love
Everything we’ve been carrying…
all the little artifacts…
the postcards…
the cassette…
the boot…
the impossible souvenirs…
they’ve all been pointing here.
I Monster – Sunny Delights
Morning has a way of making even
strange dreams feel possible.
The Shacks – Crimson & Clover
Some songs don’t age.
They simply keep falling in love with new listeners.
Teaser
Closing Music
This Mortal Coil – Song to the Siren
“Track 7 – For Celeste, who heard the siren and stayed anyway; the girl who keeps swimming back to the wreck and somehow still believes in lighthouses.”
Midge Ure – Edo (2010 Remaster)
If cities could dream…
they’d probably sound like this.
Pre-Closer
Final Song
The Magnetic Fields – The Book of Love
Every mixtape ends eventually.
The good ones…
leave the box open.
Closer
Previews & Showtimes: Eclectic Wonderland | After Hours | Petals & Hooks
Who Keeps Doing This?
Welcome To The Wacky World Of Velvet Umbrella Radio
Yes.
We’re all real.
We’re just real weird.
Left to Right:
✨ DJ Tea (Celeste Violet)
✨ Mr Announcer Man
✨ Mickey Fingers
Together we create radio shows, playlists, videos, stories, artwork, strange investigations, accidental mythology, and the occasional kitchen experiment.
[Click The Art Above To Visit Our Home Page] The Door That’s Open Right Now.....
📻 Eclectic Wonderland
Wednesdays
1 PM - 3 PM Central
Live on WDRT 91.9 FM Viroqua
Eclectic Wonderland is our flagship show and home base for musical adventures, unexpected discoveries, and strange transmissions.
🎭 First Week: Alternate Wednesday
(Covers, remixes, reinterpretations, and musical curveballs)
🎵 Third Week: Independent Artist Showcase
(Please send us your music)
🛸 Fourth Week: Audities
(Our weirdest shows, experimental broadcasts, novelty records, and unexplained events)
🌙 After Hours
Fridays (Overnight)
1 AM - 3 AM Central
WDRT 91.9 FM Viroqua
With Celeste Violet & Mickey Fingers
After Hours explores the darker corners of the record collection.
Dream Pop.
Darkwave.
Trip-Hop.
Late-night discoveries.
Moonlit roads.
Signals from beneath.
And occasionally…
reports from Atlantis.
After Hours with Celeste Violet and Mickey Fingers
After Hours is more of an Evening Vibe:
And then .....
🧜♀️ Petals & Hooks
Mixcloud Exclusive
Premieres Fridays at Midnight
With Celeste Violet & Mickey Fingers
Petals & Hooks is where the filters come off. Long-form themed journeys.
Dream narratives. Storytelling. Unexpected connections.
Beautiful mistakes. The things that don’t fit neatly inside traditional radio.
Most episodes run between three and four hours.
Some are explicit.
All are deeply strange.
Beneath The Surface - Part One
Part Three of our current four-part story cycle.
A two-hour descent into signals, longing, dreams, memory, and moonlit shorelines.
Explicit & Unfiltered Content.
Mixcloud Exclusive.
Beneath The Surface - Part Two
Part Four of our current four-part story cycle.
The water gets deeper.
The signals get stronger.
The investigation continues.
Explicit & Unfiltered Content.
Mixcloud Exclusive.
Thank You For Visiting
More portals, hidden rooms, strange broadcasts, companion shows, stories, and weird worlds are currently under construction.
Some delays may be related to ongoing corridor expansion projects.
Some may be related to Gerald.
No official statement has been released.
More doors, stories, visuals, playlists, and companion shows can be found at VelvetUmbrellaRadio.com.
Whether you laughed…
remembered someone…
found a new favorite song…
or simply let the weirdness carry you away for a while…
we’re really glad you stopped by.
Peace, Love & Cosmic Bunny Rabbits.
💜
DJ Tea (Celeste Violet)
Mr Announcer Man
Mickey Fingers
Dewey Lewis
DJ Tea (Celeste Violet) | Mr Announcer Man | Mickey Fingers
Celeste Violet and Mickey Fingers are part of a Creative Collaborative of Spoonie Artists that Create together. When they are not creating with Gala Violet, they create weird worlds, music, kitchen experiments and Radio shows together... To help spread joy... and give people an alternative to Doom Scrolling. Sometimes we even get Mr Announcer Man to play along.
🌐 More doors: VelvetUmbrellaRadio.com
📻 WDRT Archive (available for two weeks): wdrt.org
🌒 After Hours (unfiltered transmissions):[Mixcloud Link]
New Contact Pages & Bio Portals
Celeste Violet | DJ Tea
Mr Announcer Man
Mickey Fingers
From The Vault:
April Newsletter:
Thank you for being here.
Whether you laughed…
remembered someone…
or just let the weirdness carry you for a while…
We're really glad you showed up.
Thank you for Listening
Peace, Love & Cosmic Bunny Rabbits!
-DJ Tea, Mr Announcer Man, Dewey Lewis
& Mickey Fingers
People We Blame For This....
Art Direction & Visual Design:
Celeste Violet | DJ Tea
Mickey Fingers
Playlists Curated By:
Celeste Violet | DJ Tea
& Mickey Fingers
Voice Overs & Incidental Music:
Mickey Fingers
Show Notes & Storyworld Elements:
Celeste Violet | DJ Tea
& Mickey Fingers
Video Editing:
Celeste Violet
Sound Engineering & Production:
Mickey Fingers
& Celeste Violet
Eclectic Wonderland:
DJ Tea | Celeste Violet
Mr. Announcer Man
Mickey Fingers
We’ll leave the porch light on.
Returned: Heaven or Las Vegas Condition: Slightly tear-stained.
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