Amsterdam's Most WantedAmsterdam's Most Wanted

AMW began in 2001 as a pirate dance station, hiding transmitters around Amsterdam to get underground music onto the city's dial, and it has spent twenty-five years turning that into something legal without giving up the nickname it earned along the way: the big red machine. It is a foundation now, heard in more than 150 countries, and it works out of NDSM-Plein on the old shipyard wharf, where the studio doubles as a small venue and a booth other DJs can hire by the hour.

Techno takes about half the resident roster on its own, some twenty DJs, with house, progressive and tech house filling most of the rest and the electro, acid and drum-and-bass corners held by one resident each. Open Decks nights are vinyl only and open to whoever applies, residencies and volunteer slots stay open all year, and the VJs get billed alongside the DJs.