HouseBound
A series of quarantine mixes designed to distract and entertain during the 2020 lockdown.
I’ve been making and producing DJ mixes on YouTube for over 11 years and in the last couple of years I’ve really got into using Twitch as a platform to DJ live and connect to my audience. During the 2020 pandemic, people around the world were confined to their homes with most shops, stores and all restaurants closed. It was a grim time for a lot of people and I really wanted to do something to help lift spirits and entertain people who are confined to their homes.
The idea for HouseBound came about organically as a matter of need. I ramped up the number of live streams I was producing and appeared as an online House DJ a lot more frequently than before. In order to establish a strong web presence, I branded these mixes HouseBound and used Restream to broadcast live across Facebook, Twitch, YouTube and other video platforms.
The logo represents a stylistic view of a cityscape as well as bars on a graphic equalizer. The suggestion that music encapsulates our own cities is a deliberate one and reminds us that while it is reccomended that we remain within our city limits, we can still party indoors and have a good time.
HouseBound is designed to be a lot more fluid than other live DJ mix performances. There is interaction with viewers, people can suggest tracks to play or genres to switch to. It was a lot of fun to make and produce because of that crowd interaction and trying as best as I can to simulate that nightclub feel that is a gaping hole in our list of restricted social activities.
Right now, this online DJ mix series lives in the bubble that is the Spring/Summer 2020. I might continue with these mixes right through the year and into 2021, I might just leave them as they are. If you have watched any of them, let me know what you thought. Your feedback is valuable and it helps to shape the future of my music.
Catch up on any missed episodes by watching the entire DJ mix playlist on YouTube.