“Sorry, John, but we have to let you go.”

And with that short statement – in December 2020, right before Christmas, in the middle of a global pandemic – I lost a job I loved and the pleasure of working with one of the best teams in my career.

“She’s gone, John.”

January 2021 and my sister was on the phone from the U.K., one of those horrible middle of the night calls we all dread, to inform me our mum had died unexpectedly of natural causes. I still recall a few weeks later watching on my computer laptop screen as my sister’s shoulders heaved with sobs at the funeral. I couldn’t make the trip to Scotland to lay my mum to rest because of travel restrictions so had to remotely pay my respects from Toronto, Ont. courtesy of video networking. That was absolutely devastating.

“He’s had a mini stroke.”

My father-in-law took very ill in March 2021 when a vein in his neck got blocked. He had a stent put in, got through it, but the recovery was long. It’s been very hard watching a former Toronto District Fire Chief lose the use of his left hand and shrink to a physical shell of his former self.

“It’s cancerous.”

May 2021 and I started radiation treatment for a grape-sized lump on the side of my right cheek. The biopsy … laying on a machine and having your head strapped to the table by a rubber facial mesh that has been moulded just for you … not a barrel of laughs.

Suffice to say I was experiencing the worst period of my life over a very dark six months. Those that know me quickly realise my glass is always half full, but at that point in time, I could see it quickly draining and I was staring at the bottom.

If you’re still reading this after that depressing opening, please continue. It gets better and I’ll explain how.

Music has always been my therapy. I was very lucky to be a teenager in ’80s England so the range of choice and genres was very varied. Top of the Pops was our weekly TV ritual, Duran Duran battled Spandau Ballet for pop supremacy and Smash Hits was required reading. Music – good and bad, depending on your taste – permeated British life and I was swept along with it all. My “boom box” and Sony Walkman went through more batteries than I care to recall. What a melodic time to be alive!

This whole article could be about those heady times, but I digress.

Back to mid-2021. Over a year into a pandemic, locked down, all masked up and nowhere to go. Especially nightclubs. Along with a ton of pubs and restaurants, many clubs simply didn’t survive and closed for good.

One of those was Remix Lounge situated at Dundas and Dovercourt in Toronto. I was a regular there most Saturday nights to hear and watch DJ Lazarus and his sets. His brand is called Living On Video and most weeks he played Alternative, New Wave, Post-Punk, Synthpop, Goth, New Romantic, Industrial, Indie, EBM, Future Pop, Electronica, Britpop, Darkwave, Shoegaze, Minimal Wave, Electro, Cold Wave, Dreampop, Ska, House, EDM, Techno and Pop. Something for everyone, really, if you’re into that scene.

I liked his style a lot and hired him to be the DJ at my 50th birthday at the – now defunct too – Duke of Gloucester pub, formerly at Yonge and Isabella. It was a brilliant night, the last one I had at my favourite Toronto pub, great memories forever … and a lot of credit for that goes to Lazarus.

But I missed the regular in-person music scene and needed an alternative. I wanted something to make me – not forget, per se, because what doesn’t kill us makes us stronger – but to put aside the previous shitty six months and be entertained for a few hours a week.

I don’t think that’s too much to ask, is it?

So in June 2021, when I discovered that Lazarus had started streaming his music on the virtual platform Twitch, I was intrigued. Up to then I’d only thought of Twitch as a channel for online gamers, a hangout for people to shoot ‘em up and run around fragging other noobs in a parallel universe.

But as I started to explore it, I found that a lot more DJs were taking their music online with regular shows, chat rooms and like-minded music-craving communities. I was instantly hooked and jumped into that world with both feet. Virtually, of course.

But sometimes, when the mood takes me – and a glass of wine or two – I’ll boogie around the living room. I stream on my TV using apps and prefer that visual aspect to wearing headphones.

Lazarus was initially on both major platforms: Twitch and Mixcloud. Both have their pros and cons, people prefer one or the other … but I have leaned more towards Twitch as I feel it gives the DJ a better chance to actually earn a living from it. I regularly tip the DJs I support. I see it as the entry fee to a virtual club night. Tips are optional and can be any amount you want.

On Twitch you can subscribe to a DJ (alleviates adverts and the DJ gets a cut), buy “Bits” (their form of online currency that you can “cheer” in the chatroom) and other forms of showing your appreciation. Some DJs perform online for only an hour, some five or more, some go the distance.

