DJ Chroma posted this article by Sasha Frere-Jones in The New Yorker about live bands using laptops on stage, which made me think.

When I’m not colouring in or sticking bits of the internet together with gaffer tape, I also like DJing. I remember the day I finally got my own Technics 1200s and a bad-ass Ecler scratch mixer. I practised very hard at first, then gradually a bit less hard. Then one day I realised that I had no new records because I had become so busy doing grown–up daytime stuff that I had no time to go to tiny crowded record shops and stand in line to use one of three available turntables to skip through the noisy bits of a bunch of 12s I often knew nothing about.

So I started using a laptop. I gave up scratching, juggling and the like (which I was only OK at after years of practice) and concentrated on playing music that people actually liked to dance to. I found that most of the labels I like sell downloads directly from their sites, and this meant that the night before I had to go out and play I could spend a couple of hours panic buying tunes from the comfort of my sofa.

Now I’m DJing more than ever (which was never very much to be fair) and people are actually dancing. My mixes aren’t always perfect, but no-one seems to care except me. And it’s all thanks to the laptop. My 1200s still look cool in my flat and occasionally I fire them up, but mostly they’re just really expensive conversation pieces. Come to think of it that 12" laptop is still pretty bulky. Can I justify spending £400 on a Tonium Pacemaker?