Isolation Ideas: how lockdowns created communities

Amsterdammer Michael Schmidt grew tired of DJing without an audience and decided to create a platform for lonely music-lovers and -creators from across the world.

While it is generally known that the pandemic-related lockdowns have led to increased feelings of loneliness and lack of motivation, the over-achiever and hustle-mentality niche of social media has been thriving on the leftover dismay from the impact of the pandemic on our social lives, using it as a chance to shove their productiveness down people’s throats. Seeing the pandemic as “not an inconvenience, but as an opportunity” has become the new “wake up at 3AM to go to the gym”.

This confluence of hustler mentality and stagnating social lives caused by seemingly endless new regulations gave rise to a healthy middle path – giving our days meaning by using the extra time to create pandemic-proof ways of socializing.
The impending digital transition was unavoidable, and as school, university, and work conversations were moved online, so did our social lives.

When 26-year-old Michael Schmidt found himself with extra hours of free time, he decided to spend his time upgrading his DJ skills. Having DJed during his spare time for almost a decade, Michael cherishes music’s quality of bringing people together to dance. Since dancing together was rendered impossible during the first lockdown, Michael contemplated all the other underground DJs in the city of Amsterdam, who now had endless time to practice and improve. He wanted to create a space where all of the ‘Quarantine DJs’ could come together to share their talents, and subsequently co- founded Quarantine Radio (@quarantineradio.amsterdam) in the summer of 2020.

His idea quickly caught on amongst the community, and soon local as well as international DJs began submitting their own mixes to be published on the Quarantine Radio Soundcloud profile.
The tracks played range across genres from funky tech house, groovy minimal techno, disco, funk and what Michael describes as “worldly music”, meaning anything from every genre in existence, as long as the mix is high quality. The latter is of special importance to Michael, who personally listens to every mix upon submission and aims to maintain a certain quality standard of mixing on the Quarantine Radio profile: “You can hear when people make music from the soul versus when people produce music for money”. If a mix doesn’t meet his expectations, the producer receives an in-depth review of why the mix didn’t make it on to the radio and how they could improve their performance. Even though categorizing music as “good” or “high quality” is subjective and not universally applicable, “good mixing” can be defined, with Michael usually giving his seal of approval for mixes that stick to one broader genre and include transitions so smooth that you barely notice a new track has started playing. Listening to all the submissions before giving feedback might be considered a chore by some, but not by Michael – he enjoys finding new music on a daily basis and usually has a new submission playing in the background when going about his daily life.

When asked to define Quarantine Radio’s target audience, Michael refused to give a definition and stated that “everyone who’s looking for good music from unknown DJs, but also unknown DJs that are looking for an audience” is in the right place for some pristine mixes.

After having run Quarantine Radio for a few months, Michael began organizing live streams alongside friends and took his chances by sending several e-mails to empty venues, seeing them – through the eyes of a true DJ – as a potential live stream set. His inquiries were successful and resulted in a collaboration with Het Ketelhuis cinema in Amsterdam’s Westerpark, where the crew was allowed to set up their decks in front of the big screen.

Sets like these are a little dream come true to Michael, having created Quarantine Radio as a chance for underground DJs to be noticed by a wider audience. When he started spinning decks at sixteen years old, he realized what being an unknown DJs really means: walking from venue to venue and handing out flash drives with your mixes on them, hoping they would agree to let you play a set. Starting Quarantine Radio is Michael’s way of providing opportunities to DJs that he never had.
“Many DJs don’t know how talented they are”, he says while telling the story of his own creative journey as a DJ over the years, “they just need someone to believe in them”.

Ultimately, Michael would like to make music his full-time job. He focusses on underground artists because their struggles resonate with him but also because he believes in the importance of subcultures as opposed to mainstream culture. For him, underground culture is a creative breeding ground with special opportunities and experiences.  He’s enjoyed every bit of his dive into Amsterdam’s subcultures over the years. His advice for DJs looking to their own style: “Find the rarest music you can find that you really like, mix it in the best way you can, and put it out there.”
Over the months of running Quarantine Radio, Michael has received submissions from all over the world, from South Korean groovy micro minimal house to Italian hard techno. Its audience is just as diverse. Once the pandemic is truly over, Michael intends to organize events under the headline of Quarantine Radio, aspiring to give his quarantine DJs the stage performance they’ve always longed for.

As for what’s coming for Quarantine Radio, a name change is not on the agenda. Michael prefers for the radio to become “a time stamp for the future” and continue under the same brand even after the government decides to call it a day and officially declare COVID-19 as extinct. Once this happens, neither the name nor the goal of Quarantine Radio will change: bringing people together through music while giving underground DJs a platform.

Listen:
facebook.com/Quarantineradioofficial
soundcloud.com/quarantineradioofficial
mixcloud.com/QuarantineRadioOfficial