First up, big up Chips, and the people of Manchester, for a fucking brilliant night the other. We had an excellent time, and I enjoyed climbing all over your tables and busting up your roof. Safe.

I was woken up by my water heating today, which was doing some weird rumbling, and spent the rest of the day cleaning and unpacking boxes and things. I haven’t actually been with my stuff since June. None of it. I’ve been living out of my goddamned grannycart, and now I don’t have to. I kind of freaked out for a few days, but I’m starting to settle in now. With my stuff. I forgot about most of it. I have all these goddamned cloves and DVDs and books and CDs and records. And pieces of paper. And photos. And Batman figures.

Yep, shit is getting cosy for me over here. I figure I got a fortnight before my neck starts getting breathed on like baby dragons. Just enough time to get all this Equipment working. I am confused my my monitors, if I gots the red AND white phonos in the mixer at once the sounds all ghost-soupy. Any clues?

So, I was on the train back from Manchester, watching Barbershop, and my battery ran out. I was all, Goddamn! Because I didn’t have and CDs or paper or pens or books. But then I notice they have goddamned PLUG HOLES underneath the table. On the train! So I plugged my thing back in and even got to watch the special features.

Barbershop< by the way, is pretty bittersweet.

This side of boxes and trains and Ikea packaging, I've not been plugged into the world. Casual glances at newsstands reveal nothing but the depths of Pete Dickerty's self obsession, and Abi Titmus' cleavage. Happily, you people keep my inbox stuffed with knowledge, like this grim shit from my boy Kid West. MAybe you saw this, maybe not. Readumanweep.

January 28th, 2005 9:49 pm
BBC obtains Iraq casualty figures

The coalition has yet to respond to the figures.

Woo hoo! I stole some internet off of somebody! In my house! HAHAHA!

And, what I did, was I used it to sign up for some super fast broadband of my VERY OWN!

Glory days.

So, fuck CEO of Rocafella, Dame Dash is hitting back with, potentially, the biggest power move in rap history. Black owned distribution! Whoo!

Meanwhile, people vote. What for, remains unclear. We watched Evil Dead 2 last night. Shit was sweet.

Anyway, me and that Dogg are heading up to Manchester later, to play the Chips party. When we were in Crack Village we did it one time, and it was amazing, so I’m hyped.

Details -

Akira the Don - LIVE!
Guest DJ - Martin Moscrop (ACR/Factory Records)
Chips DJ’s Golden Egg, XeroX, Superchat, Jimmy Jamez, Miss Spent and LA77.
Charlie’s, Harter Street
9 till late £5

Yesitis.

I get good email. Sophie wrote and said, “these would look funny on your website“, which transpired to be truth.

And lots of you wrote and said you enjoyed our PWEI supporting. As did we. So jolly good all round, eh?

In the PlayLouder office today, Melissa shows me internet thieves sharing my EP with artwork and reviews and everything, which is pretty amazing. And someone’s made a ringtone of my Drinking Song. CLASSY.

I am off to test my jacuzzi now.

Not everybody can test a jacuzzi mind (or spell it), so those in the area would be advised to check out Templeton Dek and co at Cardiff Coal Exchange. And those in the Manchester area are advised to come see me, WORD.

I’m off!

They dropped it!

WOO HOO!

Still not sure if it’s wise to go into details yet. I’ll have to check that. But my peoples: I AM OFF!

So I can move into my house properly. And make noises in it. Straight away!

Glory be.

A big thank you to my Donettes, Blonde Jeremy and Natalie Monroe, for last night, and to Wataru Idol, for making my and Birddogg’s show even acer. And to the PWEI crowd for not bottling us. And to Jeff for the Subway. And Paul for sardonic majesty in general.

So, apologies for the lack off updates. Generally, when I’ve not been on a train, I’ve been onstage, and neither of these ports have unsecured wireless internet connections for me to jump on.

But, to let you know, the PWEI shows are going fantastically, thank you. In addition to Birddogg, I have Wataru from Piranha Deathray Trio on bass, along with Jeremy from the same and Natalie Monroe on Donnetes duty.

Big places full of people who don’t necessarily like you at all are cool.

Anyway, I forgot my headphones so I can’t make songs on the train today. And I feel distinctly ungood, as I drank two nights in a row. I am sure you did too. But that is not the point.

So I watched a South Park and I typed a bit, and wrote numbers down because my battery is dying, and Lisa from The Play Centre rang me and said my brother’s paining of the ODB is in Arena. Which is lovely. He is in Prague, apparently that is lovely too.

Ugh, my guts are twisting.

It is dark outside, you know, and I am up before everybody else.

