Heaps Decent is an Australian organisation empowering young people through skills building, cultural access and creativity.
Working with underrepresented and marginalised youth, our participatory program of music and visual media activities provides a pathway to discovery, personal growth and agency through self-expression.We have been to Wilcannia 3 times now, and the locals now know we are actually coming back regularly, which means that they welcome us more and more every time! This last trip, not only were we joined by new creative glittery mask making Georgia Perry, but we also got to do some more workshops at Central School with some of the older kids there. To be honest, it was a little difficult breaking through to the older kids at times – but between Levins, Boz, myself and Georgia we are pretty persistent team!
It worked so well having Georgia there to draw and make things with the kids once they had recorded their parts. It meant there was a bit of a nice cycle happening – they would come to myself/Levins, write some lyrics, head to Boz and record, then head to Georgia and draw some crazy stuff. This way we managed to keep everyone as entertained and engaged as possible at all times!
As usual we finished the trip with a bunch of songs in all styles and covered some great topics. A song about Skills, Space, Sisters and the best of them all – a song about 10 Crocodiles Swimming in one young boy’s moat! That song was on repeat (literally).
My only complaint about this Wilcannia trip was the song selection by the one and only Levins for the car ride from Broken Hill to Wilcannia. Although I love his music and the amazing pop songs he manages to find – there was this one song in particular that I continued to have stuck in my head – for DAYS!!! It’s called “John and Kate plus 8” and I don’t know how to describe it… it’s hooky, poppy, robot voice, auto tune heaven. Damn you Levins!!
Stay tuned to find out what the Heaps Decent crew get up to at this month’s Wilcannia trip!
Words: Kristy
Photos: Georgia