Sydney’s Tom Psaradellis back at cafe after lockdown hanging up his DJ Kante MeBlok pajamas

His day job is running a cafe in Sydney’s CBD, but Tom Psaradellis started a surprising venture during lockdown that became a smash hit.

Aussie Tom Psaradellis has hung up his pyjamas after moonlighting as a DJ in lockdown, returning to run his Sydney CBD cafe after the state exited lockdown after more than three months.

He had streamed his almost nightly DJ sessions on Facebook to bring people joy in lockdown under the name Kante Meblok.

“It started last year when lockdown came in. I think I was the first one worldwide to do it and I jumped on and started playing for people in lockdown as functions had been cancelled,” he told news.com.au.

“I didn’t use my Facebook profile with my real name. I made up a person and did it from there with zero friends. I’m at the point now where I have 1500 friends and quite a few people jump on and watch. I’m a bit of a character as well and that helps the interaction.”

Playing everything from soul and funk to house and rock by drawing from his collection of 7000 records, Mr Psaradellis would entertain people over an hour and was particularly popular on Fridays and Saturdays.

He also held themed nights such as My Big Fat Greek lockdown wedding, where he decked out his own dining table like a bride and groom’s main table, which attracted 2500 comments, as well as Let’s go to the pub and World’s worst songs themes.

His Big Fat Lockdown Greek Wedding set up. Picture: Supplied

His DJ persona always wore pajamas to the set and also talked about himself in the third person.

“It’s witty, quirky, a bit rude sometimes and it’s music,” he said. “I get messages daily saying ‘Thank you so much for keeping us sane’ so it was really affecting people in a good way as I think people were really struggling being stuck at home this time around for more than 13 weeks.”

The dad-of-two also admitted it was also a good distraction from the loss of business his cafe Tom & Gerry’s was experiencing, having only opened three years ago after a $1 million fitout.

“It could take a whole day to organise the night, so you forget about life. I’m not the kind of person that stresses very easily .... but with Covid there is nothing we can do to better the situation,” he said.

“It was depressing as I wasn’t getting up and going to work and making any money and music is a release. It took up time that I would have spent thinking about business and all my staff sitting at home.”

However, the 48-year-old admits he did get a bit of “backlash” from his family who had to try and escape the booming music elsewhere in the house, but they understood it helped him deal with the pause on his business.

One of his DJ set ups at home. Picture: Supplied

He plans to throw a party in real life. Picture: Supplied

Mr Psaradellis revealed he was going to miss his nightly DJ gig and planned to go out with a bang.

“It’s hard because I don’t want to stop but I’m not going to have the time with the cafe and functions are going to start happening again,” he said.

“I’m doing a party to end it all, a block party where all people are invited. It will be cheap entry to cover costs and any money left over will be given to charity. I expect around 150 to 200 people.”

He said it would also give people who have bonded over his Facebook page a chance to meet in person, often with groups of 10 to 20 people connecting and private messaging each other, even from interstate.

‘I’ll schedule it at time when borders are open and you have to wear your PJs,” he joked.

“I don’t know if they will as people will want to get their heels on and dress up and look snazzy out of lockdown, but that may be not the grand finale.

“It’s just something to piece it all together as people only know each other from little profile pictures on comments, so they will get to meet each other and me.”