Tomorrow the BBC launches its new home page. It’s been available to look at for a little while though, and still is today at bbc.co.uk/home/beta.

I think it’s pretty good - it’s nice to be able to move things around, do away with some of the content that’s not so interesting to me and even choose a colour. However, the customisation could go a little further as develops further.

• Living in Durham, that’s the weather I’d like to have on the front page. But I’d like to add BBC Tees or BBC Radio Suffolk in the radio box (or ‘category’). The home page only gives the option of BBC Radio Newcastle - it’s not possible to edit the stations to either select additional locals, or remove nationals like Radio 1 or Radio 3.
• I can untick ‘Childrens’ content for the home page, but CBBC and CBeebies still appear in the TV box. It’d be nice to add and drop TV channels.
• The blogs box is great - allowing you to add in BBC Internet Blog, Ouch!, dot.life or anything else, but a featured post still appears from PM. Can we have a radio button to say if we’re middle class or not, and therefore get Five Live Drive instead?
• It also seems a little pointless without the featured blog post title - it simply tells me at the moment “We’re keen to hear if you have any experience in this area.” - what area? GMail has a pretty good feature in webclips where you can choose the content that’s displayed at the top of the inbox. I understand why they’re pushing that content, though.
• Why isn’t there a Jon Holmes box?
• Eventually, it would be great if this could be more local. There’s no content from BBC Look North or BBC Tees, the music box features Radio 1 and something from Radio Derby, but nothing from my local BBC Introducing programme.

Going further, it would be nice if all the BBC ‘blogs’ were in the format found on the BBC Internet Blog and national radio programmes. At the moment, local radio blogs appear to be just content pages - no RSS feed, no comments, no pingback, no archive, no categories etc.

Overall it’s a nice improvement and I’ll probably use the BBC home page more than before, but it would be nice to have just a little more control. And that Jon Holmes box.

Thought I’d rename this weekly post as I wanted to talk about books and print media this week…

On Monday morning I got an email from the iTunes Festival to say that there had been some cancellations and 10 pairs of tickets were being made available for that night. I replied immediately but started to wonder when the replies might be sent - if I waited past lunchtime the chances of making it would be slim. I tried a few phone numbers and got nowhere so went to Durham station anyway, and then on to London.

A cancelled train, a 3 hour and 10 minute journey and a sprint through Central London got me to the Institute of Contempory Arts on The Mall. Two hours standing in the same place in unrelenting rain was completely worth it. It was also like a vision of what it might be like to own or use an Apple product.

Lots of running and standing in the rain, not sure of what’s going on, then being allowed into the warmth of the ICA where iTunes staff couldn’t be nicer and more welcoming. Being English and travelling 300+ miles to be there, I chatted with one of the smartly dressed guys who asked why I was such a big fan. On being given the ticket I was asked how I was today, and one of the guys asked how I enjoyed the gig on the way out. A fantastic evening, especially considering it was free to enter.

On the way home I finished reading Johnnie Walker’s Autobiography. I started reading on the way back from Birmingham, read another section on the way down on Monday, and then the rest on the way back up. I’ve never been that into books, but this one had me gripped from start to finish. Having only listened to Johnnie since 2005 the previous 35+ years are really painted well, and I only wish I’d heard more of his shows. In a few weeks I’ll be down in Harwich to hear Pirate BBC Essex on authentic MW frequencies, where Johnnie will at some point be presenting a show. Johnnie is also presenting whilst Terry Wogan is away on BBC Radio 2, 7.30am to 9.30am.

I didn’t watch much TV last week, but some things that looked interesting for next week… New episode of The Real Hustle, Monday, BBC Three at 8.30pm. Alistair Campbell will be on The Daily Show, Tuesday, More 4 at 8.30pm. Drop Dead Gorgeous was a great show on BBC Three last year and is shown again on Thursday, BBC One at 10.35pm. And Hollyoaks is really good at the moment.

In the 1969 film Carry on Camping, Mr Fiddler, the proprietor of the Paradise Camp Site responded to Sid James’ question “How much to camp?” with the answer “Just a pound, sir.” Sid James goes on to ask “Can we put up a washing line?” to which Mr Fiddler replies “Ah, that’ll be another pound”.

Sometimes I’m reminded of this exchange when using the iTunes Music Store. I’m a really recent convert to iTunes having seldom downloaded online, using various sites when there was a free voucher and so on. With so many internet radio stations I normally listen online as it’s free and you’re introduced to new music similar to the artists you’ve tuned in to hear.

The music I’ve downloaded in iTunes so far has been the iTunes Plus stuff - the higher quality tracks with no DRM at 99p. But I’ve also noticed music videos being sold in the store. Previewing the above video, Beggin’ by Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons, the quality really stands out. Not having any device to watch them on whilst out, nor really wanting to watch music videos at home, I’d pass on downloading anyway. To download this video costs £1.89 - it’s a good video and everything, but £1.89 just feels a little steep.

The Apple iPhone includes a YouTube player, and once all of the videos are converted to allow playback on the iPhone I wonder how many people will be downloading videos like this when they’ll be available at just the cost of the data. The same video is available on YouTube, although the audio and visual quality doesn’t meet the iTMS equivilent.

