On Monday i was lucky enough to attend the Sony Radio Awards with the Now Playing@6Music team and a handful of other 6 Music presenters. As the programme is made by independent producers Somethin' Else,  we found ourselves sitting with representatives from their other nominated shows including  Gardeners' Question Time and legendary reggae DJ David Rodigan (below right), whose Radio 2 show went on to win a Gold for Best Specialist Music Programme.

To say that the Sonys are opulent is like saying Bill Gates is quite wealthy.  As a committee member, I get to attend the Ivor Novello Awards each year but even that annual gathering of talent hadn't prepared me for the Sonys. On Monday the room was positively heaving with the successful, the famous and the important. Not having the smallest idea who most of them were only made me feel like a very small part of an extremely large media machine.

However I was heartened to spot the meeters and greeters. As tickets were checked on the way in, any guests with VIP invitations would be directed aside to have their picture taken - by an army of waiting photographers - in front of a specially erected backdrop of Sony Academy wallpaper.

Having run this gauntlet, a team of attractive young women and men would then meet them, greet them, press drinks into their hands and conduct them to the company of their fellow celebrities. The heartening thing?

These young people had no more idea who any of the celebs were than I did. Each of them carried a discreet clipboard full of photos so that they could identify and greet their VIPs by name and ensure that their importance was not improperly appreciated.

Now Playing @6Music was originally conceived by 6 Music, Audio & Music Interactive (who manage digital media for the BBC's radio stations) and Somethin' Else as a weekly audio iteration of a daily online conversation about alternative music. 

I love fronting the show and helping to draw together its various strands on air and online each week. I've been lucky to have a really enthusiastic production team; Rowan (above left) has an encyclopaedic knowledge of music that enables him to filter the incoming deluge of suggestions and improvise killer playlists on the fly, and that deluge is itself the result of the daily blogging, tweeting, posting and Spotifying of our online producer Will.

It's them, and all the other peple who've contributed to the show, who richly deserve the 2012 Sony Gold award for "Best Use of Multiplatform/Social Media" that Rowan and I are clutching in the above picture.

But gratifying as it was to get recognition for our own particular programme, the award that meant most to all 6 Music team players was the one our entire station received at the end of the evening: "Sony Radio Academy Station of The Year".

Hey listeners - good news for all of us, I reckon. We've now got a dedicated Facebook page to facilitate our online conversations with you through the week and during the show itself. As you know, we like to confer with you each week - firstly to decide on a Theme Of The Week related to one of the current hot topics in the online world - and secondly to pick tracks and artists that are more or less related to said Theme, for inclusion in that week's show.

The great thing about having our own Facebook page is that it'll alllow everybody involved to have a say about the show. Any listener can start a related discussion topics of their own there - you no longer have to wait for us to post something here and then respond to it. Obviously you're welcome to post on any topic you want on the new page, though if you're an artist it probably isn't the most effective place to get airplay for your new single - for that, head along to my BBC Introducing show instead and tell us about your tunes.

A band like Depeche Mode would not have been possible before cheap programmable drum machines. Prior to their arrival, any aspiring pop songwriter hoping to make a demo needed a full recording studio and the services of an amenable drummer before the groove in their head could become a reality.

During the seventies drum machines were a joke - the affordable ones only played preset bossa nova patterns, while the few programmable models on the market were eyewateringly expensive. Phil Collins embraced the Roland CR78 while Peter Gabriel brought one of the first Linn machines into the country. They were far beyond the reach of bright teenagers with fresh ideas and next to no cash.

But then in 1980 along came the Boss Dr Rhythm DR-55 - a small battery operated box with four naff analogue drum voices and, crucially, eight memory slots where you could create and save your own drum patterns. The main downside in those pre-MIDI days was that tempos were a bit hit and miss - there was no readout, just a sweepable knob you could turn to make your beats faster and slower. In the unfashionable dormitory town of Basildon, a young songwriter called Vince Clarke worked odd jobs to raise enough cash to buy one as soon as they arrived in the local music shop. Suddenly, with the help of a four-track cassette recorder and an early Roland synth, the world was his musical oyster.

