On Friday night, the weekend started with a DJ set from Kate St Shields. She’s been wrestling for weeks with hardware and software so that she can stream online (and avoid copyright takedowns). Finally, she cracked it, and for the first time in months I got to hear Kate DJing.
It was great. Kate was entertaining, performing rather than just playing records. The chat window was full of friends and a zoom was opened up to some of the people dancing. It was one of the most sociable times I’ve had since lockdown and the mix is now online at Mixcloud. (The title comes from one of the songs she played, by the band Yacht).
And then I reminded myself. This is shit. As good as it is, as much work has gone into it, it’s nothing like the real thing and I can’t let myself be tricked by it. This is the sort of thing that turns up in dystopian fiction. All those people in different windows came straight out of Forster’s 1909 story The Machine Stops.
Kate’s next set is on December 28th, on Mixcloud, starting at 8pm GMT. It will be great. But hopefully, the next time I see her play after that is in the real world.
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