The audition is for "a pop project". Mary has to sing a song acapella.

Tag line, says Mary: "Cool, Sassy, Poppy".

"It can't be Girls Aloud or anything, singing a capella so need a song with a melody, not one where when production and harmonies are taken away it's dull, could be a fast tune slowed down ie 'Hey Ya' Outkast. Preferably a fairly familiar tune yet original ie Leonard Cohen 'Bird on the Wire' [sic] and needs to have some range but not too much as with nerves don't want to be fretting about high notes. Audition on Sat so got to be easy to learn if i don't already know it. Thinking there must be some good forgotten Britpop tunes, not 'Something Chnaged' as already sung that."

You can listen to Mary's voice to see what would suit her here.

"Ta," says mary, ":)"

"When Thor shows up in a comic, all the other characters should go "OH FUCK IT'S THOR RUN FOR YOUR FUCKING LIVES HE'S A VIKING WAR GOD WITH A FUCKING MAGIC HAMMER" and if they don't then that writer and artist FAIL."
Alltooflat.com

Funny because it is true. Funny too, the work of Richard Thompson - the cartoonist, not the singer. i like him because he draws in a scratchy style reminiscent of a Ralph Steadman or a Quentin Blake (whom, as I child, I scorned, imagining that I could draw better than him any day, oh the naivety of youth). His blog is an interesting place, and very charming. That picture of George Bush up there is seven years old, and is quite heartbreaking in its gentleness. Who knew what horrors would come? Well, a bunch of people, but never mind that right now.

Jeff Wells is at it again. He is swiftly becoming one of my favorite writers, and while he seems to only post once or twice a month nowadays, everything he touches turns to gold, so it is fine.

The great assassinations of the Sixties were decapitation strikes, never intended to kill the host or to extinguish hope. It's only the hopeless who are dangerous. Hope must be encouraged, because you don't need to do anything to have it, and it keeps the prey from becoming wise to its own nature and seeking extraction from the cycle. Hope makes it possible to write and believe such things as "Al Gore will save the planet but Barack Obama will save this country." Hope that the system works, even if it is just a digestive system.

Say word!

Elsewhere on the interwebs, some of you will be pleased to know that Stephen Fry has started doing podcasts. Cheers Colin for the heads up.

Pretty cool.

Last night BJ and I went to an event thrown by my old friend Victor Wynd, at which Goodbye To Berlin author Christopher Isherwood's biographer, the enviably named Peter Parker spoke about the life and times of his prey. The man spoke for a good hour, but the main lesson of the evening seemed to be about how much Isherwood (and his biographer) enjoyed buggering young (and preferably disadvantaged) boys, and how amusing the audience thought that was.

Oh to be of "good stock"! With money no longer a concern, the human is free to pursue artistic interests and buggery to his heart's desire.

Yes. BJ somehow lost his wallet on the way out. Well, the wallet turned up after some searching, but minus the wad of money he'd taken out that was to last him the whole coming month. BJ is expecting a baby soon (well, his wife is), so every penny is even more important than it used to be. A very sad thing to see. Hopefully, today, my friend has awoken in this glorious sunshine and thought of all manner of ways to enjoy the month without the aid of money (or buggery).

Good news! My T shirt people finally availed themselves with new screens, after weeks of really rather bungling fuckery, and I am promised T Shirts will "be with you Wednesday". By "you" they mean "me", so I shall set the day aside to bag and post your clothing.

Have I shrieked at you about these weaponised insects they're making at The Pentagon yet?

I quote:

For the past 50 years, work by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) -- the Pentagon's blue skies research outfit -- has led to some of the most lethal weaponry in the U.S. arsenal: from Hellfire-missile-equipped Predator drones and stealth fighters and bombers to Tomahawk cruise missiles and Javelin portable "fire and forget" guided missiles. For the last several years, DARPA has funneled significant sums of money into a very different kind of guided missile project, its Hybrid Insect MEMS (HI-MEMS) program. This project is, according to DARPA, "aimed at developing tightly coupled machine-insect interfaces by placing micro-mechanical systems [MEMS] inside the insects during the early stages of metamorphosis." Put simply, the creation of cyborg insects: part bug, part bot.

Right now, researchers are already growing insects with electronics inside them. They're creating cyborg moths and flying beetles that can be remotely controlled. One day, the U.S. military may field squadrons of winged insect/machine hybrids with on-board audio, video or chemical sensors. These cyborg insects could conduct surveillance and reconnaissance missions on distant battlefields, in far-off caves, or maybe even in cities closer to home, and transmit detailed data back to their handlers at U.S. military bases.

OK. So. Imagine if, say Iran were developing fuckin' cyborg fuckin' wasps. The uproar! Fucking I'd day that was reason enough to nuke them! Jesus! And here's Uncle Sam playing Dr Frankenstein with buggiewugs, and no one seems even mildly perturbed. Well I am seriously perturbed! Real wasps are bad enough, let alone remote controlled evil US Army Wasps with their stingers dipped in AIDS and mounted with fuckin' cameras. Christ On A Stick! There isn't even any kind of pretend medical advantage in this research! It is purely for the purpose of MURKING and SNEAKING and MORE MURKING!

