On Friday 20th March this year, and with the COVID pandemic confining listeners and DJs to their homes instead of local bars and clubs for their weekly hit of music, MyhouseYourhouse spotted an opportunity to wake from retirement and fill the void. Just over one week from relaunch, the community had featured over 50 shows and DJs from across the UK and USA, and had served up over 160hrs of streams to over 10,000 listeners.
Well at home linking modern cloud-based apps and online platforms to bring creative ideas to life, Alex Traska, director of Nottingham creative agency Makermet, broadcast the first new show on a brand new website within 16hrs of proposing the idea via a post on the brand’s still-functioning Facebook page. Alex commented...
“Internet technology has come a long way since 2005, but it’s a bit like being around a kid that’s growing up; you don’t notice changes happening. Back then, the idea of streaming music or video over the internet was still a bit of a renegade vocation. Household names like Netflix, Spotify, Boiler Room and Soundcloud simply didn’t exist - if you wanted to do it, you had to build a platform from scratch and find a way of promoting it without access to the power of social media. Now, our rapid relaunch was possible because we could link services like Squarespace, Twitch, Google, Calendly and Facebook to open and promote a working prototype in hours rather than months.”
Founders Erick and Alex first met on a message board that was an online focal point for the global underground house music community. During late night discussions via MSN messenger, they realised that they had between them the means to build a website, stream audio via a server set up in Erick’s basement in a small Norwegian town, and invite a global audience of DJs and listeners to get involved. What seemed an insignificant decision at the time, also sealed the station’s success, and enabled it’s easy relaunch today…
“We decided that not only would MyhouseYourhouse always be free to listen to and for DJs to present on, but that we would never sell advertising on the site. The costs of running the website and the higher-quality streaming server added in 2007 were met entirely by donations. Because nobody was earning money out of anybody else’s work there was never any greed or jealousy. Everyone was in it for the right reason...to have a good time.”
With no beefs about who was earning what, the station’s DJs, many of whom ran their own underground music events, were keen to spread the word of the global collective and brand. As a result, the MyhouseYourhouse flag flew at annual events in the USA including the SXSW Festival and the Miami Winter Music Conference, as well as at events in California, London, Liverpool, Cape Town and beyond.
Fast-forward to 2018 and instant audio and video streaming technology lived in everybody’s pockets. People could ‘go live’ on Facebook, Instagram or any number of platforms with the click of a button, and the sheer marketing power (and budget) behind the biggest brands in online music streaming like Boiler Room and NTS Radio made it difficult for a non-commercial streaming platform to compete, and the station retired.
With the introduction of social distancing measures leaving people looking to replace face-to-face communities they’d lost, MyhouseYourhouse brought their original community back together, restoring friendships and collaborations that stretch across the Atlantic Ocean. Although the new temporary roster of shows features DJs from all over the UK, the US, Canada and even Thailand, you’ll find a particularly rich crop of Nottingham DJs including Beane Noodler of Soul Buggin’, Chris Quadrant of Rugkutta Sound System, Gallery Sounds regulars Jodie and Coxie, Dizzy Ink’s Benjamin, Connect4Music.co.uk’s Rich Powell and many more.
Speaking of the relaunch Alex said…
“The response has been inspirational and heart-warming. An enormous thanks goes out to all the DJs making a huge effort with their shows and video setups, and to all the listeners who’ve been dancing in their kitchens and living rooms! It’s really given people something to look forward to, and some light-hearted fun during a time when both of those things are thin on the ground.”
MyhouseYourhouse is broadcasting live every day, for at least the rest of April.
You can catch-up with the last 14-days of broadcasts, on-demand, via the Twitch archive.
Check the schedule on the homepage to see who’s live today, or follow them on Twitch to be notified when live broadcasts start.
The station is dedicated to the memory of Erick Anderson, 1982 - 2008.
www.myhouseyourhouse.net
