WE ARE PLAYING A GIG TONIGHT!

It’s at Plan B, in Brixton. Headline are Akira The Don & The Women, which is me, and my band. We shall be joined onstage by N Dubbs, feat. Narstie and Solo, and the singularly awesome Bashy.

Support comes in the form of live sets by Bashy, N Dubbs, Marvin The Martian and Technically Men. The thing will be capped with a DJ set by Keith “Radioactiveman” Tenniswood. BANG! BANG!

Get ye tickets and directions here.

Funny how you all got so hot and bothered about MissoddType, eh? I had more emails about her than I did poor Mendez. Shame on you! Anyway, in answer to your queries, she is an emcee from Londonland, and you can hear her spit righteously on her myspace page, which I can’t link proper cos myspace is down as I type, but you’ll find her in my friends list. Safe.

Hey! Luke sent me LADIES IN UNIFORM! You’ll love that. Peace to all my lesbrarian sisters emailing me weird rudery. Peace to all the younglings in Baltimore who love Bearman. Peace to Missy in Toronto who loves Bashy. Peace to you all! See you tonight! I’ll be the one in ORANGE!

Oh, I nearly forgot. Gwil emailed me this:

Murdoch to fuck with Number 6!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

The worst thing imaginable; Sky One to remake the prisoner!

Link!

All together now: Urrrrrrrghhhhhhhhhhhhhhh…

So, ITunes didn’t get the song online till Saturday. Other netfolks cocked up too. But like I give a single fresh FOCK, sonny - CLONES is at NUMBER ONE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

In the CultureDeluxe Chart.

WOO HOO! WOO HOO! WOO HOO!

Oh happy day! That beats number 73 in the “real” charts any day of the week! I am so happy I just sneezed! Let us celebrate! All back to mine! You can share my cold!

From the Culture Deluxe front page:

AKIRA THE DON HITS NUMBER ONE

It’s been a long time since the CDX chart has seen one single enjoy such a meteoric rise in popularity. However, this week Akira the Don has attracted a record number of votes (most high too) and shoots past Madonna, Franz Ferdinand, the Arctic Monkeys and the Arcade Fire to take the number one slot. Now, we are all agreed that Clones is a damn fine track, built around an excellent Alice Cooper sample with cutting and relevant lyrics delivered on top, but this sudden public interest may actually stem from Akira posting the link to the charts on his website this week. Well, we say good on ya, and welcome all new CDX users who’ve come through this route, and, indeed, welcome to Akira himself. May you enjoy this number one, and may it make up for not even reaching the top 75 of the UK charts. Yes sir, the British single buying public are the real villains here!

I would dissagree, actually. They rule! People kick ass! Kiss them every oppurtunity you get! Even if they have colds!

So, on an uglier note, I have been monitoring this shamefull new lurch into the past - wherein a lady’s right to decide whether or not to bear a sprog is refuted - with some unease. In America Roe VS Wade looks likely to be overturned, leading to a glorious new era of bloodied coathangers and the like… Anyway. They tell me it could never happen here. “it could ever happen here!” they say. But no! I just peeped the newsrack next door, and today’s Daily Mail headline screams “50 Babies A Year Are Alive After Abortion!

Don’t sleep folks, they will fuck you up, serious.

The same rag has a big thing about the “chaos” this so-called “24 hour drinking” has caused. Personally, here in London, I have found it nigh on impossible to get a drink after 1 in the main. I have seen no difference whatsoever. Here, at least, it appears to be a fallacy. Dunno about Brummage though, I ain’t been there in years. Still, noone’s blamed it for George Best’s death yet, but perhaps they yet shall…

Oh no! Not ONLY do I have a stinking cold, but iTUnes haven’t been selling CLONES all week so I might not get to number 73 in’t charts! TRAGEDY!

They are selling it now though, swines. It’s listed as Clones EP for no good reason. Still you can buy it in’t shops. I recomend the vinyl, it is pretty.

Wade emailed me, Wade is funny. He sent me This Link - which is funny and sweet - and said the following:

senator mcgain on the daily show was funny

also mr cheney lobbying for right to torture

w
a
d
e

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!

Lauren took me to see The Libertine last night. It was amazing. That guy I love out of Coupling’s in it! And so’s Johnny Vegas! What an amazing film! I want to see it again.