Pretty, PRETTY lame.

This isn't the video they were doing on Saturday. This is an older, more lo-fi joint. Its awesome, still.

Doncast 8 is live. It's the brand new Akira The Don podcast! Whoo! Loads of new music and my ill deep voice. Awesome. Plus! A bunch of shoutouts. Unfortunately many of you were too slow. And too many. So better luck next time. I still think you rule.

DONCAST 8 is live!

iTunes people should go here.

The feed with which you subscribe to the podcast is here..

Tracklist!

Well, I was gonna put a tracklist, then I thought, well, that might spoil it. You'd know what was going to happen. IS that fun? What do you mob think?

PS - did you see that awesome gay advert?! Where the fuck did that come from?

PPS - Jack Paris writes:

Akira,

I'm writing to tell you that Down with the sickness is not by Slipknot. It is actually by Distrubed!

Other than that Doncast 8 was Ill!

I stand corrected! Sorry Wade!

PAX!

PS - things to read:

Bol on Common

The New Yorker on the detah of Print.

Ioz on kids.

I think I am coming down with something. POOR ME! I have got ulcers in my gob and a sore throat and sluggishness dripping off of my very BONES!

WAH!

'Another video shoot?' I hear you cry. Yes indeed. We got the team together to shoot a merry movie for the lush Back In The Day remix from Thieving. This shit is gonna be fun to edit!

Photos below. Cheers Tego for these! Well shot!

L - R: Shizzio, Akira The Don, Big Narstie, Marvin, Pixel, Jack Nimble.

The problem with doing videos with Marvin is you have to look at his batty all day.

We are an angelic choir of angles.

Marvin is nice usually but sometimes he goes a bit Liam Gallagher.

Narstie entertaining us with tales of sneaky pillow wiping.

I am sticking my head back on here, after it fell off from laughing at Narstie's pillow wiping story.

We are bringing the world down to our level.

Strange times indeed, when a brutish gang of jellies can storm a Salmon farm and get away with it. Did you hear about that shit? They fuckin' merked those salmon! All of them! They stormed in, all wobbly and 98% water, hardly there at all, and MERKED the salmon to DEATH. POW!

Yessir. So I am going to see Pydos In Spydos over the otherside of town, who are filming a video for their ace pop song Le Chat, then I'm gonna go to a wedding. You, you can read this stuff.

The 5 Most Insane Celebrity Comic Book Cameos!


America was conned - who will pay?!

5 Upcoming Comic Book Movies That Must Be Stopped!

Neon Neon were joined by Romeo Stoddart and Angela Gannon of The Magic Numbers last night (March 20) for their live performance in Room Two of the Fabric nightclub in London.

The band played songs from their new album ’Stainless Style’, including ’I Lust U’ and ’Belfast’, with the aforementioned members of The Magic Numbers providing vocals for set closer ’Stainless Style’.

Cheers for having me Neon Neon! It was very random, and I had a lovely time. The Magic Numbers people were very nice too.

So! I have the Gonzales album now. A very nice man who I shall not name just in case sent it me. I asked him where he got it.

"Strange one that," he wrote. "at work today I found a small cuddly toy (a sheep called Thomas) with a blue cdr taped to him. The disc had Gonzales - SP written on it. I asked about the office but nobody new anything about it so I checked the contents of the disk and thought "I know a man who will want this". I burned a copy and stuck the cdr back on the mysterious Thomas and left him as I found him."

Pretty awesome non? Anyway. I am fucking loving this record! If he wasn't going to make another rap album, this was the album I wanted him to make. Its got sax solos! It is lush!

I don't know what they want me to do, other than rap. It is a mystery. I will find out at 6:30. This is Neon Neon's first gig, I think.

Exciting huh?

Yes. Oddkidd's playing tonight too. Geddin!

OK. Site of the day is Stuff White People Like. Cheers Svenhunter for the link...

Oh, I just got told a track I did with an outfit called Temposhark is on the cover of the new XLR8R magazine, so you should check that out. Someone send me a copy! I refuse to leave the house!

OK. Check out Little Man's new video for the excellent Unsent Letter, wot we recorded round Don Studios III at the end of 07. It is ace!

So, I heard that Gonz tune last night, and I got all excited, and spent all day making a remix of it. I had so much fun! It was almost perverse how much fun I had. It's a vocal and musical remix. I spent ages on it, the drums are very intricate and the raps are ace. You can listen to it NOW!

Download it in 190kbps here, and at 320 here.

In other news, I got a really nice stereo for the kitchen, a fishbowl, and a proper architect's drawing board, all off of Freecycle! I've wanted a drawing board all my life! I can make comics properly now! It is so sweet! Weird thing is it was, like, 100 meters away from me, in a warehouse by my local corner shop. Thank you people, for the stuff. Our kitchen is a nice place to be in now, and I can't wait to get my fishes!

By the way, that's me and Gonz in 2004. You can't tell from our awesome composure, but we'd just smoked two spliffs and spent a good two hours or so talking about The Wu. Good times!

"Gonzales is forced by Mercury Records to take singing lessons before they release his piano-rock anthem "Slow Down""