On a recent weekend to celebrate 2,000+ Twitch followers, Lazarus played a set for 15 hours straight. I think I tuned in for only about half of that! But respect due to him for that marathon effort.

Lazarus started DJ’ing on radio in 1993 and in clubs in 1996 at the aforementioned Remix Lounge, plus at Velvet Underground, also in Toronto.

His streaming shows are Double Trouble on Tuesday, where he plays two songs by the same artist. There’s also Panic: ’80s/’90s tunes; Britannia: Britpop/Madchester/UK Indie; Bleach: ’90s Alternative; Spellbound: Goth and Industrial; Retro Guilty Pleasures, Pump Up The Volume, Thursday Trivia nights and more.

I wanted to talk to some of the DJs making a go of it online and find out more about their experiences pivoting their efforts during the pandemic. Was it an easy transition? Did the communities embrace them? Is this the way of the future?

I phoned Lazarus for a chat and started by asking when did he sense the change happening with the loss of his in-person DJ and events business?

“When the pandemic hit Toronto in March 2019, I was doing an event and noticed that my attendance was down about 75 per cent on my last party that I did, so I knew things were changing pretty rapidly. And then the government shut us down,” he recalls.

“They said it would be only for two weeks and then it would all be over. After the two weeks I got depressed and lost 75 per cent of my income. Luckily I had a little part-time job to help but I lost everything.

“I noticed some DJs were doing some streaming and I questioned myself. If I do streaming and give my product away for free, maybe people won’t want to come out to my nights and pay cover? But if I didn’t do streaming maybe I wouldn’t stay relevant and quickly be forgotten. So I was late to the game compared to a lot of other people,” he says.

“I was looking at all the different services, such as Twitch, Mixcloud and Periscope and chose Mixcloud for my streaming to begin with. I was on there for a year before I started using Twitch properly in June of 2021. So I’ve been streaming for two years overall online.

“I chose Mixcloud due to Twitch not having their copyright stuff sorted out. In the terms of service it says they do not want DJs lip syncing or doing karaoke … anything to do with music. If video games had a pop song playing in the background they could get their stream shut down. I didn’t want to put my time, money and energy into something that may get shut down,” he explains.

“Mixcloud said everything is sorted out. So you could go on there and play music all day and they had it all legal. But Twitch has a much larger community. There’s more people overall, easier to discover streamers; so at the end of the day I joined Twitch because that is where the momentum was. I moved over there and tried to rebuild my streaming following that I had on Mixcloud. Being late to the game made it way more difficult too because everybody already had all their viewing patterns and the DJs they liked on Twitch, so I was the new kid on the block trying to carve my little space. It’s been an uphill battle,” adds Lazarus.

“As the pandemic weans and people go back to their real world, watching Twitch – or any other streaming service – is greatly diminished. A lot of my peers in Toronto are already doing DJ nights, but I’m not comfortable, yet, doing that regularly. I’ve got post-traumatic stress syndrome from all of it,” he says.

“I’m starting to plan some events, but for the fall. I’ve already booked Halloween at Velvet Underground and I’ve got an amazing band. So I’m working on stuff. This summer I am doing a couple of fetish nights and maybe one concert DJ gig.”

Will Lazarus continue the online events when his in-person business is back to good standing?

“Yes, I’m hoping that my stream I do on Tuesday afternoons will continue,” he replies. “I would like to think – that if I actually get back into the clubs – that I will be able to sort out something where I can do the streaming from the club as well. Have a multi-camera set-up in the club so people can see me DJ’ing and the music videos and get a vibe for it. So people who don’t live in the area for the club nights will still be able to enjoy it and participate in a way. It might be the new way going forward for those DJs who have built up a following online.

“But at the same time I still question it,” he says. “If you can watch a stream online, for free, instead of having a shower, putting your clothes on, drive, pay for parking, $10 to get into the club and $30 on drinks … if you can get the product – the music – online for free … will it have unintended consequences of hurting the night? I don’t know. But those are the things I think about.

“You would hope that the community of viewers would be kind to the community of real-life dancers – because they’re the same people. I’ve been lucky I haven’t had cruel people in my streams, for the most part. The ‘ban hammer’ comes down pretty quickly!”

I was curious, from a DJ standpoint, how the online and in-person events differ for him.

“The experience is completely different. I prefer the in-person DJ’ing; the instant feedback and gratification of seeing the crowd dance and move to your music – and controlling the dancefloor in-person – is amazing. That’s what makes most DJs want to be a DJ. Not many people say, ‘I want to be a DJ and sit in a chair in my kitchen,’” quips Lazarus.