Jeres and Bashy are coming round in a bit to film the voiceover for our Christmas Cartoon. So what If I am full offlourecent snot? What a great job I have!

My favourite song at the moment is Billy Joel’s Summer, Highland Falls. It goes a little something like this:

They say that these are not the best of times
But they’re the only times I’ve ever known
And I believe there is a time for meditation
In cathedrals of our own
Now I have seen that sad surrender in my lover’s eyes
And I can only stand apart and sympathize
For we are always what our situations hand us
It’s either sadness or euphoria

How thoughtlessly we dissipate our energies
Perhaps we don’t fulfill each other’s fantasies
And as we stand upon the ledges of our lives
With our respective similarities
It’s either sadness or euphoria

GET ME!

Oh, that photo was taken by the evidently talentful John Wykes-Sneyd, for Soundgenerator. I think it is proper book.

Oh baby, I have a cold!

How lame!

I haven’t been ill in ages.

I DON’T GET ILL! I AM ILL!

Ho ho.

So, iTunes have cocked up, and you still can’t get CLONES from there. Neither them OD2 people. Lame! So you should buy it from 7 Digital, or in the shops (Virgin is selling the CD for £1.99 and the superior vinyl for 99p) so I can get to number 73 int’charts. Otherwise I’ll have to, like, moan.

65,002 people clocked the video on Newgrounds so far! Reviews are either “10 - genius!” or “0 - fuck you assholes!” But on a ratio of 2 good to 1 bad, so I am not as polarising as I’d hoped. Ah well.

Big up Zef for all his work. Big up Ian Capfeild for having us on his radio show last night. It was easy and fun - me and Mary and Bashy went in and did CLONES and AIDS and I chatted some crap or other. Next week is going to be very busy, with three gigs and lots of chats and things. This weekend I am recording my nearly-love song, and my Sway ansaback, so you nice emailers will have one of these (I haven’t decided yet) on Monday am. Tonight I am having a wee respite, going for a cherry coke and a cinema showing of The Libertine, hurrah for me.

Oh, I met The Woman Of The Year yesterday! How ill is that! Tragically she is married. Ah vey.

Oh, you should check my boy Daniel doing his thing from 10-12 midnight on Sunday at www.xpressionfm.com. Safe!

So, 39,567 people have watched the CLONES animation on Newgrounds. And Jo Whiley just played it on Radio 1, and, I am told, Enthused. and asked for feedback. You can give her feedback by emailing her at jo.whiley@bbc.co.uk, or text her on 81199. Why you’d want to do such a thing I couldn’t possibly fathom, eh?WHUP.

I’m gonna be on Ian Campfield’s XFM show tomorrow night. I shall play a few songs, I think. Bashy will be there. We might rap over Journey or something of there’s time…

So, get ready for BOOZE, eh? This whole thing is starting to remind me of that gin thing they pulled in the 1600s. I’ll write a bit more on that when I have a second.

PEACE!

Yo! Old Man, AKA DAD! If you are reading, email me, you terrible swine. I hear you have moved from your home and have left your job, which is progressive and admirable, but it means your email and number don’t work anymore, and me and Jeres want you to come and see The Baggies with us on the 10th of December. Holla at your son! And you’d beter have bought my single!

Which reminds me, those who know me, I lost my phone the other week. So I haven’t been purposely ignoring your texts, etc. And I have a new one. It plays Elephant Man songs! Email me for the new number.

Today I did two interviews and caught a train, on which I wrote a song. Hurrah!

Cough.

So, bloody Interflora keep emailing me. It is an outrage. You send one bunch of flowers, opt out of any further mail discourse, and they continually insist on reminding you on a more than weekly basis that people all over the world are in love, or dying. It is really quite depressing.

Still, I can hardly complain. Two people sent exasperated emails after Monday’s ATD mailout demanding to be removed from my Spamlist immediately, and I noticed both had requited on three previous occasions. You get what you give.

Zef and I saw that new Harry Potter last night. It had its moments, but in the main, it was quite shocking. The art of editing in modern film seems to have been completely lost - it made very little sense, and appeared to have been cut by a drunk. And that Daniel lad cannot act for toffee, let alone millions of pounds. The young lady Hermonie Whatever and that Ron Weasly rule, but, again, just like that rotten Lord Of The Rings film, I find myself shaking a fist at the screen, outraged that we have a useless lead who gets all the credit, backed up by a decent person who gets none. Screw Hollywood, and screw JK Dowling, or whatever she’s called.