Back then I used to read the NME religiously from cover to cover, and early in 1981 their single of the week was an indie release by a new young all-synth band called Depeche Mode. The gig guide showed they were opening for The Psychedelic Furs at Hammersmith Palais that week and I bought myself a ticket. The Furs were a big noise back then, with a debut album on CBS Records, posters everywhere and gigging on a grand scale thanks to lavish tour support from their label.

The Palais was rammed with their fans, and the support band had been crammed into a small apron of stage, hemmed in my giant amplifiers, guitar stands, PA stacks, monitors, keyboards, drum risers and - at the back of the stage - a SuperTrooper followspot mounted on a stand like a machinegun.

Depeche Mode turned out to be four small shy skinny youths with three cheap bottom-of-the-range synths on makeshift stands and no backline at all. There was no sign of Vince's drum machine - instead  at the front of the stage Dave Gahan had a radio cassette recorder that was wired into the PA system. As he announced each song, he would pull a cassette out of his shirt pocket, put it in the machine and out would come a plinky DR-55 drum pattern at exactly the right speed. A foolproof lo-tech solution to the tempo problem.

Their sound was young, fresh, sexy and quite unlike anything I'd seen or heard before. The Furs were as heavy dull and predictable as a Sherman tank and after two numbers I slipped away. As to what happened next... New Life went to number 11 that month on the unknown indie label Mute - while later in the year, for all the Furs' touring and promotional push, Pretty in Pink failed to even dent the UK Top 40.

So nice to see Natasha (Bat For Lashes) Khan doing so well. Last time I saw her she was wowing the crowd on a BBC Introducing stage at Glastonbury in a native american headdress. And the time before that she was a shy young woman playing breathtaking music with one other musican on my Friday suppertime show right there in the 6 Music studio. If those walls could talk...

And now we have video of her in an expensive-looking ball gown in front of  an equally expensive-looking band on stage at the Sydney Opera House, being blogged around the world. And simply because she performed one song that people hadn't heard before… Genuine talent so often goes unrewarded that it's really heartwarming to see one of the good guys doing so well.

By the same token I was sorry to hear of Martin Rushent's death. He was only a couple of years older than me and I went to visit him in 1981 just after he'd produced The Human League's Dare. He'd set up his own studio at home and kitted it out with all kinds of state of the art gear, and I was an artist who'd seen better days in need of a collaborative partner.

Martin was very matter of fact and upfront about the financial terms he was prepared to work under - and the degree of artistic control that he would expect to excercise - and we amicably agreed it probably wasn't a good idea for us to work together. It would probably have been the way Andy Partridge  of XTC memorably described working with Todd Rudngren: "like having two Hitlers in the same bunker."

I managed to write and produce a comeback hit on my own in any case with War Baby a couple of years later. But Martin himself had real staying power. His production career had included The Stranglers from 1977-79 even before his massive breakthrough with The Human League. After taking a well deserved career break to raise his family, he returned to the fray in the mid 90s and enjoyed recent success with The Pipettes, Killa Kela and Does It Offend You, Yeah? - who feature his son James on lead vocals. We're all the poorer for his passing.

Last night during NowPlaying@6Music friend of the show Andy Von Pip tweeted: "I saw Three Trapped Tigers live last week. I thought I was seeing Tigers That Talked and as such I was incredibly confused". Tigers That Talked weren't surprised. "Haha" they tweeted back "we've had a silent name battle with them for ages. Never spoken to them about it though, wonder if they're annoyed by it too?".

