The Space Lady brings her ethereal Casio-driven pop back to Brunswick Ballroom in January.
Some musicians take the long way around to find their audience. For The Space Lady, that journey involved two decades of busking on the streets of Boston and San Francisco, a stolen accordion, a battery-powered Casio keyboard and a winged helmet that would eventually become the stuff of legend.
The Space Lady returns to Melbourne in January following a sold-out 2024 Australian tour, ready to deliver another evening of otherworldly pop covers and cosmic originals.
The Space Lady
- 10 January 2026
- Brunswick Ballroom
Check out our gig guide here.
Born Susan Dietrich in Colorado in 1948, The Space Lady began her musical journey as a street performer in the early 1980s, playing accordion and wearing a silver plastic helmet fitted with wings and a flashing red light. When her accordion was stolen and destroyed, she switched to a Casiotone MT-40 keyboard equipped with a phase shifter and drum machine, accidentally pioneering the synth-driven sound that would eventually earn her a devoted following decades later.
The Space Lady retired from busking in 2000, completely unaware that interest in her music was growing internationally. Her inclusion on Irwin Chusid’s outsider music compilation Songs in the Key of Z Vol. 2 in 2002 introduced her ethereal covers of Ghost Riders in the Sky and Major Tom to a new generation of listeners. In 2013, UK label Night School released The Space Lady’s Greatest Hits, and she found herself performing in proper venues around the world for the first time. Now in her mid-70s, she continues to tour with the same helmet, the same haunting soprano voice and the same ability to transform familiar songs into something genuinely transcendent.
For more information, head here.
