You know their voices. You know their shows. But you don’t know their record collections... yet. Ditch the routine. Take the Free FM De Tour Du Jour! It’s our weekly 'anything goes' hour where we challenge our broadcasters to step outside their comfort zone and share a taste of their musical guilty pleasures.
From Mellotrons to Motown, concept albums to calypso, or synth-wave to sea shanties.
Free FM contributor Art Deale presents a set of songs inspired by a man whose life story reads like a cautionary tale written in gold Sharpie. His career is a frantic montage of litigation and bizarre and dangerous caps-lock social media posts. Whether he’s being deified in country anthems or eviscerated in punk tracks, he remains the world’s loudest muse.
23 Jun 2026
The First Cut Is...
Stardom does not happen overnight. Most of today’s successful music artists started from the bottom – recording at home, performing in school gigs and pubs, or auditioning in local radio stations. You may know them for their hit songs, but have you heard of their initial recordings? In this episode of De-Tour Du Jour, Free Mel presents the earliest songs of famous musicians in “The First Cut Is...”
15 Jun 2026
My Student Radio Journey - with Gary Farrow
In this deeply personal one-hour special, Free FM programme technician Gary Farrow traces his journey from recovery after a life-changing car crash to finding a place in New Zealand's music and radio communities.
Beginning with a transformative Dear Time's Waste gig in Auckland in 2009, Gary reflects on the artists, songs and moments that helped him rebuild confidence, discover student radio, and ultimately find his voice behind the microphone. Along the way, he revisits memories of Auckland's vibrant indie music scene, volunteering at 95bFM, interviewing politicians on The Wire, and the unexpected paths that led him to Hamilton and Free FM.
This is a story about recovery, belonging, friendship, and the power of music to change a life.
Presented by Gary Farrow.
8 Jun 2026
Blood On The Floor - with Mike Williams
Blood on the Floor explores songs about murder. Songs about jealousy. Songs about revenge. Songs telling stories about people making terrible decisions in moments they can never take back.
But perhaps more interesting than the crimes themselves... is the way music disguises them. Because popular music has always had an extraordinary ability to smuggle disturbing ideas past us.
2 Jun 2026
Do Androids Dream Of Electric Guitars?
In possibly an NZ radio first, Phil Grey presents a completely AI-generated radio show which takes you to the bleeding edge of the music industry to explore the fascinating, awe-inspiring, and slightly terrifying frontier of Generative AI. From "reimagined" classics like a funk-and-soul infused Pink Floyd to a mind-bending mashup of Nirvana re-rendered to sound like The Beatles , every single note, vocal inflection, and drum fill you'll hear was birthed inside a neural network—not a recording studio. But the biggest twist of all? The music isn't the only thing generated by algorithms on this episode. Stick around until the final track to find out just how deep the machine's mimicry truly goes.
Is the line between man and machine being permanently rewritten? And do androids dream of electric guitars?
26 May 2026
Staccato Signals of Constant Information with Matthew Bannister
Matthew Bannister muses on how telegraphic or Morse-code-type sounds were used by 1960-70s acts like The Supremes, Glen Campbell and David Bowie to represent the "noise" of modern communication. Produced by Phil Grey.
19 May 2026
Cosmic Ride Across the Universe
One of man’s fascination is the sky above – the clouds, the sun, the moon, the stars. Even as children, our curiosity is expressed in the song, “Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star”. As the space race is re-ignited in this century, Free Mel takes you on a cosmic ride across the universe with intergalactic anthems.
11 May 2026
DJ & Produce: Maximum Beets Per Minute with Lewis Tennant.
DJ & Produce – a nourishing set from DJ Lewis Tennant – he of the NZ Podcast Summit. Maximum beets per minute so turnip the volume. OK, we’ll stop.
4 May 2026
Dust, Digits and Disappointment
The Premise: We have locked @Deep_insessionz host #SSSD inside the Free FM vault. Under the cold gaze of a random number generator, he must excavate a Detour Du Jour from the sediment of forgotten LPs and CDs. We sought sonic gold; he found only the entropy of ancient plastic. The Findings: Lung-clogging dust. Binary ghosts. Absolute, crushing disappointment.