Actually looking back at our playlists from BBC Introducing: Fresh On The Net over the past three and a half years, there's far more scope for tiger-based confusion among band names than you might at first imagine. In chronological order of airplay we've heard music by:

EATEN BY TIGERS
http://www.myspace.com/eatenbytigers

TEN TIGERS
http://www.myspace.com/tentigers

TIGERSTYLE
http://www.tigerstyleonline.co.uk

PAPER TIGER
http://www.origamisounds.com

BURN PAPER TIGERS
http://www.myspace.com/burnpapertigers

THREE TRAPPED TIGERS
http://www.myspace.com/threetrappedtigers

TIGER SHADOW
http://www.myspace.com/jazzbongo

TIGERS THAT TALKED
http://www.myspace.com/tigersthattalked

MY TIGER, MY TIMING
http://www.myspace.com/mytigermytiming

TIGER PLEASE
http://www.myspace.com/tigerplease

WE CAME OUT LIKE TIGERS
http://www.myspace.com/wecameoutliketigers

TRUE TIGER feat P MONEY
http://www.myspace.com/truetigerrecordings

And there's even Sean Lennon's latest incarnation as a member of:
THE GHOST OF A SABER TOOTH TIGER
http://www.myspace.com/ghostofasabertoothtiger

What's with all these tiger-named bands and artists ? Can you think of any others - apart from perhaps the Tygers Of Pan Tang? And what, I wonder, are the other words and names most overused by musicians when thinking up monikers for their latest projects? Answers - not on a postcard please - but on a blog comment here, or else tweet me @BBC6Music with the hashtag #toomanytigers...

Blimey, great to see our friend Anita Blay aka CocknBullKid getting mentioned in the same breath as Julian Casablancas, Thurston Moore, Barbara Panther and Limp Bizkit ! We first played her on BBC Introducing: Fresh On The Net back in June 2008, just before she first played the Introducing stage at Glasto.

The great thing about Anita is her refusal to be categorised: she makes music pure and simple. She's friends with all kinds of indie kids and musical misfits from all kinds of scenes - you'll find her collaborating happily with Hoodlums one day and Chilly Gonzales the next.

Last October my wife and I ran one of our songwriters weekends at a remote Jacobean manorhouse in Kent where Anita joined up with various other musicians such as Tom from Toodar, Ben from Vinyl Jacket and Alex from Pandas & People. It was ludicrously talented company and Anita was the life and soul of the house party, cheerfully collaborating with all and sundry. I hope her new album Adulthood does brilliantly for her...

First off, in overall charge is producer Rowan Collinson - left in the  picture above. He's written a great introduction to both himself and the work he does at 6 Music here, but here's an extract:

"I've been producing shows at 6 Music for four and a half years and I've just launched a brand new show with Tom Robinson on Friday nights (7-9pm) called Now Playing @6Music, which is all about the digital conversation with music. Music has never been more digital. A music fan will listen to radio but also probably look at blogs like Drowned in Sound.

"They might well use a third-party music service like Hype Machine or Spotify to either play music or aggregate their tastes in recommending music, and they probably get their music news from an online source rather than a copy of NME. So the idea of this new show is to take part in this online music conversation.

"We're going to create a space once a week where people can share and recommend tracks related to the week's music news, and find out what's happening in the world of digital music. The show will be a weekly iteration of the activity going on 24/7.

"I try to go to a couple of gigs a week to see what's out there and make my own judgement on bands who music PRs have 'plugged' to me... I don't want to get really excited about someone, put them on a show or argue to put their record onto playlist and then see them live and they're rubbish. In my position I've always got to think about bands in a broader sense. [Read Row's full blog post here...]

If you're a regular visitor to this blog you'll also be familiar with the musings of our online content producer Will Gilgrass - ah, here he is now:

"I'm Will, content producer for Now Playing @6Music. What that means is I look after the blog and social media for the show, as well as organising bloggers to come on and divulge their musical tips onto us.

So far I think it has gone well, I hope you agree! Predominantly electronic music is my tipple, I run my own blog Radio ClubFoot based on upfront new dance music, but I have loved the variety which Now Playing has already thrown up. LCD Soundsystem week was great, but the fantastical dreaming of the Flaming Lips last Friday was really enjoyable – and being in a studio with Tom and Rowan is like being immersed inside a musical Wisden.