Because I have a house.

It is in London.

And I am in Bishopstoke.

But I have a house.

Wade and Birddogg and I - we have a house.

This thing I am not supposed to talk about means I can’t actually SLEEP in it yet… hence the early up. I shall get the ten past eight, and maybe by eleven or so I shall be near my house.

It has started to fill with my things.

I haven’t seen all my things in one place since JUne 2004, you know.

Not only is it filling with my old things, but with things New, like that keyboard.

As big as me.

We are rehearsing at 1, for tomorrow’s Pop Will Eat Itsef shows. Those have crept up sharpish, eh. Someone told me Clint never showed in Nottingham. WEAK! I hope they’re good. I am sure they will be.

Fine the breweries. Says James Whale. He is complaining about the huge piles of vomit in the streets. He says if you are caught fighting in the street you should be locked up for 6 years.

Yeah!

An email titled “More Peace” from Kid West contains this link. That’s where the child up there came from.

They swore Bush in.

CUNT!

Someone, perhaps, said.

Protestors got arrested, or detained until Bush was done being sworn at in.

I’m reading Joe Sacco’s ‘Notes From A Defeatist’. It is excellent, of course, and has a great strip about working in a library in it.

Haha! The radio, talking about George Bush’s inauguration, said “protesters had use pepper spray on protesters”. No they didn’t!

What a dumb thing to say!

Still. These are dumb times.

Catch all that stuff about Iran in the Bush speech? See that thing about Salman’s fatwah? Bush Wars Part III… Heeeeeeeeeere we go!

This was meant to be over today.

I’ve been sat on this train since 01:05, and it’s now 2:17. I left the place I was DJing at 11:19, and we just went through Woking. I’ve been typing into this Laptop since I sat down, clatter clatter clatter. I recorded some weird conversation with Nonny and Gwilym, I detailed my journeys of late, how my **** terms decree I must return to the parental abode very night, three hours or so there, four or five back, and then I looked up to this error message that said “Microsoft works has encountered a problem and must close”, and that was that.

All gone.

4000 odd words!

I can’t be fucked to try and re-say what I said,.

Fuckin, it was bollocks anyway.

Douchey yuicking crap.

Now my laptop’s battery’s nearly run out

And I can’t be fucked to type any more.

Fuck it.

FUCK IT.

Douchey fucking fuckshit.

“The next station at the service will be Farnborough, Farnborough will be the next stop.”

Clock says it’s 2:27 now.

So earlier Nonny and Gwil were on the phone, and they weren’t really talking to me, I was their audience, and they played and flirted, and I wrote it down as it went along, but then it got deleted, so I can’t retype it properly, but mainly it went.

“MY ARSE! There is a HANDPRINT on my ARSE…”

“You started it, I heard you saying about stilettos, Ads, you heard her, she was saying about stilettos…“

“ADS he’s ARGGGGGGGGH my ARSE!“

Lalala.

Gwil had this theory about rape figures in this country being so high because girls in bars are all stuffy and don‘t talk to boys whereas they do in America, but I am sure there is more rape in America.

Piers Morgan got sacked for printing photos of British soldiers pissing on Iraqis and arranging them in rape positions like Barbie dolls, or people pretending to be British soldiers pissing on Iraqis and arranging them in rape poses like Barbie dolls, or something, then fast forward less than a year and a load of British soldiers get done for pissing on Iraqis and arranging them in rape poses or whatever after one douche bag puts fucking photos of him and his twat mates fucking pissing on Iraqis and arranging them in rape poses like Barbie dolls or whatever in fucking Boots or whatever to develop, fucking douche bag.

Ha ha Piers Morgan, douche.

“The next station stop will be Basingstoke. Basingstoke is the next station.”

At least there’s variation.

02:39

Clock says.

Wade phones, says he can’t stand me having to go through this ridiculous charade and he’ll pay half of whatever my lawyer wants to get me out of it.

He has Pete played the best set ever.

I am Never DJing Again.

I hate DJing and I hate DJs.

Its fucking stupid.

Like, you play a Biz Markie record because you like it, and some kids dance and some run up to the booth and go, wow, you played Biz Markie, that’s fucking amazing, because they know it, then Wade plays a Queen record by accident as I’m trying to play the ODB, and the whole place goes mental, because they ALL know it, so so what? IS THE POINT?

So Peter’s set was apparently amazing, because he prolly played a load of electro stuff that people can twitch with brainless abandon to, and turns all the knobs up and down, so it looks like he’s doing something other than playing the record, like, he’s PLAYING THE RECORD.

Cos that’s what DJs DO, bubba, that is all.

