More often than not, Ally O’Neil can be found surrounded by a few thousand records. “Music is the reason I wake up every day,” she says. “Other than my friends and family, there’s nothing [else] I really care about.” Her ever growing personal archive is dominated by jazz and blues, soul and funk, gospel and 80s hits—but her passion goes beyond collecting. At 24, O’Neil is the first resident D.J. at Living Room, the private members’ club in Los Angeles that, since discreetly opening its doors in October 2024, has hosted performers from the singer Beck to the D.J. Prospa and the comedian Fred Armisen.
For O’Neil, it all began at age 12, with a Hank Williams record she picked up from a local store in her hometown of Bend, Oregon, using her babysitting money. “I got the bug,” she says. “I didn’t have a lot of friends growing up, so music was my escape and my records were my friends.”