"I guess to conclude this introduction, if you would like to get in touch feel free to e-mail me with music, the bloggers you read and whose voice you think we should be listening to - or presents - and I will get back to you.
[Read Will's personal dance music blog here]

The backroom boffin you may not have encountered yet is Phil Harris from Somethin' Else - the independent production company who make Now Playing for the BBC. His job is...  well, let's hear it from the man himself:

"What I do on the show: my role on Now Playing @6music is to put together the features and sift through all the texts and emails we get. I piece together the blogging feature and the listeners mix. This week I had the challenge of mixing Marvin Gaye’s track Inner City Blues with The Skids' The Saints Are Coming!

"Working on Now Playing @6Music is a huge learning curve. What we are doing hasn’t really been done before so it’s a really interesting experience. For me what I enjoy about the show is the interactivity we have with the 6Music audience. It's great to hear their suggestions and let them have the opportunity to shape the show. Also we get to hear from some great bloggers. This week for instance we had Mozzatron from We Are S.M.E who tipped Awesome - by the American rapper XV - which is an absolute tune.

"And finally when I’m not working on Now Playing @6Music I work across a variety of other productions. I produce a chart show, work on a very entertaining bingo radio show and at the weekend I’m over at BBC Radio 5live working on 606."

And finally there's myself - Tom Robinson - your presenter for Now Playing @6Music and also for BBC Introducing: Fresh On The Net which is produced by Jax Coombes (above, without red nose).

I've been a DJ on 6 Music since before it even was 6Music - the far off pre-launch days of 2001 when we were just a pilot project known as Network Y. Back then we imagined we were in the throes of a digital revolution but Web 2.0 was still some way off: no Facebook, YouTube or Twitter. Blogs were clunky, iPods a novelty and podcasts part of an undreamed-of future. 

What excites me most about today's digital world are the spontaneous social interactions - like flashmobs, video memes or the Facebook groups that sprang up when 6Music was under threat of closure last year. The station got discussed openly, enthusiastically and candidly by its listeners in a way that had never been possible on the old message boards. It's partly thanks to the brutal honesty of that feedback that 6Music is now sounding better than I can ever remember.

These are difficult times for media and entertainment companies of every kind. Many of them are so used to being in control of everything they find it hard to accept and embrace the pace of change. So full marks to the BBC for launching a new show with the specific aim of engaging directly with the online community and crowdsourcing the music it plays. These are still very early days as we experiment to find the best way of making those conversations genuinely two-way over the coming months. 

But if it's going to work we also need you to get actively involved. Don't hold back - let's have your thoughts, comments and feeback. And please don't just text or email us - post your comments on this blog, via Twitter or on Facebook - where everyone else can read them and join in. We look forward to hearing from you!

Last Friday on our Facebook page one person named Hey Boy Hey Girl as their potential Glasto highlight by the Chemical Brothers – a band who have 14 top ten hits under their belt. Whereas foranother it was Solitude Is Bliss by Tame Impala.

So is the assertion correct that “most of your listeners couldn’t give a toss about Glasto these days”. Certainly, the Green Man Festival is closer to the 'alternative spirit' celebrated by 6 Music, but as we heard last Friday a lot of people like Paul Simon AND the Naked and Famous. A whole weekend live from The Green Man might  be an interesting listen and  bring exposure to some  deserving acts – but would “most of our listeners” prefer that instead of Glasto? Well, why not post a comment and tell us.

That said, a good point is that  headliners like Beyonce and U2 are possibly less interesting to many of you than the likes of Pentangle, Edgar Broughton, and C W Stoneking. Actually, if it was down to me which acts 6 Music featured over the weekend, I’d propose a great deal more covereage of the BBC Introducing stage – but then I would say that, wouldn’t I?

As a showcase for new talent, Glasto beats the other festivals hands down. Tyneside teenagers Let’s Buy Happiness won a slot on the John Peel Stage last year through the Glastonbury Emerging Talent Competition and half an hour after coming off stage you can still see the elation in their faces. They’d already been filmed at Maida Vale for 6 Music’s BBC Introducing Week and played on Radio 1. But it was only after taking the stage at the world’s premier musical gathering that they knew they’d finally arrived.

Tom x