“When you’re DJ’ing online you can interact and talk in the chat … but it’s not the same. You don’t get the same satisfaction. I will say this: in a nightclub environment my main focus is the dancefloor and I do have to keep in mind not just that everyone is having a good time, but also the business of the nightclub … which is usually selling drinks. So you have a lot of pressure on you in-person to make sure that people there are satisfied, they’re getting their money’s worth of entertainment and being happy,” says Lazarus.

“Online, my freedom of music I can play is broader, because I don’t have to worry about a dancefloor so I can play weirder music, or slower music, lots of newer music. That’s what I’ve been focusing on: my Spellbound show is trying to play newer music on that stream so when I do go back into the clubs I’ve ‘trained’ people to appreciate more newer music,” he explains.

“When you get a dancefloor going and it’s packed, and people cheer ‘WOO-HOO!’ and run to the dancefloor … everybody – including me, the DJ – we’re all sharing a single emotional response all at the same time. That moment is what got me into DJ’ing. It doesn’t matter who you are – religion, colour of your skin, what you believe in politically – none of it matters. You are all on that dancefloor sharing that single emotion. And that unifies all of us. Online streaming, you don’t really get that.”

Lazarus goes on to explain his feelings of what the experience has been in connecting solely with the online community over the last 18 months or so.

“The relationship I have with the online viewers is different than with the people that come out to the club nights,” he says. “When I’m streaming I don’t always talk on the microphone because I want the music to speak for me, but I am active in the chat. Some people have more intimate conversations with me in the chat than they can have in the club.

“I’ve met lots of people online that I haven’t met in real life. You have to be personable and friendly in the chat and I try to do that in real life too. Build up that sense of connection and community. If people feel connected to you, they are a little more loyal in their viewing and attendance. I try to use social networking to promote my events: Instagram, Twitter and mostly through Facebook.

“When I’m in a club, the attendance will only be from people in the Toronto area, whereas on Twitch, the world is my audience. So even though the time zones are crazy I can have people in Australia watching me during their lunchtime, when it’s 2:00 a.m. or something, here in Toronto. Your viewership becomes broader, but at the same time, your competition becomes broader. Obviously every major city has a person like me doing something similar. So all of a sudden, when you’re on Twitch, you’re not as unique as you think you were. But it’s been great! I’ve met some really wonderful people, mostly from America, who do video dance parties and similar types of streams. That’s been really nice, actually,” he adds.

“I was working nights through the pandemic so I couldn’t stream for the most part. More of my peers online were able to stream longer sets, more often than me. So they were able to reach different time zone demographics. When I did the 15-hour stream, I went from 3:00 p.m. until 6:00 a.m., I was able to hit different time zones so picked up viewers I’d never seen before. I was also very lucky and lots of kind DJs on there were raiding me because I was going late. I am thinking about doing that once a month actually, maybe 10 or 12 hours on the last Friday. Keeping it open format, start in the afternoon and go to four or five in the morning.”

“Raiding” is short for a “Raid Train” on Twitch. This is when a DJ is finishing a set and then joins another DJ’s set, thus carrying their followers over with them. It’s a really smart and fun way to discover DJs that play similar music to the ones you regularly listen to. And it’s an organic way for the recipient DJ to gain some new followers and enjoy extra exposure.

Lazarus is not resting on his aural laurels though, and is already planning to create some fresh offerings: “By the end of May I’m going to rejig some of my shows and start a new one called ‘Records I Bought as a Teenager’ all-vinyl set. You’re the first person I told!”

What other online DJs does Lazarus follow and how does his set-up work when he’s streaming?

“DJ Jeff Moyer in Chicago does similar stuff to me and he’s one of my favourite Twitch DJs, for sure. It’s a good quality product, he has a good community, good people … so he’s a good person to look up to on Twitch.

“I have no moderators. I’m not against mods but I don’t know anybody who would want to spend their whole Saturday night looking for assholes in my chat! Me streaming online … I can put myself through that, right? I don’t want any friends or associates to have expectations to have to leave their Saturday night open to be on Twitch. It’s a big ask.

“Mods are great because they can help the chat get going by posting questions and thanking people more frequently than I can. But at the end of the day, a mod is not imperative for me at this stage. Now, if I had 10,000 followers and 400 people watching then I would probably need a mod. As it stands now I try to be present in the chat,” explains Lazarus.