So, 24,596 of you have watched the CLONES animated video on Newgrounds, I see, and the reaction has once more been overwhelmingly positive, although I see a larger percentage are unhappy to have their brains tested, or even poked a little. I shall round up some of the funnier bits of the reviews later this week, but you can oggle them yourselves in the meantime.

Oh, and big up Maryland. A huge and disproportionate amount of my people seem to be living there. I have no idea why, but big up Maryland. I went there once, and it was flat and beautiful.

So. I am informed that CLONES is not yet available to buy on iTunes, for whatever reason. I am told it will be tomorrow, but in the meantime, you can buy online quite cheaply and easily here. So do that.

Fun then:

Kate moss topless on drugs! Remember that “Dance Monkey, dance!” bit in Zoolander? Yeah.

Evil Andrew has a book of his evil hamster drawings! It looks awesome!

I am at number 9 in the Culture Deluxe Chart! Higher than The Darkness! Go vote for me and kick Madonna’s ass!

This is full of pathos and amusement.

This is part two. Watch it second. It has even more. It shocked me! In a good way.

Sayonara, lovers. In us we trust.

It is time peoples.

CLONES - the brand new animated video from Akira The Don - me - and Zef - my magnificently-trumpeted little brother…

Is online now.

Get your fine ass over to Newgrounds and watch that shit. And vote! It is is your right! People died so you could vote my ass into massivity!

Well…

Danielle was one of the most beautiful girls I have ever laid eyes on. She was perhaps half a foot shorter than me, light olive skin, hair scraped back to lay bare grey eyes that burned a hole in my face, a thick, scornful mouth, slight shoulders, wide hip, startling posture. I met Danielle in a phonebox at Dalston junction a few hours ago. Well, she was in it, and I was outside of it. She called out to me. I was striding with confidence and purpose up the grey and war torn Kingsland Road, in the direction of a busstop. I was singing The Only Living Boy In New Cross, in that careless manner I cannot do when sober anymore. My free shoes were breaking in. I was comfortable inside of my skin.

But I’ll get back to that. Tonight I was in Islington, or more specifically, in the Highbury Corner area. Luke took me to see Arab Strap at The Garage. I waited nigh on an hour for a tiny, crippled bus in Stoke Newington Square, during which time I read all of a damp copy of Metro I found on the pavement and most of Kerrang!, and met my boy in the Weatherspoons by the roundabout a mere half hour late. He was sat in the window reading The Daily Star, chortling at the story about the reality TV show wherein some unsuspecting fools are conned into believing they are training to go to, then are in, space. The idea was stolen from a short lived reality television show that aired ion Channel Four three years or so ago, last time I owned a television.

Anyway. We drank competitively price-fixed whiskey and talked of noises and ailments, and then wandered over the road and watched Arab Strap, who I love, who made me aware that ones own accent, and ones own actions, no matter how foul, and supposedly embarrassing, when placed over great music can made an unphysically tangible thing that can erode ones creeping soul.

What I do now, I perhaps might not have been able to do without Arab Strap. They were my second interview too, a beautifully actual, frank, and funny pair of manboys who braved my teenage ignorance seven years ago, the results of which are still available to read on their website. And they employed a stringed beast of wood and plastic, and played Packs Of Three, and were funky, and made Luke dance, although he claims to hate funk. A strange claim I suspect to bee rooted in an over exposure to Jamiroquai, rather than the works of George Clinton.

But I digress. Arab Strap were magnificent, gloriful, lugubrious disco, and although they engaged in the foul sport of Encores, were naught but brilliance and handsomeness and charm, and after we wandered outside and three doors down and ran into GI John, and old pal from way back, and lo we did wander into a bar and drink whiskey and chat of times past and present and future.

I met Phil, the Peckham Mangler in there. I had turned around in the process of ordering a drink, and he beckoned me to his space, with a gnawed, sausage finger. He said he knew me, from a pub in Bow, situated between a dual carriageway and a dilapidated estate. I remember being there, idling hours away with beer between trains, on my way to Essex, and Lois, from my old band and my old life’s Mannor. But I didn’t remember Phil, The Peckham Mangler. My memory is shit.