But actually, that’s why Djing is great, that’s why Djs are great. Stupid douchey Djs. That’s’ why playing corporate fashion events, like tonight, will always be a bit gross, because you’re playing to a lot of accountants and shit, really, and being honest, they just wanna feel cool for a few hours then hear Agadoo.

02:50.

When we get to Winchester I’ll get on a bus to Easteligh. When I get there, I’ll hoist my bag up on my shoulders, CD player in one hand, mike case in the other, and walk 30, 40 minutes up the windy hill road to my Mammy’s house in Bishopstoke, where Ill collapse into my kid brother’s bed.

He’s in Prague, drinking absinthe,.

I’m here, on a train again.

I read this article in The Independent by that douchebag Simon Price, and he’s all like, I am a genius because I play records in clubs, and sometimes they are really really popular records that everybody loves so a lot of the time when I play those particular records, people dance, so I am a genius. He’s all on about how he’s the best DJ in the world, because he has his “bombs,” like, when he’s playing something he actually wants to play and no one’s dancing, he plays Beyonce, or Guns N Roses, or whatever, in order to repopulate the dance floor, and apparently that makes him a genius.

Like, fucking, give the man a fucking OBE for his services to fcuking music! Shit!

02:57

“Winchester is the next station stop, the next station stop is Winchester.”

Get on Bus.

Old lady at the front, I smile, she grimaces, like I showed her my dick. Fuck you then lady.

Little rudes at the back giggling.

Blah blah blash.

My eyeballs hurt.

Bus jigs up and down. Can’t be good for my laptop. 16 minutes (13%) remain, it says. More than last night. It shut before Basingstoke.

I shut it.

03:47

I am sticky with sweat and I can still stink the Burger King on my cheeks, dead cow rotting in my teeth, fingers clammy yellow tacking the keys. I made it, friend, through the black and orange night, through the cars and the grass.

Now I think I have woken my mother.

04:01

Yes I have woken my Mother an Keith. I play her my version of Lady In Red though, and she says its better than the original, but she doesn’t like Chris’ lovely voice, so prolly it is crap really.

Go to bed.

Today I did the music for Wade and my cover of ‘Lady In Red’ on the train from Bishopstoke to London. It is GLORIOUS!

Here is a lovely story that made me smile.

From THE NEW YORKER, THE TALK OF THE TOWN, WRONG NUMBER DEPT.

— Michael Agger

Like it says. And a laptop. 172 screen, bitch. IT IS AMAZING!

I am ecstatic. I have longed for a laptop. Now I can make my album on the train. And with my amazing tablet, I can do the artwork on it too! THANK YOU INTERSCOPE!

Have some funny. Cheers to Tabitha for that.

Today we were at my Uncle Jan’s funeral.

The first songs we played were the Polish Nationla Anthem, the instrumental and vocal versions. Uncle Jan was proud of his Polish heritage.

Next was ‘Life On Mars’ by David Bowie. Bowie was the young Uncle Jan’s hero.

As we left, Queen’s ‘Spread Your Wings’. It is a lovely song.

S
A
F
E

It was very beautiful.

In amusing news, Borat pissed off some Yanks again.

“I hate living in the future,” said my Mammy when she got in from work earlier. “I wish I lived in a cave.”

I am living in my little brother Alex who is in Prague teaching English’s room - until Wade and I find our palace - which is minature and warm and painted red. I sit on his computer which is my old computer with sixty windows open and messnger running, engaging in vague communication with my little brother Zef who is doing the ‘Living In The Future’ video downstairs.

Zef says:
WAFL
Zef says:
I NEED A POO
Zef says: so go to loo if you need to use it cus then i am showering and releasing myself of all filth
Adam says: cheers for that.
Zef says:
Pondering the strangeness of modern communication, I am interrupted by the buzzing of my mobile. I have a message from my Nan. It says:

CONGRATULATION ON THE BIRTH OF YOUR BABY LOTS OF LOVE AUNTY NORA

We haven’t progressed that far, I think.

Actually, we have. I’d never heard of this guy two hours ago. Now he is my favourite man. Cheers to Lloyd Owen for that.

So, my Mam made me a goregeous Zoot Suit for Christmas, right? Cos I wanted one. And now I gots one. And it is beautiful.

But, it has a history, one which I did not know, and one I find awesomely fitting, given the channel of sound I have chosen to express myself in, the times in which we live, etcetera.

