born in the year of the snake, somewhere in the sparkling diamond hills of late night los angeles courtney let out her first (but certainly not her last, which has yet to be heard) infantile wail. pronounced dead at birth, she had coiled herself in her umbilical cord like a noose and her heart and lungs had ceased to work after a 27-hour struggle to be born.she found herself thrust into the arms of her father, an ancient man with an ancient accent, then passed along to her mother, a fresh-faced young midwestern beauty transplanted there in hollywood like any fallen star on the boulevard.with her father’s welsh blood surging through her veins, and with a father who sang for the san francisco opera company, and a mother who was a performing hollywood crooner, how could the little snake help but sing? before she could even form words she was shrieking so well that family speculated that she, too, would be an opera singer one day.in los angeles she played hopscotch on the walk of fame stars, went to church where elvis presley had attended, and was next door neighbors with david lee roth. life was enchanted. but that was all about to change.midway into her childhood, her family was uprooted and moved to the cultural wasteland of southwest missouri. her father had romantic notions of buying a farm and living like a cowboy. instead, the family lived in a series of depressing tenement rental properties. her mother eked out a single-income living for the family, since her father could not find work, confronted by narrow-minded backward hillbilly employers who couldn’t understand his “weird accentâ€.she grew up poor, wearing charity shop outdated clothes, and being misunderstood by all of her peers. so as a child she became a dreamer by necessity, tuning out the horror of her surroundings by listening to the soaring, shimmering sounds by artists like the thompson twins, howard jones, simple minds, a-ha and duran duran. music was more than a diversion. it was a salvation. there was even a soundtrack to the year her father died, when she was only 10. . .the moody blues, mike and the mechanics, and when in rome.her childhood sped by, with her head and feet planted firmly in the clouds. soon she was a young teen, and from the ages of 12 to 16, she was smuggled backstage to party with artists like sound garden, smashing pumpkins, mission uk, moby. . . just to name a few. the music was in her veins, but it had no direction yet.without the protective eye of her father, her train derailed. she stopped going to school at age 12. she stayed out until the sun came up, with people nearly twice her age. she didn’t sleep. she survived on once-a-day miniature burritos sold by taco bell for 39 cents. she collected backstage passes like they were baseball cards.then she joined a punk band, as the guitartist/vocalist. the band split up within a year, but not before billy corgan used the band name as inspiration for the title of smashing pumpkins' 1994 album.for nearly ten years, she was musically dormant. she didn’t make music. she barely touched an instrument. she cut back on groupie-dom. until 2002.since then, she has been musically more prolific than a bunny on viagra, working with artists like the emr band out of kennebunkport, maine, goop out of las vegas, nevada, and most consistently with dj casper first out of springfield, missouri and now omaha, nebraska. her music has appeared on the 80s artist dead or alive’s website, and as downloadable mp3s on several dance sites. it has also been in rotation on several internet and clear channel radio stations. she has released two full-length lps, and one ep.