Phil was 35, lobster white, bald, built, cockney, Peckham raised, and an ex boxer. He said he never lost a fight. He thought I was a DJ, and offered me a drink, and tales, of fighting, and of class. He didn’t so much spit out words as chew them up, swill them about his face, and gob them out, and he was as liberal with the word “faggot” as he was “pakki”. “I’m one of the last standing from the old school,” he said. He had two boys at home, three and seven. He liked Luke. He said, repeatedly, that were his unborn daughter to come home with Luke - rakish of hair and emboldened and warmed by well tossed-scarf, a self proclaimed “ponce”, fearful in his habitat of egg-lobbing little youts - he’d be happy, or at least not unhappy. “If she came back with some spade,” he said, dolefully, “I’d kill him.”

I enquired why, and he countered that were one of his sons to come back with a “faggot”, he’d do the same. I asked why again, suggestgiing that were his son happy, would that not be great? And he agreed that, actually, it would, that he wasn’t homophobic, but he was from that “old school”, and it was hard. “Here I am, talking to you, you skinny hairy fuck!” he beamed. He told me a tale of a “mincing faggot” he met at an Arsenal charity dinner, who stroked his arm and caused him to warn the lad that were he to touch him again he would “spread his face all over the bar.” He was sad that certain homosexual men feel obliged to live up to a stereotype, and I suggested that he, with his exaggerated heterosexuality was no different, that amidst those two claimed opposites, lies the actuality of mankind. He agreed and bought me a whiskey.

Later Phil left, and Luke left, and I walked outside and bumped straight into Natalie, an ex-brummage acquaintance and common law wife of my friend Lucifer, so we went back in and drank more, and talked of genocide and high street vomitstilleto warfare on Broad Street. We took turns to urinate in an alley by the bus stop, and I bought a cranberry sandwich,a copy of The Independent, and a half-sized tube of Pringles, and missed New York’s magnificent 24/7 delis terribly.

The bus to Dalston Junction stopped for a while, until we noticed the driver was arguing with two young men of Arab decent in khaki suits and turbans. They didn’t have change, but they had notes, in abundance, but the driver didn’t want them on the bus, so I gave them the fare, refused their repeated offerings of crisp tenners, and we moved on. “You, no offense, fucking blonde rock freak, helping me, it’s mad, man. Makes me glad to be human,” noted the taller, with gaping amazement. And I got off the bus, to cries of “come back to ours and do coke,” or somesuch, and stepped into Dalston Kingsland.

And it was there I met Danielle. I was striding, handsomely, happily, up that Kingsland Road, as I said. She was leaning out of a phonebox, calling to me. She wanted a light, then food, then a pound. I gave her the remaining half of my cranberry turkey sandwich and the rest of the box of Pringles. She was half asleep, and her hands were calloused and black. She was messing with tinfoil and fire in the phonebox. She was shaking, an her eyes rolled about her skull. She said she was hungry, and scared, and sleeping in the doorway of Oxfam. She said she could go into Soho and get “any high class sadist” if she wanted, but she was going into Detox in three days and couldn’t bear it, because “that stuff can last all week.” She sang me part of a Pogues song, Dirty Old Town, and told me about a time when a “high class sadist” smashed in her skull with an ashtray after assaulting her with his damp, half dead penis for a night and a morning. She showed me the patch of her head that was bald from the scar tissue. We smoked a cigarette and I got my bus. I bought a packet of nuts and a bottle of water from the corner shop, and sang The Only Living Boy In New Cross all the way home, swinging my blue plastic carrier bag and thinking about Bill Clinton.

Bill Clinton is being lined up to be president of the world. I have mentioned this before, but today, it was obvious. The signs were everywhere - from Metro to Esquire to The Independent. All are agreed - the UN is ineffectual, and Clinton is the people’s champ.

But he is still a neutered puppet on a gnarly string. And he won’t help Danielle.

HEY! WATCH THE CLONES ANIMATION TRAILER AND GET EXCITED LIKE NICE CHRISTY BABANS ON THE EVE OF THE MASS OF THE CHRIST!

(That might not work immediately cos of something, but it will in a bit if it doesn’t now. Get me?)

