Throughout the global pandemic, technology has proven to be vital in several ways. It has allowed many companies to continue working as they were while onsite. It has allowed retailers to continue selling goods. It has assisted in the delivery of restaurant food (although the service fees charged to these restaurants is another story). Technology during the pandemic has allowed people to keep their sanity by engaging in a virtual wold.
The live music and nightclub industry has been devastated by the pandemic. Bands, DJs, and singers no longer have venues to perform the arts they love dearly. Technology has enabled them to keep in touch with their fans.
I have heard about online events where different bands play live from their own residences as part of a virtual concert. Thanks to technology, music is still being recorded and released for sale as the various artists, DJs, and producers are able to do their own recording from several sites and have it mixed together at the end.
Defected Records has been hosting live, virtual music festivals every Friday. These festivals feature different DJs each week spinning both classics and the latest in house, techno, garage, disco, tech house, etc. Some of my favourite DJs appearing on Defected Records live streams are Carl Cox, Monki, Gorgon City, Sam Devine, Simon Dunmore, and Themba. In case you did not know, they are all house music DJs.
Speaking of house music, Pan Pot has been doing live shows from Berlin, Germany. One such show was performed while they operated a boat giving us a tour of the city via one of the rivers snaking through the city. Their specialty is tech house and they spin the latest and greatest songs of the genre.
Bodhi Satva is another favourite of mine. He hails from Central African Republic and is also a producer. He produces house music, but is known for a special sub-genre of house coined Ancestral Soul. He is the Godfather of Ancestral Soul which blends house music with traditional African instruments and vocals. He hosts a live show every Friday where he spins a nice mix of Ancestral Soul, soulful house, and classic house. This past Friday he also spun a new roots reggae track.
DJ Jazzy Jeff from Jazzy Jeff and the Fresh Prince has been spinning live online throughout the pandemic. As I type this article, he is hosting a virtual Halloween show. He has guest video windows for fans to stream from their homes. The party is a mix of the good Hip Hop (1980s through 1990s), R&B, and dance music. Canada’s DJ Scratch Bastid just started spinning as I type. This is just awesome!
I had to take a break from writing this article because the music spun by Jazzy and Scratch was so good that I had to get up and dance! I got a pretty good workout from dancing and even doing some strength exercise while enjoying the show.
Since travel is severely restricted, I found another way to pass the time during the upcoming dark months of winter… virtual travel! I am both a rail fan and av geek. I play X-Plane 11 and Infinite Flight for aviation, and Train Sim World and Train Simulator 2021 for rail.
I found some enthusiasts on Twitch who live stream their flights or rail journeys. There are quite a few real-world pilots streaming X-Plane 11 on Twitch. These streams are interactive and viewers may ask questions during the show. The pilots are really cool and helpful towards those of us who are still learning to fly or are simply interested in aviation.
There is yet one more method for virtual travel… watching videos on YouTube. There are a lot of videos taken by people either walking or driving around cities and countryside in various lands. I watched an interesting walk through Moscow filmed in 4K. I also watched another filmed in London. I found a YouTuber who films drives around Abuja, Nigeria and its surrounding countryside. It is the next-best thing to being there. I will surely visit these cities after the pandemic.
I discovered that some of these events can be a cure for loneliness. I was feeling pretty down about the current semi-lockdown and its effect on Halloween. I decided to start writing this post because I realized I had not written to this site in nearly two weeks. While I was writing, I remembered that Jazzy Jeff was hosting a virtual Halloween party. I tuned in and resumed writing until the music made me take a break and dance. The party made me feel happy and forget about the situation that we are all in this year.