From www.edc.org

The zoot-suit is more than an exaggerated costume, more than a sartorial statement, it is the bearer of a complex and contradictory history. When the nameless narrator of Ellison’s Invisible Man confronted the subversive sight of three young and extravagantly dressed blacks, his reaction was one of fascination not of fear. These youths were not simply grotesque dandies parading the city’s secret underworld, they were “the stewards of something uncomfortable”, a spectacular reminder that the social order had failed to contain their energy and difference. The zoot-suit was more than the drape-shape of 1940s fashion, more than a colourful stage-prop hanging from the shoulders of Cab Calloway, it was, in the most direct and obvious ways, an emblem of ethnicity and a way of negotiating an identiy. The zoot-suit was a refusal: a subcultural gesture that refused to concede to the manners of subservience. By the late 1930s, the term “zoot” was in common circulation within urban jazz culture. Zoot meant something worn or performed in an extravagant style, and since many young blacks wore suits with outrageously padded shoulders and trousers that were fiercely tapered at the ankles, the term zoot-suit passed into everyday usage. In the sub-cultural world of Harlem’s nightlife, the language of rhyming slang succinctly described the zoot-suit’s unmistakable style: ‘a killer-diller coat with a drapeshape, real-pleats and shoulders padded like a lunatic’s cell. The study of the relationship between fashion and social action is notoriously underdeveloped, but there is every indication that the zoot-suit riots that erupted in the United States in the summer of 1943 had a profound effect on a whole generation of socially disadvantaged youths. It was during his period as a young zoot-suiter that the Chicano union activist Cesar Chavez first came into contact with community politics, and it was through the experiences of participating in zoot-suit riots in Harlem that the young pimp ‘Detroit Red’ began a political education that transformed him into the Black radical leader Malcolm X. Although the zoot-suit occupies an almost mythical place within the history of jazz music, its social and political importance has been virtually ignored. There can be no certainty about when, where or why the zoot-suit came into existence, but what is certain is that during the summer months of 1943 “the killer-diller coat” was the uniform of young rioters and the symbol of a moral panic about juvenile delinquency that was to intensify in the post-war period.

by Stuart Cosgrove

More Zoot history.

Cheers to Ana.

An intersting interview with Rick Rubin

And congratulations Nas and Kelis!

The picture, by the way, is from the new Stolen Ideas Book. Keep an eyeball out.

So, it used to be, that 50 years after someone’s death their copyright all up and vanished, and you could start ripping them off. You could perform their plays in public, without having to pay anyone. You could cover their songs, royalty free. For some reason, this pissed Sonny Bono off. Maybe he thought he wasn’t going to hit that tree. Whatever. In 1998, the Sonny Bono Copyright Extension came into being adding another 20 years. But that still means, in 59 years, you’ll be able to do trance versions of ‘Come As You Are’ without anyone being able to do anything. And in 2047 - that’s just 42 years - Paul Oakenfold will no longer have exclusive dibs on crap Elvis mixes.

Even cooler, Mickey Mouse’ll be up for grabs pretty soon. He was supposed to be ours in 2004, but the Bono extension added to corporate copyright’s longer 75 years, giving them 95. Those swine own Winnie The Pooh too, you know. He will be ours again soon. Unless they keep topping up. Which isn’t unlikely.

Read all about it

“You know, that story about him being raised in the Fort Greene projects on welfare until he was a child of 13 is a total lie. When I read it in the Vibe magazine a few years ago, my other son was here from the Navy. He said, ‘Daddy did you see this story?’ I was furious. I tried to get in touch with the guy who wrote the story, but all I got was a tape for two weeks. So finally called my wife. She said, ‘Look, I know you’re upset.’ She said, ‘Your son did that for publicity.’ I said, ‘Wow. As hard as we worked …’”

Old Dirty’s Dad clears up some myths.

Now I’m even sadder.

Still. We move on. Don’t sleep on The Civil Contingencies Bill. It is real and about to happen.

Happy New Year Arabs!

Yes, last week they totalled 14 Palestinian homes, injured 30 occupants and surrounding Palestinian randoms, and murdered ten, including a mentally disabled child called Hadil.

And today, the Us/Israeli assault on the Arab world continues, joyfully enough, with Sharon’s folks doing all they can to fuck up tomorrow’s vote, having snipers pose as Palestinians and murder people, decieving poor old Jimmy Carter, slaughtering 60 year olds, etc. And in Iraq, those loveable Yanks are using scores of little kiddies as human shields, luring them aboard tanks with fucking sweets…

MeanWhile their masters continue the horrorful advance of the New American Century, and the New World Order.