What’s interesting about an increasing number of music videos on YouTube is that they’re uploaded by the record labels themselves. Entirely coincidentally today I watched Beggin’, which was uploaded by 679 Recordings (Warner), Popular by Nada Surf, which was uploaded by Rhino Entertainment (Warner) and Sophia by Nerina Pallot, which was uploaded by 14th Floor. These videos often seem to be in a higher quality and are free of the MTV logos and graphics.

Having first heard Feist months ago on a BBC Radio Cleveland programme, I didn’t see the videos until this week. I can highly recommend 1 2 3 4 and My Moon My Man, as well as all of the above videos.

One of the most interesting evolutions in online music for me is the rise of services last.fm and Pandora. Put simply, both sites take the music you like and find other tracks and artists you may also like, and play them to you as your own internet radio station.

Last.fm came about in 2002 as a social networking site, using AudioScrobbler to build a profile of your music taste. This is done either through the sites own streamed radio stations or by downloading a plugin for your media player. You sign up for a profile, download the plugin and start playing your music as usual. The details of each song played are sent back to last.fm who add it to your profile. After a while a picture builds up of your musical tastes and the social networking portion comes into its own.

You find yourself placed with neighbours who have similar tastes to you. You can play stations to discover music you might also like (neighbourhood radio), based on songs you loved on the last.fm player or launch a station based on similar artists to one you’ve selected. I’ve been using last.fm for over a year and really like the social portion. It’s a great and well focussed community, with the ability to add yourself as an attendee to an upcoming gig or chat with other fans of your favourite bands, as well as show off that you’ve listened to Tom Jones 155 times this week.

Recently I’ve found last.fm to be a little slow and decided to check out Pandora again. Pandora is sort of similar, but instead of recommendations uses the Music Genome Project - a musician listens to the track and analyses the elements to create the genome. When you visit Pandora and give an artist or track it’ll come back with the musical attributes and play similar tracks.

Part of the reason I stuck with last.fm for so long is that there seem to be a few more of my favourite artists there, and the forums which accompany them are mainly English, which is really nice as they’re mainly European artists. I tried them again and they’re still not there, but Oasis, Nerina Pallot and Foreigner came back with some great tracks. The selection seems more varied, and it’s not yet told me it can’t connect or that it’s run out of music.

A song going around in my head at the moment is Chocolate Cake by Crowded House. I stuck this in and for over an hour on two occasions haven’t skipped a single song - I’ve actually noted almost all of them as albums I’d like to find and hear more of.

So now if asked what my favourite music is, it can be summed up with a single released in 1991 that I don’t think even charted in the UK.

Pandora can also be played through a Squeezebox - a wireless device that plays internet stations and music on your PCs. If these devices come down in price like DAB sets and all sorts of Wi-Fi gear maybe they’ll even be on bedside tables and in showers. The future of radio is going to be fascinating, and it’ll be great if services like Pandora can step beyond the desktop and coexist in devices alongside a DAB tuner and MP3 player.

According to media reports, the BBC’s Maida Vale studio is set to close. It’s where many sessions have been performed for programmes such as John Peel’s, and still are for many BBC Radio shows. In the last year or two The Scissor Sisters, Orson and KT Tunstall have given great sets for Radio 2, and Zane Lowe has hosted his Radio 1 show from the studios many times. Whilst seeing any iconic building close or change can be sad, this line appears on most articles;

“The BBC are yet to announce whether the studio will be replaced or not.”

The Radio Theatre at Broadcasting House has just reopened (having been closed in 2002) and is now home to at least one weekly show which used to be at the Drill Hall. The PDF seems to support its suitability for live music gigs, it seats more people and is in a good location, so it’s not all bad if the theatre can accommodate those gigs and rehearsals.

Further investigation seems to show that a decision is yet to be made, but a spokesperson has spoken of the technical limits in the 21st Century with the converted ice rink.

If you’re a regular radio listener, there’s a chance you might have heard a track on this 1973 album.

However, I’m certain you’ve heard Apache, the instrumental track released by The Shadows which reached number one in the charts in July 1960. Aided by an echo chamber, the sound was fairly revolutionary for the time.

It was in 1973 when Michael Viner’s Incredible Bongo Band did a version that it was to be used as extensively in hip hop as it was. The sessions were brought about by Viner, an executive and artist manager at MGM Records.

When “The Thing With Two Heads” was being made by MGM a chase scene was required, along with music for the sequence. Soundtracks being Viner’s remit, he and a friend (Perry Botkin, Jr.) went into a studio to record the track. The then invented Bongo Band was a “lark” according to the pair, but the music took on a life of its own. The tracks Bongo Rock and Bongolia were released on a 7″ and to everyone’s surprise went on to sell over 2 million copies.

With the success of the singles an album was recorded in Canada, in less than a week. Viner chose the material, and said of Apache;

“I just liked it and felt that it could have been a little more rhythmatic than it was, and thought it could have used more percussion.”

The album contains a mix of original compositions, such as Bongolia, and cover versions, including (I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction by the Rolling Stones.

The bands version of Apache is used by many radio DJ’s as instrumental music which runs under them talking for a length of time between records. I think I first heard the Incredible Bongo Band’s version being used by John Foster on BBC Radio Cleveland, and I recall Clare Grogan using it on BBC 6 Music. Indeed, last night I heard the Grand Master Flash Remix being used on the radio.

Apache has been sampled many times since 1973 by hip-hop artists, and I’m sure I heard a new release just a few weeks ago which utilises part of the now famous release.