I have been a good boy today, all sat down in Netbuddy on Stokey High Street doing interviews and Q&As and editing audio for an advert and writing people back and listening to Matt F’s goliath new beat on repeat. Tragically, the volume of email I am getting right now is fucking crazy, so I owe an awful lot of people and awful lot of email. Hopefully I can catch up over the next week. I do love you, really, don’t be sad and angry and full of hate.

So, nice one at you all that have been emailing Lauren Laverne. Please continue, and apologise for my initial misspelling of that nice name of hers. Me spaz. It should read:

“Dear amazing and lush Lauren Laverne

PS - it was Akira’s fault that your name was misspelled in those emails yesterday. He was in the pub when he updated his website. He is sorry now, cos he has a hangover.”

So, as said, if you copy paste me on the email - atd@akirathedon.com, next week I will send you a song. I can now reveal it will be a version of a Sway song. Ooh, the mystery.

So, fuckin’ FRUITY 6 is nearly with us! I am excited. Fuck Logic, losers. Music isn’t maths. Get a life!

Ho ho. I joke, peoples. Use whatever works. That is best.

SO. In the news:

They sold me to Gitmo!

The Numerologists Are Getting Twitchy!

They Still Want TO Blow Us Up!

Morrissey’s new album is called Ringleader of the Tormentors!

They Still Want To Kill Us - or - The Trouble With Jordan

Ruth Kelly Is Full Of Shit.

Snoop Stands Tall For Tookie.

Finally:

RIP Tarus Jackson.

So, Luke’s taking me to see Arab Strap tonight. I fucking love Arab Strap.

And I fucking love Ally.

Wow, that new Darkness single seemed crap on first play, but now I know it is AMAZING! Funny how that goes. AND! I am reporting from inside the Intrepid Fox in Soho. So goeth the future. Get me?

Anyway.

BWA HA HA HA HA!

Really obvious post-street-teaming kicks ass. I am told an initially reticent Zane Lowe played CLONES again last night, with an attached spiel that went a bit like this:

“I know there is something on akirathedon.com telling people to email in to me and we appreciate your passion for it and we are playing it cos we love it but we’re getting about 500 emails a day and it is crashing my system so please stop.

So there you go. Hurrah! WE RULE! Well, I rule a bit, and you rule A LOT. Let us celebrate with merriment and whatnot. But! Oh my peoples: you can now STOP hassling Zane Lowe, and START hassling Lauren Laverne! And not just cos she’s ace.

Yes yes yes. If you have the time, please email lauren.laverne@xfm.co.uk thusly:

“Dear amazing and lush Lauren Laverne

A person.”

Copy paste me on the email - atd@akirathedon.com and I will send you AN EXCLUSIVE SONG nobody, not even my MUM, has. MERCENARY! YES!

Tomorrow, I might impart some KNOWLEDGE, as opposed to pimping. I love you all with my mouth.

PS! SIC have made a podcast. I am on it. Check it out.

So, FIRST - CLONES is out on Monday, which is very soon, and you can pre-order it digitally here. Now, that counts towards the charts, and I want to get to number 74, so please pre order it and MAKE MY DREAM COME TRUE, like Jimmy used to (but don’t break my arm in bits).

Sorry about the lack of updatage, I have been On Road, servicing the community. I ruined Jeremy and Mika’s wedding anniversary on Saturday, for instance, by turning up emotional and bombarding all and sundry with Chris de Burgh and Bruza records until they chucked us out. Twas hung with MAD fun. Did some freestyling and accapella-lobbing over Chris Eches, AKA The Error Plains’ button mashing nuttiness. Played Sizzla acapellas. Another vault over the wall to gain entry to my love shack, and I was off to Cardiff in the afternoon of the next day, where Mr Martin Carr and his lovely Mary were excellent hosts, and we played ace records at The Welsh, and witnessed bands of varying degrees of proficiency. Hooked up with the Main Dyn Tystion, saw lovely goblinfaced Baz The Evil Genius, bumped into old bra Owen, who used to piss on peoples’ shoes when he was in The Crockets, and had a very deep and enjoyable sleep in a very deep and enjoyable bed.

Today I have been doing interviews and wearing my big red winter clothes. I hope you are all as well as can be expected.