I’ve kind of been asleep since that bullshit US election. But I am waking up again. HOW CAN WE SLEEP RIGHT NOW? I mean:

“The west’s crusaders, the United States and Britain, are giving less to help the tsunami victims than the cost of a Stealth bomber or a week’s bloody occupation of Iraq. The bill for George Bush’s coming inauguration party would rebuild much of the coastline of Sri Lanka. Bush and Blair increased their first driblets of “aid” only when it became clear that people all over the world were spontaneously giving millions and that a public relations problem beckoned. The Blair government’s current “generous” contribution is one-sixteenth of the £800m it spent on bombing Iraq before the invasion and barely one-twentieth of a £1bn gift, known as a soft loan, to the Indonesian military so that it could acquire Hawk fighter-bombers.”

Read it and weep.

And. Following a little outrage, but not so that anybody I know noticed, The Civil Contingencies Bill, Blair’s hilarious answer to the Patriot Act, has been revised. You’ll be glad to know it is just as terrifying, and they can still suspend parliment and stick us all in camps in the event of a flood. Goody.

I am full of sadness, fear, outrage, dread… but hope claws at my whiskers. Chavez gives me hope. People give me hope.

Goddamn, what a messed up week this has been. I am afarid I can’t say much about it right now, for various reasons, but suffice to say it’s been pretty harsh all round.

Still, the end result of this is I have two weeks to work on the ‘Living In The Future’ video with Zef, rejig the website, and write raps, before we start on the album proper.

So, some things.

More peple are now buying MP3s than singles.

Snoop’s coming to the UK.

That fat white kids been rapping again.

This much I gathered today. Not much, huh? I haven’t a clue this week, although Wednesday’s events gave me the oppurtunity to read The Independent and Kerrang! from cover to cover. I am very excited about the new Slayer, Nightwish and Nine Inch Nails albums, and have read many accounts of the difficulties of getting aid to Sri Lanka. I am also afraid of Michael Howard, who’s enlisted the Nazi tactics of Lynton Crosby, who’s anti-immigrant scare tactics won the election for Australian PM John Howard. WHOO!

Rest in peace Uncle Jan.

The last episode in a series of Buffy The Vampire Slayer is always a let down.
Big up everybody who came to the Slaughtered Lamb on Friday. I had a wonderful time, thank you, even after the amp blew up and the noises stopped. And last night was fun too. Cibelle was fucking incredible. I got that stuttering belly thing. My little brother DJed an awesome neo folk/dark wave/euoro metal set to a room full of confused/retarded/terrified children and their parents, waiting tragically for tragic Pete Doherty to haul his tragic translucent junky ass down from his 5 star hotel room to entertain their tragic souls. With tragedy. And do you think he did?

Did!

He!

Fuck!

No. He is a loser. He can but lose. Actually, the lumpy faced father (FATHER!) just about managed to go up and down in the lifts for twenty five minutes, clutching his guitar with one set of nasty clammy finger pipes, groping in confusion at his fluorescent orange wristband with the other, fat yellow tongue, sticky with goo, bitty and forlorn like a turd rolled in a hoover bag, occasionally venturing from the stinky prison of his mouth to collect some dead skinflakes from its pursed, grim corners. FORSOOTH!

I didn’t see him, Nonny did. I was busy doing things, like running up and down stairs with bits of paper and not playing. And getting set upon by Pete Doherty fans. “Pete is an incredible person,” beamed one girl beamishly from somewhere inside a set of gunged up braces. “He’s so real. My Mum loves him too. He’s not some fake rock star. He cares.”

“There is no way in hell that wet sack of shit is doing anything tonight, least of all caring,” I said. “Perhaps he will do some self mythologising, and crack, in the luxury of his suite. Leave me alone. It has nothing to do with me. I quit.”

And if I wasn’t being asked by Pete Doherty fans about Pete Doherty and when he was playing, I was being asked by clever people when I was, and the answer to which (”Oneish”) turned out to be false, and I never got to play at all, for which I am sorry, especially you who came from Betws Y Coed and you who came from Tipton.

I liked Erol’s Beyond The Wizard’s Sleeve room the best, that was lovely. It was full of Psych.

Anyway. That is done now. This week I’m finding somewhere to record my album. Then I’ll do it. In January I shall play those shows with Pop Will Eat Itself, a Firetrap party, and possibly something at 93 Feet East in London. But mainly it will be album.

OH BY THE WAY. I’m doing a New Year New Shit mixtape, if I get time, so please send me stuff I might like. There’s so much dope stuff about! I got the new Undercover today - the CD has some hot shit on it, go pick it up.

Anyway, must dash, sorry, thank you, I love you, goodbye.

Happy New Year peoples.

We are halfway to 2010, and still no flying cars.

Still, we can carry 10,000 songs in our pockets, we’ve got biospheres, and Biblical natrual disasters.

And assholes. Laugh your ass off, I did.