Stop thinking of iPods as personal stereos. The latest trend turns them into portable DJ consoles, allowing you to impose your musical tastes on a crowd of strangers. Bring-your-own iPod parties are springing up from Manchester to Melbourne, letting clubbers take turns plugging their MP3 players into the sound system. It is a newly democratic way to decide what a dancefloor will be listening to - and along the way is turning amateur DJs into local club heroes.

It is 10pm on a February Saturday night in North London, and inside the smoky Progress Bar a dozen volunteer DJs are refining their playlists. Between now and 1am, each will have a 15-minute slot in which to entertain around 100 people, his or her musical choices streaming through the pub speakers as video screens above show footage from Seventies TV series. The DJs can play pretty well anything they like, which is why tonight's eclectic mix ranges from the Sex Pistols to Depeche Mode, from 50 Cent to The Osmonds. Television themes and film soundtracks go down particularly well. All that matters is finding tunes that will get the crowd dancing.

This is the monthly Playlist club night - the March event will be held here tonight - and a panel of judges is on hand to decide who will win the prizes. "We're looking for people who in 15 minutes can make an inert audience move," explains Jonny Rocket, who, with his wife Lisa, has organised the free event.

February's participants - picking stage names such as DJ Twiglet - include a student, a sound engineer, a bedroom creator of "mash-up" tunes, and an apparent transvestite whose own musical creation lasts around eight minutes before groans from the crowd force the judges to call "Next!". The judges score each act by holding up number cards, and the act with the highest score wins iPod accessories donated by sponsors.

Tonight's winner turns out to be DJ Akimeder, who has mixed together tracks by Cher, Steps and the Beatles to create highly danceable new tunes. He has also woven in the BBC cricket theme.

"We tell the judges to consider how much the crowd is dancing, audience reaction, and the performer's imagination," explains Lisa, 34, a housing manager by day. "This is self-expression through music," adds Jonny, 40, a journalist on a computer magazine. "Discovering the iPod reintroduced me to music, and once you're interested in things you want to share them."

Playlist has been organising these events since last August and is now working with affiliates in cities such as Philadelphia. Rival UK promoters are also running iPod parties from Brighton to Birmingham, with equivalents in Australia, Japan, Germany and Holland. Jonny and Lisa took their inspiration from a pair of New York artists and DJs, Andrew Andrew, whose popular weekly iPod party night is one of the oldest. "I guess you could call this legal sharing of music," Jonny reflects. "It's only going to grow."

"I never understood that 'superstar DJ' culture where someone gets paid £1,000 to play someone else's records," adds Lisa, a sparky redhead wearing a nose ring, who is also the warm-up DJ. "At least we give people the opportunity to have a go. You see them leaving at the end of the night with a smile. It's self-empowerment."

david.rowan@thetimes.co.uk

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