The feedback was clear when I asked if you wanted some Christmas songs: you do. So we’ve scheduled some.

‘Christmas Audition’ will be on today (Christmas Eve), Christmas Day and Boxing Day at twelve noon.  The playlist is as follows:  –

The Elastic band    It’s Christmas Time   amazingtunes.com/v
Shaharah    Christmas Blues    amazingtunes.com/w
G.J.Lovie    He is Born (A Shepherd’s Witness)    amazingtunes.com/x
Elvis Ashram    Made For Love (A Song for Christmas)   amazingtunes.com/y
Dominic Burgess    Winter Song    amazingtunes.com/z
James Lazzari    I can’t wait for Christmas amazingtunes.com/zz

Merry Christmas and an amazing New Year to everyone.

One of the new shows we launch in January is It’s Amazing, presented by the totally excellent Trevor Dann.  Trevor was producer of Whistle Test and Top of the Pops.  (For our younger readers – they used to be programmes on the television …. when TV played some real music, before it was swamped by talentless shows, that musical equivalent of Soma).  Trevor was later Head of Music at something called ‘Radio One’. Earlier in his career he produced a show broadcast late at night on the aforementioned Radio 1, whose bearded presenter played a lot of new music and had a vaguely Scouse accent.  I can’t quite remember the presenter’s name, but someone told me he was named after a stage at Glastonbury.

Anyway, Trevor will have some rather fancy studio guests (we’ll tell you who they are, later), but being modest to a fault, he wants to know what you think about the music they’ll play and discuss. So get your skates over to this link: – http://www.amazingtunes.com/users/its_amazing/playlists – it’s the playlist for Trevor’s first show. And please let us have your suggestions for tracks to be discussed in future programmes too. It’s Amazing will only live up to its name, if you lend a hand.

Please respond here, or to info@amazingradio.co.uk, or to our new and suddenly rather popular Facebook page.

Thanks a lot,

PC
Paul Campbell
amazing founder
Twitter @drumpaul

We finally got round to it….

http://www.facebook.com/home.php#/pages/Amazing-Radio/209736346911?ref=search&sid=601330158.840568542..1

Please come and be our friend!

ps thanks to Stuart for pointing out how crap my URL was above.  Try this pert version instead:  http://www.facebook.com/amazingradio

Permission required, please, Dear Listener.

Should we play Christmas Music on Amazing Radio?

Surprisingly, we have some – quite a lot in fact – in the amazingtunes.com database.  So far, I’ve quite enjoyed the thought that Amazing Radio is a sleighbell-free zone: but I wonder if that’s a bit Scrooge-like.  Maybe we should do something to celebrate the time of year and stick some in the playlist next week.  (Come to think of it – maybe we should acknowledge that Christmas music is quite often the naffest of the naff, and only play the worst music we can find, for comedy value).

I’m torn.  What do you think?

PC
Twitter @drumpaul

ps – by way of illustration - try this.   Probably the finest Christmas song ever written, I’m sure you’ll agree.  All proceeds to Cancer Research.

Here’s an everyday story of technology folk to make you weep.  Me too.

As you know, all the music on Amazing Radio comes from amazingtunes.com.  It gets there when an artist uploads a song they’ve written and recorded.   When they do that, we ask them to upload only an MP3 file.  Our clever system ingests the file, then transcodes it to the Flash format so it can be played on amazingtunes.com.  When you hear a song online, it’s being played in Flash.  When you download it, you download an MP3.

Unfortunately some artists see the copy that says ‘upload MP3 files only’ … and promptly ignore it.  We’ve had all sorts uploaded.  AAC, .wav, nailfiles, combs, key fobs, small bananas – you name it.  Our system handles the import fine, so the file sits uneasily in the database, surrounded by serried ranks of prim and proper MP3 files, all giving it a dirty look.  But then the transcoding to Flash doesn’t work, because the file is in the wrong format.  To the user, this makes it look as if the upload hasn’t worked.  It has, but the transcoding hasn’t, so you can’t hear your file.  Worse, the transcoder – which is open source – is a bit of a prima donna.  If it finds one file it can’t deal with, it gets all stroppy, falls over, and refuses to do anything until we apologise, pamper its ego and coax it back to work.   So even the legal, decent, honest and truthful MP3 files suffer.  It’s like a whole class being held back because one bad lad at the back let off a stink bomb.

Simple problem.  Easy solution?  Not likely.  You wouldn’t believe how complicated it is to change the transcoding so it works with non-MP3s, or to make a foolproof error reporting system that people actually respond to.   And as the number of uploads has grown, so the apparent problem has increased exponentially.   We’ve had a developer working on resolving the issue for weeks, looking for the ideal, sophisticated solution.  We’ve now decided to implement something more rudimentary pro tem – on the basis that a good plan today beats a perfect plan tomorrow.  As we all know, tomorrow never comes.

