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I caught Estelle playing a few tracks in the 6 Music hub today.

She played 3 tracks one of which was an old Bob Marley tune. She was really good, and seemed such a nice person. I always think of the UK underground artists as hard arsed people who will bite your head of if you meet them. She couldn’t of been further from that.

I went to a night last night called ‘evergreen’ in Faringdon, London. I had heard about this event from a friends who had been a few times and had said it was one of the best nights she’d had in a long while. I can now agree! It was fantastic. A mixture of many styles of music all of which follow the same idea that they are danceable and happy. The decor is like a friends flat, in fact the whole event feels like a house party with cushions of seats and books on shelves. You buy drinks via tokens and everyone seems to know each other.

The night is not advertised and is only know to exist via a closely guarded mailing list (which I have managed to get on). It has apparently been going for a good few years like this. This sieves out all the low life’s, and means the only people there are people that want to be. I can’t wait for the next one. Thanks ‘evergreen’.

I was lucky enough to watch the Kaiser Chiefs in the 6 Music hub this morning. People who know me will know I am more a deep house, hip-hop kind of listener, but I have been trying to expand my listening habbits.

These guys were great. They played two tracks which both sounded fantasic. I have been informed that they will be top 5 this week.

I read that Motorola’s accessories division will soon unveil a line of winter clothing with built in controls for cell phones and portable music players. Motorola has joined up with snowboard company Burton to develop Bluetooth-enabled jackets, helmets and hats.

The jacket features a device on the sleeve that uses Bluetooth to make and receive calls, as well as change songs on a music player. Removable speakers are built into the hood for easy listening while riding the slopes. Pricing has not yet been announced, but the clothing is expected to hit store shelves in the second half of 2005.

After Burton’s Ipod jacket with remote built into the arm, I look forward to seeing the end result.

I received an album at Christmas from my girlfriends brother called American Song-Poem Anthology. It features tracks that were created in the 60s and 70s by putting ads in the back of music magazines and relying on the general public to send in their own “song-poems”. This people were paid whatever they saw fit ($50-$100s), and then professional musicans would come record these songs in the hope of turning them into something to cherish. Make up you own mind if they did this or not. With tracks like : Jimmy Carter Says “Yes” and I Lost My Girl To An Argentinian Cowboy, they certainly had a sense of humour.

Just got back from seeing Muse play at london’s Earls Court. They have just finished some dates in the USA and this is their first gig back and I think their biggest indoor show to date. As usual they were amazing. They also played one of their news tracks. I think they are going to play another one tomorrow night.

It never ceases to amaze me how much noise they can create with just three people. Check out all the photos I took over at flickr. Check out Muse’s own site here.

A friend of mine sent me a link to the John Coltrane site a while back. It is a flash based site and is designed in a really simple clean way. The navigation system I think is simple fantastic. It’s been a while since I have seriously checked out whats going on flash wise and if this is what I’m missing I’ll have to start again. Back when I was doing a lot of flash stuff my whole approach was to create simple and clean flash movies. Check it out now ..

Also by the way the music on the site is obviously great. Congratulations to http://www.automat.at/ whom designed the site.

UPDATE: Due to a re-design and no BBC archiving *tut tut* you can see it in Web Archive

Hurrah. I have just finished my first large public facing project since joining the BBC. The DAB digital radio station 6music has been ongoing for many months now and I’ll glad to say we finally went live with it the other night.

Featuring a new clean look, I am really happy with the build and I hope you like it too. Stage II of the build will be coming soon.

Taking apart the iPod mini

Apple has crammed a lot of stuff into the anodized aluminum enclosure of the new iPod mini, and taking it apart would be no easy task. his guy is an industrial designer with lots of experience pulling back the curtain and meeting the wizard in PDAs, Mp3 players, stereos, watches and all sorts of other gear. He’s usually pretty good at it, having not broken something in years (lots of bug hunts for tiny parts on the floor though). Except his brand-new iPod mini, where he screwed up big time… twice!

This looks fantastic. It’s on my shopping list. The Roku SoundBridge lets you play your Mac or PC digital music files anywhere in the house. All major audio formats are supported ? MP3, WMA, AAC, AIFF, WAV, FLAC and Ogg-Vorbis ? and it’s network ready with wired Ethernet or an optional CompactFlash Wi-Fi adapter. A large, bright display and Apple RendezvousTM and native iTunes support make this player a winning part of your home entertainment system.