“hey does any1 kno akira da don? he’s rly gud i like da cartoons on ng wot he did. i hope he makes a new 1 soon.”
Someone wise on the Newgrounds board

See those things, right, Zef and I made, just for YOU, this gorgeous generation of tiny scamps that communicate only via MSN and animated gifs to express your emotions in a global way, unlike we oldsters who still hide our real thought’s behind complicated metaphor, bluster and vague innuendo.

Speaking of which, Mary’s coming in shortly to do some lalalaing on this Dead Babies song. “In” being the Townhouse studios in Shepherd’s Bush, where I am currently ensconed with James Brown, worse for wear again after a week of Placebo engineering and a night out with Jeff. Me, I feel crispy fresh despite another silly night of whiskey and rowing with Jeres and othersuch fornication. The night bus went the wrong way again. But the nightbus is romantic. Like Cherry Coke.

Don’t ask me why! Just ask me. Ask me ask me ask me. La dee dah!

Ah, but you do, eh? That last mail out prompted a flurry of requests for the seminal ATD live experience, from places I’ve never been to like Oxford and Belfast and Boston and Manchester and Kansas and Tokyo. Actually, I’ve been to Oxford - hot posh girls slumming it on heroin. And I have been to Manchester. Bangingest parties in the country.

Yo! This is hot! Bush falls through the ether! Hours of fun!

Peace out children of the korn.

Oh glory of glories! Oh joy of joys! Oh how sweet to wander into a newsagency at 3:30 this morning, merry on whiskey and post-Bloodhound Gang DEEP LOVE (see here for my review, first one I’ve writ in a year), and see The Sun’s distraught “TRAITORS!” headline! The Telegraph’s black, mocking visage! The Independent’s matter of fact “The Moment Tony Blair Lost His Authority“. 322 for! 291 against! They dragged Brown back from licking Arial Sharon’s murdering, terrorist ass, Jack Straw Putin’s putrid crevice, and STILL NO DICE! We are not having this, said the men and women of the parties! Fuck your 90 day gulag bullshit!

Hope is a beautiful thing, but it can be dangerous. But now, we have more than hope. We have actual, viable, Fascist crushing action happening, and nothing but bullets and rat poison can stop it now. Blair’s segregationist, dystopian school massacre? Fucked! The rape of the NHS? Avoidable! Charles Clarke’s ears? Forlorn!

Simultaneously, Schwarzenegger failed to push through any of his draconian nastiness in California, Democrat Tim Caine kicked the Bush-backed Republican’s ass and became Governor of Virginia. Bush slipped to an all time low approval rating of 36 points, which is as pathetic is it is funny. I hear he’s taken to swearing at lower-level staff members on Capitol Hill, and White House insiders whisper darkly about slips of consciousness “worse than when Reagan got Alzheimer’s”. They say he’s back on the booze. “The worry,” said one embattled White House insider, “is how long it is before he lapses into one of his foul mouthed diatribes in public.”

I cackled out loud all the way home on my merry night bus, and missed my stop. I lifted my head only to berate the children in front of me, talking excitedly about Pete Doherty. A blonde girl, all of seventeen, spoke in squalkish, admiring tones of a man called Niles who is, I quote, “the nicest crackhead I ever met… seriously, he’s a lovely guy. He’s so generous. One time I met him, it was so funny, he said, hey you can stay in my bed! He was so lovely. The amount of drugs that man can get through. Amazing.”

“Amazing indeed!” I agreed. “But surely it is more amazing that they can’t lock you up for 90 days without trial or legal representation or nuffink!?” They looked at me like I was mad. I beamed, beamishly, and returned to my cackling.

Today Stoke Newington was awash with Summery happiness, despite the grey blanket that loomed above. The rasta lollipop man joined myself and my local cornershop’s staff, some old ladies, a tiny boy called Samuel, a boyish lesbrarian and some passing cyclists in a riotous celebration of the the newspaper’s frontpages and we all got free Ribena. The busstop was all smiles. Life is sweet, sometimes. Lethal B thinks the world is ending, but I think it is only just beginning.

So, thanks to all of you who came down last night and showed love and suffered the shonky sound. It was a good gig, if not incredible, but that is OK. We can be incredible next time.

Today, I am in the Netbuddy cafe in Stoke Newington, and have been having my photo taken with the safe proprietors, who are very into this “strange rapping” of mine, especially as where they come from, the main music one hears is still, they tell me, The Scorpions. They tell me I look “bigger” in my photos. “In real life you are, um…” they trail off, making a small box shape with their hands.

