Pride Month Playlists: CIAO MALZ’s Inspirations

The next instalment in out Pride Playlists is courtesy of CIAO MALZ, aka Malia DelaCruz. I love this one, as there’s so many tracks featured here that I listen to myself. That’s enough from me, let’s hear from the artist.

Okay, so this is a playlist of songs to bring down the house! Not a very well-built home, but I’m not a house architect. I am, however, the architect of this playlist. Some of these songs are loud, some are quiet, but they all have it. Each one carries their bags in their own way. One is even called Bags.

All of these songs have been subjected to my TouchTunes activity. Just last week, I played at least four of them (or about $16 in coins) at a Waffle House in Pigeon Forge, Tennessee. It was that expensive, mostly because the cheap songs were all by Luke Wallen or his musical cousins. I digress, but I had to bring my culture to them.

It might seem strange to include so many sad songs here, but honestly, I don’t think the happy ones could exist without them. A while ago, I visited a friend in Berkeley and we ended up at a brewery where a guy was quietly playing an acoustic set in the corner. He sang Casimir Pulaski Day, and at the time I thought, now why would he sing that in here, right now? But time passed, and I get it now. I really do.

A final category in this playlist: songs I can’t listen to all the time because they make me go insane. This includes The Night the Lights Went Out in Georgia and Ride. I went to a basketball game in February that somehow led to a bar, then another bar, and finally this weird country club-ish place. I wanted to leave. Then they played The Night the Lights Went Out in Georgia. I stayed.

You can hear CIAO MALZ’s Safe Then Sorry EP on Bandcamp, Spotify, and YouTube Music. MALZ plays with Salt and Tuxis Giant in Ridgewood, NY on the 24^th of August – head to Instagram, Facebook, or TikTok for details.

Header photo by Gus Philippas