Akira The Don DJ residency shocker. More details soon.

Akira The Don & The Women return to Adam Walton’s night of awesomeness. With guest of honour, Zef!

Either Or?

KYTE?

OR YOUTUBE?

That up there’s the video. it rules. SHAME ABOUT THE QUALITY YOUTUBE! I did have it up on Blip, but the non WMV was out of synch for somereason.

ANYWAY!

You can watch the much better quality WMV here. Do it! There are subtle nuances!

You can look at that Blip one here anyway.

Download!

The video as a nice WMV for your home computer or portable mugging beacon here!

Akira The Don ft Jack Nimble, Big Narstie, Marvin & Shizzio - Back In The Day (Remix)

Akira The Don ft Jack Nimble, Big Narstie, Marvin & Shizzio - Back In The Day (Clean Remix)

Akira The Don ft Jack Nimble, Big Narstie, Marvin & Shizzio - Back In The Day (Remix Instrumental)

Akira The Don ft Jack Nimble, Big Narstie, Marvin & Shizzio - Back In The Day (Remix Acapella)

Buy!

Thieving - the record from whence it came.

In ‘94, I was 13 going on 14, and I was into Oasis. I’d just come out of my grunge period - Soundgarden had gone, Nirvana were all but over and, hard as it seems to imagine at the time, Oasis were the most hardbody outfit out. They spat, sneered, and swaggered their way into my affections with one hot 12″ called Supersonic, and I was hooked. For an album and two albums worth of B-Sides they were awesome, but they peaked with the Whatever interim-single, and it’s been downhill ever since.

But my interest was piqued by an article on Stereogum about some new Oasis demos that have leaked into Youtube. Hell, I thought, maybe, after a decade of shit, they’ve got that ole magic back.

The songs are I Wanna Live A Dream (In My Record Machine), Stop The Clocks, and Nothin’ On Me. Nothin’ On Me is definitely the worst, and also bears the distinction of being the only one sung by Liam. Now, Liam still has a much better voice than Noel (even as cartoonish as it has become), so it is kind of mean and selfish and lame of Noel to keep the (relatively) better songs for himself. Like Kanye with his beats. Give some of them shits to Method Man, fool!

Anyway. Those other two are both winsome Noely ballads. They’re better than most of the winsome Noely ballads I’ve heard over the past decade of not liking Oasis that much, but they’re hardly Talk Tonight or The Masterplan. Best of the pair is Stop The Clocks, which improves significantly on repeated listen, and is notable for its uncharacteristic dabbles in existentialism. “What if I’m already dead?” beseeches Noel, “how would I know?”

Stream: Oasis - Stop The Clocks (Demo)

Stream: Oasis - Talk Tonight

Back in the early nineties, Oasis were banging out a single and three awesome B-sides every three months. It could be argued that they went shit around the time that hectic pace let up. Perhaps with that in mind, after a sample-bullshit-hampered ‘07, ‘08 is proving to be a productive year for our pal Marvin.

Hot on the heels of Superhero comes That One Time EP, out in June. Explains Marv’s manager Tego:

“It’s an EP of 6 songs for the summer months. A street summer, a young summer, an Ibiza summer, a cold summer, a London summer. We’re basically looking at an EP every 2 months now. Singles are dead. We want to put out proper releases every time we drop.”

Track two of said collection is a joint called Boyspot. This track caught me completely off guard - I was so not expecting some ish like this from Marvin right now! It’s some really ill d ‘n’ b inspired post-grime sickness from producer Jack Nimble, all sub bass, stuttering hi hats and off key high-end snare slaps, with a frantic rap from Marvin about the ills of wastemen. “That zone you’re in, that’s a Boyzone,” notes Marvin, doing his best Newman and Baddiel impression, “that life you live that’s a Westlife.” Say word!

Marvin’s getting mad conceptual on his new shit, and for Jack - suddenly free of samples and emboldened with a new outlook on production following the lessons learned making Marvin’s album - the future is wide open. Hype shit ahead!

