An online radio collective all about sharing tunes and hanging with your homies.
Somewhere in the latter half of 2016, Andrew Witty and his then flatmate Sam Yates were both deep into their honour studies, both studying different degrees. But they were united by a love for music, in particular electronic music. The pair also had some experience in mixing tunes (Sam was a DJ on the side and Witty knew how to hold his own on the decks come party time), the boys decided they wanted to take their playlists and music picks to the airwaves. Finding a radio station keen to play their beats proved to be a bit of struggle but enter the student radio Salient FM (who are always looking for volunteers) and the boys had found their home. They were slotted into a two-hour show on Tuesdays’ from 9 – 11 pm, the duo rocked the airwaves with an eclectic range of tunes for friends and strangers alike and Misc. Wav was born.
A few shows in and their third flatmate (yours truly) came along for the ride. I joined the show filled with tunes, yarns, inside jokes, a six pack of VB’s or Fosters (whatever was cheaper) and mainly just having fun on the airwaves. Listeners were few but shows were many. The New Year rang in and misc.wav moved to a Thursday time slot of 6-8pm. Moving to a more popular time not only allowed us to keep the vibes we had built, but also gave us something to look forward to on a Thursday night.
FAST FORWARD 3 years later and the boys have both moved overseas. Sam headed to London to explore the grimy culture of the London underground scene, Witty ventured to Berlin after doing some detours through China and Japan. Their new explorations resulted in a sort of hiatus for misc.wav. It had moved to podcast sessions post-study and the boys were nowhere in sight.
When the boys would occasionally link up a show would be the first thing on their mind. Still enjoying their overseas endeavours, Covid-19 hit and decisions had to be made, Sam decided to stay in London, while Witty ventured home to NZ. This didn’t stop the boys from doing the occasional show and on April 21st, misc.wav announced a one-hour slot on London radio station Subtle Radio.
The show concluded and Witty excitedly knew this was the start of misc.wav becoming permanent. misc.wav was taking matters into its own hands and was going to drop misc.wav FM a 24/7 online radio station. May 11th was touted as the launch date and the boys came packed, now running with a posse of 6 other DJ’s. the Misc. Wav revolution was well and truly here. Almost a month into their launch, the dust and nerves have settled, and the routine of a daily DJ show have started to take shape. I sat down with my homie Witty and wanted to know how the whole idea came to fruition.
Witty my guy, welcome back to the land of the long white cloud. Where are you located at the moment? I know you’ve been all over the country since returning home during Lockdown.
Right now, I’m sitting in my mums’ garage, in rural South Island, in the great state of Ashburton, which for now is the temporary misc.wav HQ.
To get the classic question out the way, how was lockdown for you?
It was pretty productive. There were a lot of emotions going on, especially because I had to come back from overseas when I wasn’t expecting to be back in NZ this quick. It took me like a week to really decompress but it was quite nice because we were isolated by the beach in Waitarere and coming from the Grimy streets in Berlin to suddenly being on the beach in the sun in New Zealand, it made it a bit easier to be home again. But yeah in the end it was a productive time for me, I ended up making a bunch of music and then this radio thing took off.
Alright time to get into the misc.wav q’s, as stated above, after a nice 2 year run you and Sam decided to go on a wee hiatus, how did this decision come about?
Well misc.wav has basically gone through a few phases. It started as the Salient FM show, which was the root of everything. Then because we enjoyed it so much but didn’t have a radio station to play on we just recorded mixes as podcasts (which sounds so cliché in retrospect, like two white guys getting together to record a podcast haha) but we were just about the vibe of getting together and playing music so we did that for a while. We never had any plans of slowing down, it was life that kind of got in the way. I got a job in China and Sam was planning to move to London, so it was something we couldn’t really hold off. We ended up doing a few shows here and there, like I met up with him in London and he met up with me in Berlin, so we did shows but they were just archival shows.
Did you guys stay in contact a lot as you both scoured the globe? Was a return for misc.wav always on the cards or did that come about suddenly?
It’s never been a thing that we're doing or not doing, it’s something we just enjoyed doing so much that no matter how long it will be till we see each other, the first thing we’d want to do is have a mix together. Since we already have that background of doing the show together in the early days and both of us have such an array of tunes, we like spanning from different genres we never had like ‘a house set’ or ‘a dnb mix’. It was always just us selecting the tunes we’ve been vibing, so to answer the question it was never a thing of are we going to do this or not but more of a when shall we do the next show or set, so it never faded or went away.
Did travelling have a huge impact on your music knowledge or selection of tunes?
Definitely, when I was in China I was playing at this club called ‘Psyche Club’ and the music taste there was so broad, which I think is cause the city I was in , Xian, didn’t really have a certain scene, so I was constantly hearing different sorts of music from Chinese trap music to Zimbabwean funk. It was wild, but the worst set I heard over there was this one guy who just played Eminem for a whole mix. Overall, it’s just about having open ears.
Give us your personal insight into the Berlin music scene?
Man, Berlin is so romanticized in its music scene. It’s almost mythological with how people talk about it - with good reason because the things that happen there are things you won’t find anywhere else in the world. In terms of music, it was very industrial, but the whole essence of it is this vibe of not really giving a fuck. The thing I enjoyed the most about places like Berghain and Tresor is that when you go there you are really confronted by the music, it’s not a place where you just go in and say ‘oh this is cool’, you have to engage with it, which really helped me understand how the whole techno scene in Berlin envelops people and become this beating ball of flesh to the music. It's this constantly evolving scene.
Misc.wav has returned and grown into its own thing now, how did the idea of a 24/7 online radio station come about?
When I was overseas, I was still in contact with all my friends and we’d always send each other music that we were listening to (as you do with friends). When my friend Quinn (Queue P) popped over to Berlin, I was combing through his Spotify library and he makes monthly playlists which got me thinking ‘ man if you put this in a radio show that would be mean’ as he’s got such an interesting taste. It got me thinking that this could be so much more than just a me and Sam thing. Which is what it is now, a community where our DJ’s can just do what they want to do as everyone has different tastes.
Having a selection of DJs at your disposal for misc.wav must be super nice, did it take a bit of convincing to get them to jump on board or were they jumping at the bits to join?
What’s been really good about all this is that everyone is really excited about it. Our range of experience is all over the place, with a few not having any experience playing live to a few having that experience, which makes it interesting. But it did make me wonder whether or not everyone would share the same passion for it, for now everyone is stoked to be part of it. The most important thing is not to force it, so I’ve been letting everyone do their own thing and letting them blossom and explore within their own shows.
Alright let’s close things off, any final words?
I want to give a huge thank you to everyone who has been involved, everyone who has tuned in and listened. When we started, we had this massive reach, like our first show had people from all over the world listening in which was awesome. We’ve learned so much already since then that I feel like everything is so much more refined, but the essence is still there. All this is, is just us hanging out with our friends in a lounge, mixing tunes and that’s what we want it to be portrayed as and if there’s any selectors out there that want to get involved, consider this an open invite. Just send me a message.
And with that me and witty both shot the shit for a bit longer, finished our beers and closed off with a plan for me to venture down to Welly to catch misc.wav in action. misc.wav FM is fully up and running with a live show every night running to a tight schedule, so tune in anytime or any day and support a collective taking on a project that hopefully will turn into something amazing.
Denzel will be doing a special misc.wav X Inside//Out guest set at 20:00 on Saturday the 20th of June (Tonight) !!!
misc.wav - The Online Radio Collective by Denzel De Ruysscher
All Images by Denzel De Ruysscher