Age-old tradition dictates that the music-making year is kicked off with a very special ceremony indeed – and 2009 was no different. So, with Christmas seemingly a distant memory, the entire industry jumped in planes, flew over to Orange County, California and released bucketloads of cool new products.

The 2009 Winter NAMM show might have taken place during the peak of an economic whiteout but that didn’t stop it being any less fruitful – in fact, bounties in hi-tech were the largest in years, with NAMM witnessing the launch of the market-shaking Akai APC40 Ableton Live controller to name just one product.

Meanwhile, back in the UK, MusicRadar was becoming embroiled in a bizarre fact-battle with the BBC over the supposed break-up of Led Zeppelin, which took a phone call or six to Zep’s manager and a whole lot of head-scratching to straighten out. Check out our timeline of critical events to find out how a then year-old story managed to resurface and bamboozle the entire internet.

January also saw the sad passing of John Martyn at the age of 60. We remember the innovative singer-songwriter here.