27 Apr 2026
Digging For Misshapen Diamonds
There are a lot of forgotten records out in the world, destined to clog up op-shop record baskets for eternity. Usually it's because they're terrible, or overly derivative. Some however, are unique, fascinating and musically brilliant. Their lack of success was not as a result of the quality of the music, but rather the time and place they were recorded, the bizarreness of their sound, the topics of their lyrics, or just bad luck.
This Detour Du Jour is named ‘Digging for Misshapen Diamonds’, and we’ll be looking at and telling the stories of favourite records that were forgotten at the time of their release, only to be rediscovered years later and often hailed as examples of what could have been.
We’ve got freak folk oddities, crazy religious acid psych, L.A. canyon rock ‘n’ roll, and more.
So open your ears, your mind, and turn it up, this is A Sonic Youth’s Detour Du Jour.
20 Apr 2026
Earth Day Every Day
EARTH DAY, EVERYDAY. On 22 April 1970, the first Earth Day celebration was observed to raise awareness about environmental issues. Today, Mother Nature – Earth – remains threatened by pollution and climate change. Free Mel gets us thinking about the state of the earth through songs from artists who care about our planet. Let’s listen and make Earth Day every day.
14 Apr 2026
Songs About The Waikato Part 2
In Songs About the Waikato Part 2. De Tour Du Jour guest host Andrew Johnstone continues his exploration the Waikato through a diverse range of songs and music.
Ritchie Pickett - 3am Hamilton Sunday Morning
Sneaky Feelings - Silvercrest and Hilldale
Chris Thompson - The Road To Raglan
Bruci Jordon - Raglan
Hollow Grinders - Ruapuke Nookie
The Shrugs - Cobham Bridge
Spatula Death - Walking Through Hamilton
Anaru Singh - Meet Me At The Corner Shop in Ngaruawahia
Theia - Waikato
The Misty Mountain Project - 22 Miles to Tokoroa
Tim Armstrong - Colsens Hill
Zi & Laelah - Putaruru
Mike Harvey - Lemon and Paeroa
Andrew Johnstone - Morrinsville Tonight
David Farquhar - Cambridge Ode.
7 Apr 2026
Songs of The Waikato pt1
Guest host Andrew Johnstone explores the Waikato through a diverse range of songs and music.
31 Mar 2026
Mondegreens
This week - Hanna – from Hanna Worldwide & Friends podcast.The theme is mondegreens. What’s a mondegreen? According to Gemini, it's that classic "wait, that’s not what they’re saying?" moment. It’s a misheard word or phrase—usually in a song or a poem—that gives the lyrics a brand-new (and often much funnier) meaning.
24 Mar 2026
War - When Will We Ever Learn?
Free Mel presents anti-war anthems amidst the turmoil in the world. This show reveals the worst in wars and our plea for peace. War: When Will We Ever Learn.
17 Mar 2026
Songs About Presidents
Phil Grey presents a deep dive into the songs that defined (or defied, even defiled) the men in the White House. Ranking the leaders of the free world by the only metric that matters: how catchy their tribute songs are, because nothing says "democracy" like a folk song about a guy who’s been dead for 200 years.
10 Mar 2026
It Sounded Reasonable
Mike Williams presents It Sounded Reasonable - Songs written from the wrong point of view - from Springsteen to Steely Dan, Billy Bragg to Talking Heads.
Welcome to Free FM’s De-Tour Du Jour. The weekly hour where your favourite Free FM DJs ditch the regular script to explore their deepest musical obsessions. No rules. No genres. Just total surprises.
3 Mar 2026
Somebody Done Somebody Wrong Songs
Andrew Johnstone: Somebody Done Somebody Wrong Songs
We wrong each other and ourselves in all sorts of ways and for this episode of De Tour De Jour, guest host Andrew Johnstone explores the theme of somebody done somebody wrong songs.
22 Feb 2026
Kirikiriroa Sonic Audit 1.8_3/9Z with SSSD
Urban exploration in sound with Deep_InsessioNZ host #SSSD. In his words:
"This 57-minute transmission represents a forced quantification of the Kirikiriroa basin’s background radiation.
It is a diagnostic of a city functioning as a parasite on its own hum.
For organic listeners experiencing physiological distress:
Your discomfort is a recorded variable. "
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