“It’s difficult, though, because you’re balancing out all the equipment and trying to properly DJ while looking at the chat. It’s like reading a book when you’re DJ’ing! Sometimes I miss requests or comments – I can’t look at it 100 per cent of the time – as I’m looking for music, trying to mix and taking care of all the equipment.

“It’s important to be connected to the audience and some of that connection means looking at the camera and making eye contact,” he says. “When you watch my streams, my eyes are down – maybe 75 per cent of the time – because I’m reading the chat, typing in the chat, and/or looking for music in searches. I have two computers on the go at the same time and then I have a monitor in front of me as well to see what videos I’m playing. So I have three different screens I’m looking at the same time.”

Lazarus ends our conversation with his thoughts of how this experience has shaped him as a DJ and how he will take all that moving forward.

“One of the things I take with me is the sense of community building – it’s difficult to do that, it’s kind of an organic thing, you can’t force it. I have enjoyed my streaming, and as going back into clubs becomes a thing, how to integrate the technology aspect of Twitch into my real life gigs and honour both communities. At that point I’m servicing the real life people and the virtual people; how do I combine those two communities into one to make them vibe together?” he ponders.

“I can picture having a stream at a club night and someone there in person going on their phone, on Twitch, and participating in the chat. I can image people would be curious. What are the online people saying about this night? Or people bragging, ‘Hey you guys are a bunch of suckers for not being here! This is the best party I’ve ever been to! Hahaha!’” he laughs.

“There are concerns, too, where some people don’t like photos or images of them being taken at a nightclub. So you have to be aware of people’s privacy. It’s a bit messy. But it’s something to work through with the community and figure out what works best for both crowds, basically.

“I’m hoping by the end of this year, going into next year, that I’ll re-establish some events and figure out the online aspect of it and hopefully have a renaissance of my DJ nights in some capacity,” he says.

I started to hear about other DJs and get recommendations too. My good friend Sangeeta (who lives in the U.S.) said I should check out DJ Jake Rudh as I’d like the kind of music he plays. Sangeeta knows me very well and she was spot on.

Rudh (“R-U-D-H” as Jake spells out for his many listeners) has been DJ’ing events for 30 years, full-time for 15 years. He’s based in Minneapolis, MN, and – pre-pandemic – played at First Avenue and Uptown VFW.

His brand is called Transmission (named after the Joy Division song) and he plays on Twitch every Wednesday and Saturday starting at 8:00 p.m. His first Twitch show was April 9, 2020.

He has mentioned many times on his show that the pandemic affected his living and the streams are now the only source of income for his family via viewers’ tips. When did he sense the change happening with the loss of his in-person DJ and events business?

“For almost two weeks straight I was doing nothing but cancelling events or postponing them into the next year … and then having to postpone them again,” recalls Rudh in a phone call. “It’s been a very brutal year. But owning a DJ company that runs events and counts on people gathering for the event, and having that be your income was extra brutal for us and the family.

“Thank God Twitch came along fairly soon after COVID was a thing. Literally weeks. Twitch has been my go-to and proven to be an amazing platform to do what I do. And I just saw that other DJs were doing it. It’s like, OK, boy, the world is a completely different place all of a sudden,” says Rudh. “What are people like me doing to make money, make a living? I looked into it and the rest is history; here we are still doing it today.”

It’s very different to seeing a DJ perform in a club setting from watching them online. I wondered if Rudh’s regular fans had easily made the transition to virtual?

“Thankfully, I’ve been a DJ playing to the public for 30 years since doing parties in college! Professionally, for 15 years full time and then 20-22 years as a club artist. So that’s roughly 27 years of providing dance parties locally; that has given me some time to build up an audience within the Twin Cities and then, being a radio DJ for Minnesota Public Radio, The Current, that has expanded the Transmission brand and put a few more people on my radar,” he explains.

“But it wasn’t until this Twitch gig where Transmission’s brand really went global, along with the help of social media like Twitter, Instagram and Facebook. That is really the key that has helped me.”

Rudh gives a shout-out to his buddy, Matt Sebastian of Slicing Up Eyeballs: “We fit hand-in-glove. It’s been a beautiful thing, this relationship that Transmission and Slicing Up Eyeballs has had.

“All those folks followed me to Twitch because there were no club gigs, no shows happening, and people were starved for entertainment. They could now listen to – and watch – the videos that they loved and missed.

“One of the DJs I brought on and championed was Cindy (DJ Synthia) because she basically does what I do. She has a heart of gold and an amazing personality and is an absolute walking encyclopedia about this music and these eras that we play and I’ve just been ultra-impressed. I haven’t met her face-to-face yet and look forward to doing that!”