Good things, packages, people. Get me?

So. Scorpions! Imagine that! Craziness. Anyway. I have a task for you today. well, two, if you can be arsed. AND YOU KNOW I NEVER ASK ANYTHING OF YOU… so be nice. and don’t send me emails calling me a swine. I am fragile right now.

Anyway. In order for the soon to be released CLONES single to be played lots and lots on Radio 1, it would be helpfull if you were to copy paste the text below, and send it to zane@bbc.co.uk. Copy this:

“Dear Zane Lowe

xxx”

See, fuck a sneaky street team. OBVIOUS PEOPLE ACTION is the way forward. And if you have a second after doing that, go vote for my scratched up ass for a similar response at X-FM - here.

I thank you!

In other news, this brings me much joy. Big up Nonsense. You rule!

Jeres is taking me to see the Bloodhound Gang tomorrow. Well, tonight. I’ll post this in the morning, as I have no internet here in this house I am supposed to call a home. But anyway. Luke hates on the Bloodhound Gang. I suppose Luke, a man of words if ever I met one, fails to see the poetry in their superficially stoopid veneer. But Farting With A Walkman On speaks to me just like Morrissey did when I was 14. The Lapdance Is So Much Better When The Stripper Is Crying sums up grotesquely, mournfully, and oh so bitter-sweetly, a state of being that is a home to more men than Nick Cave will ever know or, in actuality, know of. Jimmy Pop is a poet, in that punning, surface gouging way that Jimbob in his Carter days was, but on a somehow larger, more global level. Jimmy Pop gets it.

I don’t. I think I do, then I forget, and am tricked, and wowed, and awed, and confused, and fumblish, and scared - even though I know there is no need to be, even though I know the repercussions will likely, even at worst, be better than the ugly regretful hollow that is otherwise. But that is because I am a SPAZ, even if I am sometimes prone to bizarre and incredulous bouts of opiate serenity, serious handsomeness, and childlike clarity.

Usually I stick to my code, which used to be Just Get On With It, and is more lately the revised, but essentially similar, Don’t Think - Feel… But that sometimes gets me in trouble, in a kind of way I don’t need anymore… in a way the fourteen year old me, listening to Morrissey and Ice Cube and tearing up his arms with penknives, thought he’d be way beyond in a decade’s time.

I need a new code, perhaps - something between, and a little beyond, those two I mentioned. I need to recognise - nay, act upon, what I have learned, and I now know. I need to sever these tethers of which I speak in rhyming verse - fully - and transcend. I used to think this was something someone else might help me achieve, but that never happened. Now I feel perhaps that I was wrong, and I must do this alone.

No time to write anything of any substance today, cos I have to run to a soundcheck. We shall be playing a show tonight, in support of Just Jack, at 93 Feet East, which is on Brick Lane, East London. We’re onstage at 9:15. See you later. Bring me some water and a flower of some kind. Thank you.

Man, it is rotten outside in London today! My jeans lapped up the puddles like hungry blue dogs. The central line’s fucked, so I got lobbed off of the thing in Marble arch and got the bus in the wrong direction like a FOOL. Still. I am in the studio now with Emile and James Brahn and it is lovely.

Just spoke to Adam Walton on the telephone, so you can gear that conversation tonight on his radio show - here now or here later. Adam is safe as funk, like most people called Adam.

I was reading the Independent on the bus, it’s good on a Sunday again. Pirates, Blunketry. La Haine coming to life. What craziness. Emile’s going to Paris tomorrow, which is pretty good timing. And stop emailing asking why I’m not talking about Becky Wade and Ross Chump. Fuck buying into that bullshit. All I’m saying, is it’s the grossest bit of distractionary marketing I have ever come across. It is pathetic, and transparent like Casper. Real shit is going on, pay attention.

And.

Mary is poorly. Get well Mary! I don’t pray, but I’ll think hard.

