Magpie Diaries

Join us at the Junk Bar for a special evening featuring three great singer-songwriters, who unassumingly share totem with our feathered friends.

Magpie is from Dashville NSW, Joey Leigh Wagtail is a Dunghutti man living in Brisbane, and Mandy Hawkes is from the Northern Rivers region.

Magpie Diaries

Born from the Australian bush, Magpie Diaries are from music mecca Dashville, NSW and deliver an authentic heartfelt lyrically driven folk rock sound, dreamy alt country, bathed in some kind of pyschedelic 70's folk/Americana velour.

The latest full length offering from Magpie Diaries - Some Kind Of View - released October 2025, is an incredible collection of ten songs, written by Magpie and self-produced by the band on home soil over that unsettling period of 5 years 2020-2025.

Blending soul, country, and ‘70s folk-rock, Some Kind of View is more than a collection of songs - it’s a time capsule, a heartfelt nod to family and to the land.  Lush arrangements with trademark harmonies wrapping Magpie’s reflective lyrics in warmth and weight - as heard in singles Go Anywhere, Old Road, Love Is Hard, History, Time Moves On and Land For Sale, which recieved high rotation across ABC Country and various community radio across the country.

Earlier this year, after a wrath of DIY summer touring in support of the Some Kind Of View album, playing their own headline shows and also supports with The Cruel Sea, Fanny Lumsden, William Crighton, Emily Lubitz and Cordovas (US),  Magpie and his band mates retreated to the Huon Valley in Tasmania, to record the next album. With Engineer Jed Pickett at the helm, a bunch of players all nestled around the kitchen table, recorded 9 songs in 6 hours, in a session all songwriters dream of. A fine pudding. A new album, built from more of a traditional folk, bluegrass style approach, but a little more wack and with out any of the tradition. Just good humble pudding. 

Joey Leigh Wagtail

Joseph Douglas, aka ‘Joey Leigh Wagtail’, is an 893rd-generation Dunghutti man and a profoundly gifted singer-songwriter. Blending folk, heavy blues, and country music into an emotive and soul-stirring sound, Joey’s music is a testament to his cultural heritage and artistic depth. His lyrics delve into the human experience, offering an experience that tears your heartstrings and then stitches them back together again.

For Joey, creativity is both a compulsion and a calling—a way to connect with the universe and inspire others to embrace their own artistry. Describing songwriting as a practice of seeking answers from the depths of his heart to the farthest reaches of the universe, Joey believes in the transformative power of music. As a father, Joey sees this passion reflected in his young daughter, whose uninhibited imagination inspires him daily.

After spending years in a musical wasteland, Mandy Hawkes began to write songs again, and became preoccupied with singing about mortality, end times and other serious themes.  Raised on a steady diet of Hymns and Dylan, Mandy’s unconventional voice is equal parts weary soul traveller and folk storyteller.  

She sings authentic songs that will move even the stoniest of hearts, marrying folk traditions with Australian country. Mandy has performed at Mullumbimby Music Festival, Tamworth Country Music Festival and Warburton Folk Festival.

In 2017 she released her debut EP The Water Was Deep, a collection of songs contemplating death, afterlife and Hawkes’ religious upbringing - recorded and co-produced with Bill Chambers at Chambers Avenue Studio.  In 2021 Mandy released her debut full length album, recorded and co-produced with Jordan Power.  This body of work exhibits more mature songwriting and diverse sounds, yet maintains Hawkes’ deeply personal and authentic narratives.  

‘Mandy’s Music is real! She writes songs that assure us she’s actually lived what she’s singing about! And I love her voice!'  - Bill Chambers