It’s a stupid issue, and the impact has been crap.  We’ll fix it: we’re very sorry it’s been a problem.

There is rejoicing on the streets of Newcastle today.  Crowds have gathered, thousands upon thousands flooding out from shops and offices, from homes and pubs, a spontaneous outburst of public emotion not seen since the death of Princess Di.  Children beamed with joy, grown men wept, mothers clutched their bosoms in maternal pride. Old men compared it with the last time Newcastle United won anything.  (They were very very old).

Experts agreed, this was possibly the most momentous and important event in regional cultural history since the Venerable Bede turned up and asked if he could borrow a biro as he had an idea for a book.  Suddenly the pain of a century of economic hardship and decades of industrial decline melted away.  The impending closure of Corus, the demotion of Newcastle and Middlesborough, nothing mattered in comparison.  The world was a better place: Geordie Joe had won the X Factor.

Just rejoice at that news.

Now can we get back to some real music please?

I’m delighted to announce that the excellent justgiving.com is supporting Amazing Christmas, our charities initiative.

They will tell their 8,500 charities about it, and we’ll add ‘donate’ buttons to amazingradio.co.uk/charities, for all charities on Amazing Radio which have justgiving.com accounts.  These will link direct to the relevant page for that charity in justgiving.com.

Charities can find out more here:  http://charities.justgiving.com/2009/12/10/charity-news/amazing-radio-opportunity/

Let’s hope this helps spread the message and increase the benefits.  PC

Paul Campbell, amazing founder
twitter @drumpaul

There’s a bit of a virtual fight going on in cyberspace.

http://www.digitalspy.co.uk/forums/showthread.php?p=37152379#post37152379

After the flurry of revelations last week, today we’re restricting ourselves to a more modest two announcements.  Smaller number, but still big news.

Firstly, we’re delighted to announce that Sainsbury’s is supporting Amazing Christmas, our initiative where registered charities get free adverts on Amazing Radio between now and 12th Night (January 6th).  They support 700 charities around the country, each one linked to a local store; we’re looking forward to hearing from those charities and giving them some wider exposure on national radio.

Secondly, we’re revealing the names of the first presenters who will appear on Amazing Radio from 7th January – the day after Amazing Christmas ends.  We’ve spent a long time choosing them, and we think we have some belting broadcasters here.  Most of them are young, (some very young), all have a passion for music and for re-inventing radio.  They are – in no particular order, as they like to say these days -

Mark Ryan and Tom Cotton, recent graduates of Sunderland University’s excellent radio production degree course.
Greg & Burtt, who work in community radio in London
Fuzz Chaudhrey, a recent graduate from Birmingham University, who helped run Burn FM when she was there
Frankie Ward, who’s still at Uni, also at Birmingham
Trevor Dann, formerly Head of Music at Radio 1, ex-Producer of Whistle Test and certain other iconic programmes he’s too modest to name.
And Xan Phillips continues his excellent South Coast show Xan Down South

We’ve put more details and some pictures on the website so you can get to know them.  You can also hear the audio of the announcement on this page, and on the presenter page. Meanwhile, we’re still looking for more people, so email pc@amazingradio.co.uk with a short biog and an MP3 of your voice if you’re interested.

Listen to today’s announcement.

After the flurry of revelations last week, today we’re restricting ourselves to a more modest two announcements.  Smaller number, but still big news.

Firstly, we’re delighted to announce that Sainsbury’s is supporting Amazing Christmas, our initiative where registered charities get free adverts on Amazing Radio between now and 12th Night (January 6th).  They support 700 charities around the country, each one linked to a local store; we’re looking forward to hearing from those charities and giving them some wider exposure on national radio.

Secondly, we’re revealing the names of the first presenters who will appear on Amazing Radio from 7th January – the day after Amazing Christmas ends.  We’ve spent a long time choosing them, and we think we have some belting broadcasters here.  Most of them are young, (some very young), all have a passion for music and for re-inventing radio.  They are – in no particular order, as they like to say these days -

Mark Ryan and Tom Cotton, recent graduates of Sunderland University’s excellent radio production degree course.
Greg & Burtt, who work in community radio in London
Fuzz Chaudhrey, a recent graduate from Birmingham University, who helped run Burn FM when she was there
Frankie Ward, who’s still at Uni, also at Birmingham
Trevor Dann, formerly Head of Music at Radio 1, ex-Producer of Whistle Test and certain other iconic programmes he’s too modest to name.
And Xan Phillips continues his excellent South Coast show Xan Down South

We’ll put more details and some pictures on the website over the next few days so you can get to know them.  Meanwhile, we’re still looking for more people, so email pc@amazingradio.co.uk with a short biog and an MP3 of your voice if you’re interested.