The meaning behind the artwork of 'L89'
SO, there are a few layers of meaning behind the artwork of my mixtape:
The first and perhaps most superficial layer is that the name of the girl all 9 songs were either written to or about — i.e. Sidebar Girl, the British backpacker I met and fell for in 2010 while she was on the Australian leg of her round the world tour and then proceeded to think of as “the one” for several years — starts with L. Sure, I could’ve called it something else, but as you’ll read below, there were other reasons why the “L” made sense. Besides, I wrote this to Sidebar Girl in an FB message on 24/5/2010 — 2 months after we met: “...oh, and i wrote another song about you, really happy with it again. when things calm down in you(r) world sign up to skype and i'll play it for you, if you want. actually, that being the third song for/about you, i'll probs have to call my first album “L" or something crazy like that. 😜” Silly boy.
For those of you who don’t live in Australia, an “L Plate” is a yellow plastic plate that teenagers are required to display on their car while they are leaning to drive. It’s roughly the same size as a CD album and I thought years ago that it would be cool to use as my first album artwork because I’d inevitably be learning the ropes in my first attempt at writing, recording and releasing music. So in one way, the “L” stands for the fact that I have been on my L plates while releasing these songs, learning to drive, seeing what works and what doesn’t so that when it’s time to record and release my other, MUCH BETTER songs — maybe a dozen of which are literally just locked and loaded — I wouldn’t be flying completely blind.
And what about the '89’ in the corner? Well, on a real L plate the number is '90’. This is the speed limit for learner drivers. But I made it '89’ because that is the year of my birth and I thought it might just be different enough from the real thing to trigger the “something’s not right here” switch in someone’s head to make them look twice. The artwork for ‘Fate’ (my first song) sports the colour of an OG L plate and each subsequent release cycles through another colour of the rainbow to visually represent the movement of the story behind each song, the varying emotions and moods associated with each song, and the process of letting it all go - hence the artwork of the last song being green (green light = go).
Finally, when you read the “L” and the “89” as one word you get “Latey Nine”. Which alludes to my belief — and we can drill down on this in greater depth another time — that I am “meant” to share my music with as many people as possible. I first became aware of this late in 2010, and ever since I have been slowly gravitating towards a life with music at the centre. This sense has only continued to grow in strength with the passage of time, and I have been wanting or trying to do what I am now doing (writing and releasing music) for ages. I can’t help but feel like I SHOULD have reached this point years ago but, for better or worse (probably better), life led me on the scenic route through drawn-out relationship sagas, musical detours (tried my hand at the DJ/producer thing), identity crises (gave up on music altogether), family illness (nearly lost my Mum) and it’s taken until now for me to really get the ball rolling. So, in short, “Latey Nine” refers to the fact I’ve had the invitation for a while but am just very LATE to the party.¹
Right, hang on. So these 9 songs are the first ones you ever wrote, and you say you have better songs just sitting, waiting, wishing [big up JJ - my all time biggest musical influence] but you released the old ones anyway? Did Picasso show off his finger-paintings from kindergarten? Whatever happened to putting your best foot forward?
Yeah, fair call. I would probably agree that, from one angle, it doesn’t make a lot of sense to release songs that are so old and in many ways not necessarily indicative of where I am at musically right now, or where I am likely to go in the future. But from my point of view I knew that if I released the “better" ones first, these 9 would likely never see the light of day; and that just didn’t sit right with me. Why? Well, there’s certainly a sentimental element to it. These were the first songs I wrote and they were the songs that gave rise to the first thoughts that I might like to have a proper crack at the music thing. I thought they were good enough to record and release at the time but, due to the aforementioned reasons, I just didn’t get around to it. They were also the songs that helped me reconnect with my musical purpose at the end of 2017 after losing it for 6 long months. Moreover, so many things happened over the course of the last decade in which those songs were written that explain who I am and why I am the way I am, to start the story in 2020 would effectively mean skipping to the middle of a movie. Who even does that?! I wanted people to get to know me; to understand what I’m about, where I came from, how I got to where I am now and why it’s taken me so long to get here. As I’ve said before, I firmly believe that in order to move forward we must honour — or at least acknowledge — the past, and I felt that the 9 songs that now comprise 'L89' did a pretty good job of that. As soon as I came to that realisation I put the blinkers on and now, probably a full 2 years after deciding to release these songs, they’re finally out in the open. And I have to say, it feels fucking fantastic.
Where to now?
Well, I’d be lying if I said that the past 9 months have been a walk in the park. The cycle of prepping and promoting a new song every single month has taken up literally every atom of my oxygen this year. I haven’t written a single note, I haven’t played live and I’ve barely even practiced simply because the process of releasing music was way more involved than I ever thought it would be. It got to a point in the middle of the year where I was getting so anxious and overwhelmed by my endless to do list — which contained only a fraction of all the things independent artists can supposedly do “all on their own” — that I felt burn out was imminent.
I’m pleased to tell you, however, that the resumption of and persistence with a daily meditation practice saved the day (shout out to Sam Harris’ incredible app “Waking Up” which I would highly recommend to anyone interested in getting into it). And although I don’t have any fewer items on my plate, I find myself much better able to cope with and make progress on all those things that must be done to move the needle forward.
Be that as it may, first of all I am very much looking forward to taking a teeny tiny break from the social media rat wheel over the Christmas / New Year period to relax and recharge with family and friends. In January, I’ll be moving into a new apartment all on my own which my spider sense tells me might unlock a new level of personal creativity and productivity. So that’s exciting. Once I’m settled in the new place, I will turn my complete attention to music and dive head first down the rabbit hole again. I’ll most likely package the 9 singles from 2020 into an actual mixtape along with a never-before-seen piece of content that I CANNOT wait to share with you. Simultaneously, I’ll be sitting back at the drawing board refining the next batch of songs. Once satisfied with those I'll lay them down in the studio and get them out into the ether probably in the middle and second half of 2021.
After spending the last 9 months releasing music that looks back on the past, telling my story, you'd think that I would’ve fully caught up to present day and would be free to just sing about stuff that is happening now. Right? Wrong. Like the first 9 songs, the next few are also retrospective “let’s-bring-you-up-to-speed" songs and once they are released, we’ll really be cooking with gas.
I think that’s just about a wrap for now, but before I sign off I want to say this to you. Yes, specifically YOU the person reading theses words. Let’s be honest, you’re in the minority. Most people didn’t click the link, they just kept on scrollin'. They probably still are. Fewer still kept reading all the way to this point. But you did. And that means you’re one of the handful of people who for whatever reason have decided to care about and support me in these juvenile stages. For this I owe you my eternal gratitude. It’s cliche to say now but it really does mean so much to have you in my corner. If you like what you’ve seen, heard and read so far, I think you’re gonna LOVE what lies ahead.
So one more time I say THANK YOU oh so much.
All my love,
Cal xo
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1. P.S. Anyone who knows me personally will think this is hilarious because punctuality is central tenet of my life and being late for anything is essentially a cardinal sin. So the fact that I, myself am incredibly late for the very reason I exist is embarrassingly ironic.