Luke just wrote, in the form of a text message:

“Haha, we just saw a 20 foot effigy of Charles Clarke being dragged of to be burned.
x”

Me, I’ve been locked down in the Townhouse Studios, Shepherd’s Bush, with James and Emile - since 1ish - making musics. MUSICS! We had 20 odd kids come in and sing the hook of Back In The Day and that was awesome. I waved my pen at them. I got them to power-croon. They were all like, “who’s James Brown?” One knew. The smallest. 6? Something. He said, “GEDDUP!” And he was right. Then they were all, “what’s Beach Boys?” Then, “what’s crooning?”

It was amazing. Some of those kids could rule the world. They were amazing. There was this one little dude, all of three and a half foot, full of love and joy, robot dancing and beatboxing and rapping in a purple velour Snoop Dogg tracksuit. These kids killed it. I didn’t have to say anything. They ruled.

Jeres is in right now, lacing this intenselty lush guitar solo.

I’ve been fucking with V on this one. Serious! Makes you well. 100%! All Natur El. Emile isn’t feeling the celery. Fuck that. Raw like sushi. And!

Today I am mad handsome. Serious! I love it when that happens. I don’t know why it does. I don’t control that shit. I mean, I have been rocking water. Helps. On and off with the scissors. On. Off. Up. Down. Aggadabosh.

I am meant to do an Undercover cover shoot at midday tomorrow. But I am also meant to be in the studio. Priorities, getme?

Sometimes it is the mind, sometimes it is the ass. I strive for harmony.

This tune, is mind, and ass. I will make sense of this all yet.

Hey! Crazy Nazi Olsen twins update!

So, last night I was kind of hungover, until the sheer might of the combined power of my band blew away those boozey cobwebs and our rehearsal, amongst other things, gave birth to the best version of …AIDS there has thusfar been.

Had a drink with Jeremy afterwards, who has quit his 60 a day fag habbit, and is veering between despair and elation and rage on a five minutely basis. We discussed. It was good. Then I went back to my so called home and could not get in, so I slept in the shed until Robert got back from boozing in town. Today I fell off the roof twice, in distinctly unheroic Spider-man break-in attempts, after the key Robert gave me to my so-called home got broke in the lock. All the rubbish that’s collected in the front of the house in my absence broke my fall.

I just signed 1000 seven inches, and now I am off to see Mary and Jeremy and Wataru and rehearse. Tomorrow, we record kiddie choir for Back In The Day. I like kiddies lots and lots.

So, presumably all you Merkins walked out of school, or work, today, in protest of the BushCorp Mega-Genoicide Machine. Good for you! Those that haven’t, walk now! Walking rules! It is good for one’s arse.

HOT 97 were gonna play this advert for the walkout, right, and mere seconds before it aired, evilscumcorp Emmis Communications, owners of the NY rap station, pulled the plug. Them’s worried, evidently. FOOLS! SWINE! HAve at them with sticks!

So, one of my peoples just emailed me, saying:

Your promo is for sale on the bay of E.
Link.

I can’t say that I’d wouldn’t love to own this, but I’m not sure that it’s ethically correct. Can I buy one from you direct?!!”

Well, I personally don’t have any promos, so no. I hadn’t even seen one till just! It is very pretty, eh? In that generic, promo fashion. And just 99p! Bargainous!

Anyway, as a former music journalist who supplemented his income for years with the illegal sales of promo CDs on the internet, I can hardly object. So buy, buy, buy. Then you can buybuybuy the proper thing on November 1st cos it’s got a beautiful sleeve what I drewed.

YES!

I write this from The Owl And The Pussycat, on East London’s Redchurch Street. I remember Jeffrey Bernard always used to go on about how the Coach And Horses was his office. All his phonecalls went there, and he’d spend a little time, between cursing the barstaff and telling tall tales, scribbling witticisms on napkins. Now I sit here tapping into my laptop and uploading songs to my MySpace page. Truly, we are living in the future.

Writing that immediately makes me think too, of how we are living in the past, or at leas how certain fake-Christian fundamentalist freakoes are trying to send us back there. But I’ll not continue on that thread right now. I have a whisky and a cigarette and a packet of cashews, and Ah Ha are on the jukebox. Right now I like this bubble, and I want no meanness in it.

So, I was asked by Miscreant to list my current top ten tunes. This was at about 2 am last night, well, this morning, and they were these.

Oh, and my lovely press lady Rhiannon pointed this in my direction today. A virtual hotel full of nutbars! Safe!

Right, Trey just turned up, so I shall peace out.

PEACE OUT!