John Peel 1939–2004

John Peel has died. This brings me great sadness. A legend if ever there was one, Peel’s gentle patter and eclectic (and loud) music kept me company through many a long drive and Winter evening. The whole point of John Peel’s radio shows were freedom – freedom from playlists; from the mainstream; from convention.

I had the pleasure of meeting John at Maida Vale studios when I won a ticket to see Cinerama recording a session – he was as modest and charming as listeners to his shows would expect. I’ll miss him and his shows greatly.

Some John Peel links:

Obituary on the Independent. In depth and touching.
Special Report in the Guardian Arts section. Lots more articles and tributes.
John Peel on Wikipedia.
BBC Radio Show. BBC tributes and Sessions info. If you can bear downloading RealPlayer the tribute show with Steve Lamacq is well worth a listen.
FABRICLIVE.07: John Peel. Peely’s only compilation album and exemplary of his broad musical taste. One of my faves.

John Peel one year on

It is exactly one year since John Peel died. This time last year I put together a compilation to celebrate what he had done for my music listening. At the time it was very much a personal thing but time marches on so here’s what I came up with.

25 October 2005

MX 2004 seminar

Notes from the Macromedia MX 2004 seminar. In particular how Dreamweaver pleases and disappoints and how Flash video gets better and better.

12 September 2003

Bent over a barrel

Behind the typeface: Cooper Black – a brilliant satire. A cry for help with a smart quotes algorithm. Typography links including designing logos from ligatures. And how close to the real thing your wireframes should be when presented for user testing.

31 July 2002