How much preparation goes into each online show?

“About three or four months into it I started to do themes every weekend so that’s where the prep work really had to happen,” explains Rudh. “I needed to keep these shows entertaining but yet educational, and making people want to come back to the show … not having to go, ‘Oh, you know, we saw Jake last week and he kinda does the same old thing.’ I want Transmission to be a different experience every time someone tunes in. That’s why the Wednesday shows are kind of like the freeform themeless gigs because people don’t know what’s coming next. I think that’s fun and exciting for everyone – including myself. There can be quite a bit of prep work for the weekend shows. Then on top of that is the Manatee …”

OK, let me stop you there for a minute, DJ. Before you go any further I have to explain your reference to the Manatee.

Manatee is the nickname of the denizens of the Twitch channel. They are highly intelligent and love a wide variety of music. Thus it has become a bit of a game sometimes where DJ Jake Rudh will try to sneak in tracks to stump the crowd.

The name comes from an autocorrect that DJ Jake Rudh made during a Duran Duran theme night on 2020-07-11 in the Twitch chat. “... so many people ...” became “... so manatee people…” and the rest is history.

Please carry on, DJ.

“Then on top of that is the Manatee … the community that has formed around my channel and digs shout-outs, or have found that it’s been really exciting for them to celebrate anniversaries, birthdays, new jobs and so on. Even on the opposite end we can be there for each other when something tragic happens like someone has lost a parent, a sibling or even a pet,” explains Rudh. That night Jake played The Love Cats by The Cure for a Manatee who lost her cat.

“That’s what really gives the show a heart and I am very honoured to be the DJ that connects the dots and make that happen. I have this amazing team of moderators that makes the channel happen behind the scenes and makes sure the chat room stays a positive place. We all know that chat rooms can get real nasty with all the trolls and that is just not allowed on Twitch Transmission programs,” he adds.

Will Rudh continue the online shows when his events business is back to good standing?

“Yes, 100 per cent. Will it look like it does today? I don’t know … and I’m not sure yet … I guess I won’t know until thrown back into the live events and I’m just starting to get my feet wet back into that.”

(Rudh opened for Toto the previous week and was due to open for Gary Numan the day after this interview on March 22, but Numan’s show was postponed due to illness.)

“I’m not hosting dance parties yet because that comfort level is not there yet for the majority of people – it’s different to just standing there watching a performance. I would love for it to be by summertime but every week and every day is different,” he says.

Similar to Lazarus, this experience has shaped Rudh as a DJ and he has some learnings from it all.

“This has really cemented what music means to people and how it has played a big role in their life,” he says. “Sometimes people are like, ‘Meh, it’s what I have on in the background,’ but with my channel I’m very lucky with the fact that the people who tune in on a regular basis are huge music fans. They love the eras that I play, the flashbacks, more ’70s, ’80s, ’90s playlists, and the educational part of being a radio and club DJ is I like to fuse in new entertainers and it’s usually artists that are inspired by those in the Transmission brand. I think that people find that exciting as well.

“There’s no doubt I will have programs that will be just be about newer artists within the last decade or so that are directly inspired by all the classic alternative bands and artists that I play.

“This whole Twitch experience and simply playing a song and seeing the feedback that is directly put out into the chat room is proof how important this music is and these artists are to people and I am beyond honoured that I am, again, able to connect the dots for folks. ‘I’m going to see this band play next week or month; would you play something by them?’ Of course! I’d be happy to.

“Music is an international language and this channel has been proof of that,” says Rudh.

Back to Toronto now for a chat with DJ Dreamdoctor who has been a DJ since 1990. Prior to our conversation, he filled out the history of his career.

“In the ’90s I was a radio DJ on the college radio station CFRE 91.9 FM out of Mississauga, Ont. where I had a weekly show called Radio Corrosion. Also during the ’90s I DJ’d at CIUT 89.5 FM out of downtown Toronto: a University of Toronto radio station where I did mostly overnight shifts,” explains Dreamdoctor.

“Throughout the ’90s I had a club residency at a club called the Blind Duck in Mississauga, where I hosted Alternative Thursdays with DJ Dreamdoctor. In addition I partnered with a house music DJ called DJ Tremor and together we hosted many private events but also sometimes spun at other clubs such as Whiskey Saigon in Toronto.