Stream: Marvin - Boyspot

Finally, some sexy new shit from Blueprint. Props to Silent Bob69 who put me onto this dude a month back via the comments section (what did we do before that shit?). The kid is definitely interesting, creative, and most importantly, dope. His new EP, which you can get for free here, and on CD here, features BP rapping over collages of music made from Funkadelic songs. Blueprint explains:

“I started making beats out of as much of their music as I could and putting lyrics to them, some stuff i wrote on the spot, other stuff was ideas that I had played with before but never finished. I had the record pretty much done for a couple of years but I felt like I didn’t have any audio of them speaking that really explained what they were about, so I put it on hold until I could find some interviews. Once i found them i finished it up, and here it is.”

Musically, this stuff smashes like Hulk. It’s especially refreshing that dude avoided the obvious loops and sounds - he’s gone for a lot of the more raw, rock and psyche infused stuff. Lyrically he is totally taking the piss out of all your favourite rappers for the most part. “It’s quite ironic what I say these days / you got an oversized hat but you workin’ with a peabrain,” he spits on Dont’ Make Me Laugh. “Cats that never seen a turntable got the nerve to make a record and call it Go DJ.” Owch!

Stream: Blueprint - Don’t Make Me Laugh

Don’t forget, Akira The Don and The Women are playing in Birmingham tonight. Onstage about 1 I think. Tell your friends! Details at www.dropbeatsnotbombs.co.uk.

Last night was dope by the way! Big up all the Lady In Red slow dancers.

Hey gang! Don’t forget, I’m DJing at Dogstar in Brixton tonight. Get down before 10 for free entry. Leave any requests in the comments, it is best not to distract me while I’m playing cos I might mess up. And if I mess up then we’ve both messed up. AHAW!

Sale! Sale! Sale! Sale!

There are a small box of Akira The Don & The Women shirts left, in Small and Medium sizes (both womens and mens), so the royal we are offering them to you today at the bargain price of £10 including postage and packing. Whoo!

Size	Man SMan MWoman SWoman M

“Rah, rah, rah, we’re going to rule the world”
Boris Johnson, back in the day.

So, I ventured out my house yesterday to go see Park Chan-Wook, the guy who did Oldboy’s new movie, I’m A Cyborg But That’s OK. It was dope! A very beautiful, off-center love story set in a sanitarium. Starring a thief and cyborg. Who shoots bullets out of her fingers. Sort of. Which is dope. Oh, and she was called Young Goon, which is the best rap name I’ve heard all year.

Anyway. On the way back I saw the cover of one of those free London papers, the slightly-less blatantly evil one called, um, The London Paper. It had a headline that went something like

FOR THE SAKE OF YOUR CITY, VOTE!

Basically saying we should give a shit about the London Mayoral elections. It went on to blather in some miserable depth about how their editorial stance was totally non-bias. This was especially funny, as the article was illustrated by a photo of but TWO of the candidates.

Yes, even here, in The Grayte Mayoral Race, the press enforce the two-party scam.

We have to choose between a proven scumbag called Ken, and a proven scumbag called Boris. Boris is a better name, and dude has better hair, so he kind of wins. That’s it. They are both liars, frauds, swine of the highest, nay, LOWEST degree. They will both continue to March us into the fiery pits of the Rubbish Orwellian Control State with all the merry glee of a pair of well fed concentration camp guards.

Brian Paddick, who doesn’t get to have his picture on the front of the non-biased London Paper, once said he was in favour of anarchy. I might have voted for him, had I actually been on the electoral roll, which I am totally not, for personal reasons involving debt collectors, or if I gave two shits about the circus antics of SCUMCORP-repping politicios.

How about you lot? Anyone vote? Give a crap in the slightest? Stay home playing GTA4 (you bastards!)?

Round of applause please. I have finished editing and colouring the Click Clack Blam video.

That’s a new still up there. And there’s a few more, including one of my favourite bits of the video, Action P.I., in the gallery.

Whoo!

Now all I gotta do is finish the colour job on Back In The Day Remix. We are on course for a Tuesday drop.

Oh, I forgot to mention yesterday, there’s some new fan art in the um, fan art bit, including an awesome painting by my boy in Pennsylvania, the one Don Tron Gotto!

Edit: Why Lout? fans might wanna head over to Marvin’s Devil In The Distance blog, they’re giving away the classic It’s Been Time mixtape…

Cop that? I’m playing records on Friday at Dogstar in Brixton.

Then me and the new look Women will be heading up to Birmingham to play at Drop Beats Not Bombs.