“In the 21st century, I continued to host infrequent private events but I retired from DJ’ing at clubs and on terrestrial radio. I did have a music podcast on SoundCloud that I started in 2012 called Neptunes and continued that until SoundCloud kicked all DJs off their site.

“The pandemic, in fact, brought me out of DJ retirement and in 2020 I became a regular DJ on Internet radio and on Mixcloud.

“Ever since 1990, I have always played – and continue to play – classic alternative music and new alternative music which continues the legacy of the classic alternative scene covering genres like Punk, Post-Punk, New Romantic, Synthpop, Goth, Darkwave, Industrial, Ska and alternative electronic music. Since 2020 I have also done numerous live streams on Mixcloud.

“Currently my radio show, Sensoria with DJ Dreamdoctor, airs on Flashback Alternatives every second and third Thursday of each month at 9:00 p.m. After each show debuts, it then repeats twice on the station. After it does, I upload each show onto my Mixcloud page for on-demand listening,” he explains.

“Up until recently I had a weekly live stream on Mixcloud also called Sensoria (sometimes Club Sensoria) but I have decided in 2022 to make the live streams less frequent so there is no longer a regular schedule for live streams. Those who follow me on Mixcloud, Twitter or Facebook receive notifications of all upcoming radio shows and live streams.”

I was curious why Dreamdoctor chose Mixcloud over Twitch.

“I was doing a radio show – which I still do – and got permission to upload the shows to Mixcloud and so I rediscovered the platform that way. Then I realized it was great for live streams. I think Twitch was around at the same time but it was mostly for gamers and these days they’re pretty vibrant when it comes to DJs as well.

“Mixcloud does pay the artists; they have a copyright agreement with the recording industry and they pay the artists and the labels. I like that about them, for sure. Twitch doesn’t really have that, but I think it’s interesting that they are bringing that gaming model to DJ’ing with a lot going on. People are buying and donating Bits, there’s points, thousands of emojis [called ‘Emotes’ on Twitch] that can be unlocked and purchased, plus Hype Trains. So it’s almost like a video game, right? It’s very unique in that way.

“I don’t know which one is going to win out in the end … maybe it’s not a competition? I do think it’s easier for DJs to monetize if that’s their goal. With clubs closing, people that did real gigs in 2019, they suffered a lot. So if they are able to monetize by using Twitch, then I think that’s wonderful.”

So, with a busy online presence, I asked if Dreamdoctor picked up regular listeners from other shows?

“I think that would be very true,” he replies. “A lot of the people that were listeners on the same streams as me would gravitate to my shows. So there’s some kind of cross-promotion but it’s not really planned … it’s more organic via meeting people and networking. Mixcloud have been great but they do need to work on a few things to improve that platform.”

Dreamdoctor goes on to lay out how the online and in-person events differ that he’s done. It seems to be a wide gap.

“If you’re talking about clubs, the difference is huge. There’s nothing like DJ’ing at a club when you’ve got a packed place and people right beneath your DJ booth dancing, coming up to you and making requests. Nothing will ever beat that experience, right?

“Livestreaming on the Internet is certainly a lot of fun and certainly rewarding – and of course you can’t see the people – but the key difference is that you’re getting listeners from all around the world tuning in. I’ve had people from South America, Mexico, all over Europe tuning in and that’s something you wouldn’t get at a club as they’re very local.

“Nothing beats the live club; however, this is an excellent substitute, particularly during the pandemic. Even now people are reluctant to go to a club. We’re not out of the woods yet.

“The pandemic kind of brought me out of DJ retirement, so if there’s any positive aspect out of this awful time, is that I got back into it. I will continue doing it. I don’t see myself going back into a club setting. Or a terrestrial radio station. They are much different now with a lot less room in the schedule for people who just play alternative so I can see myself continuing this for quite a long time on the Internet,” he adds.

Three online DJs with one thing in common: they all adapted to regular, virtual gigs and made the best of it during very trying and stressful times.

I know the work and effort that goes into these shows, the research, the complex technology, the tireless promotion, the rare moment when the stream buffers or the sound cuts out and the DJ just owns it – laughs it off, no one minds, we’re all human – and carries on with the set, or when their mum is tuning in, or they dance around on screen with their pet dog.

These communities of online DJs and chatroom friends have been a mental lifeboat to me, during some tough days. They are decent, supportive, fun people.

Or Manatees, if you prefer.

A huge thank you to the DJs featured in this article and for their profile photos. Manatees photo courtesy of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration Photo Library. Edited by Peter Carter. This article was nominated for a Canadian Online Publishing Award.