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Number 26, ladies and Gs! We now have more Doncasts than ATD mixtapes. it is official. And what a show! Not one, but TWO special guests in the form of longtime ATD collaborator Mary Turner, and another longtime ATD collaborator, my little brother Zef!

Mary plays records, reflects on this year’s Christian Camp activities (no Willy Hague jokes thanks), and does a bit of singing, while Zef explains why he quit making music aged 15, why he loves Italo Disco, and what Space Disco is. He also tells the story of how he got into the final 300 in the Harry Potter auditions back when he was 11!

We’ve also got the usual mix of ace music, chatroom interaction, and live rappery. THis week I got into the second verse of The Weed Song. ATD25 is pencilled in for September 24th!

I have to warn you, the sound is a bit peaky for the first half. This is to do with Ustream, and I am going to try and find some time to find a better alternative this weekend. I hope you enjoy it, regardless. I am off for an afternoon and evening of Exciting Meetings now, but when I return I will be posting a lot of ZEF MATERIAL, as promised.

Bless!

What were the last words I wrote to you in this section of the site?

…I am totally going to a wedding in bloody Grimsby tomorrow, so I shall try very hard not to go apeshit on whiskey and flee alone into the night like a greased piglet shot out of a cannon. It shouldn’t be too hard, as I have matured an awful lot this past year thank you.

Yeah. Well. I DIDN’T go apeshit on whiskey at all. Because they didn’t have any whiskey. But they DID have a flipping GALACTEAN HORDE of BEER, and you know I don’t normally fux with beer too hard. So. Yeah. I totally drank beer for 12 hours, from 5pm till 5am, then I went to bed, and when I got up at 10 or whatever I guess I was still pissed, because the hangover didn’t really start kicking me in the head and the stomach with like, real, supervillainous ferocity until we were half way home and racing down the M1, which is a motorway, if you don’t know, and the nausea I’d been feeling all day cranked itself up into the terrible realms of super-turbo-ultra-nausea and I projectile vomited out the window with a great and thunderous force for about 3 minutes, scattering three lanes of traffic behind us like the proverbial Lolcat Amongst The Pigeons and covering the whole left side of the car with BILE.

Never again, etc.

“How old are you?” sighed my Dear Mother, disapprovingly, which was a silly question as she knows full well how old I am (30), and I’ve never heard of people suddenly becoming immune to booze once they flee their twenties. My experience points to the opposite – I rarely used to get sick on booze, not since I was a teenager and I got good at taking shots, and certainly not from hangovers. But that is the trick life plays on a man – you just get to the point where you figure you understand yourself a bit, you get some mastery of yourself, then suddenly your body decides its time to thwart, that it is going to revolt, and you spend the rest of your life in a toilet-esque downward spiral of physical collapse. Whoever said their body was a temple drank different water to me, that’s for certain. My body is like one of those cheap-ass mosques they have next door to the “Perfect Fried Chicken” shops in decrepit Northern Towns.

But I am trying, dear reader! Yesterday Jeres and I were dismayed to arrive at the gym at 6pm and find it shut, because of the Banking Holidays, but neither of us breathed a secret sigh of relief and buggered off to the chippy. Nay, we took ourselves of to Finsbury Park, and ran around a portion of it in a circle, to one of these Great Outdoor Gym things, which are fucking hilarious and I recommend to all. The machines are not like traditional gym machines – they’re based around lifting your body wight via pulleys and things, and the experience is basically like being a 5 year old in a jungle gym. I spent a good ten minutes straight laughing my ass off – at Jeres and a 4 year old girl on a wiggly hip-machine, and myself on some weird pulley-see-saw with my little legs swinging in the air, mostly – and you know what they say about laughter being some dope-ass medicine. I am happy to confirm that shit is TRUTH. I felt fucking great afterwards. Then that rotten bastard Jeres made me run back around the park. I’d never run around a park. Shit is way harder than treadmills. They gots hills in parks, for a start. By the end I thought my eyeballs were going to pop out and trip me over or something. I felt like I’d done late-nineties level ecstasy. I collapsed on the grass and shrieked my amazement.

Today I have been working my ass off, which is my new thing – I am raising money to pay for my album campaign. Pluggers, press officers, that shit is expense, and it’s gotta come from somewhere. So I am utilising the skills I have amassed – illustration, design, video editing, html, all that good stuff, to make me some substantial DOUGH, and I am gonna use that DOUGH to get my amazing album some SHINE, cos there is no way I have out in all this fucking work for the thing to pop out noticed while a great wet shower of dickless frauds hog the top 10. Ufck that in the eye with a cotdang batarang, thanks very much. Ole!

Oh, speaking of which, there’s brand new Oddfuture awesomeness in the Blob Blog, go check that shit out, you might like it. Right now it’s time for me to put my music hat back on, and vocal some ATD25 dope. See you on the Doncast tomorrow, brothers and sisters.

PAX!

Chess We Can!

“What you just witnessed was my death,” lamented Gonzales at around 1am this morning, but it felt a little more like the opposite. Yes, I saw the Anglopremière of Ivory Tower last night, Gonzales’ bittersweet, autumnal début feature film about two Canadian Chess Champions (Triple Ceeeees!), also brothers, at war with each other and themsleves. Gonzales plays Hershall Graves, former chess champion and The Idealistic Hippie Brother, plying a victor-less take on the game that he dubs “jazz chess”, whilst Tiga channels some of Tom Cruise’s Frank from Magnolia for the revenge-capitalist War Machine Brother Thaddeus, who’s apartment is awesome and who’s TV is also a mirror (Want).

Peaches puts in a superb performance as the brother’s shared love interest (although the less that is said about her wig the better). As you might expect, her character isn’t the typical 2D trophy chick we’re used to seeing, but she’s not any kind of turbo-feminist puke-punk-characture either (incidentally, Peaches once vomited fake-blood on me in a hotel in central London but that’s another story). Indeed, her character exhibits an alarming and disarming sweetness and fragility, and is easily the most “real” and likely the most relateable character for most people.

Certainly I, as a sometime egomaniac, narcissistic artist type found much to relate to in both brothers. Hershell’s struggle with authenticity, spirituality, and not wanting to hurt people was beautifully, and tragically posed, while Thaddeus’s struggles with power and superficiality were not only truthful and brilliantly entertaining, but perched atop a profound sadness bubbling away acidically beneath every moment of humour… of which there are plenty, thanks, according the the little Q and A afterwards, to Tiga himself, who rewrote his own dialogue in order to save himself from what could have been a huge public embarrassment had the movie turned out like many buddy-run projects.

The thing is… it did not, and even without the dark hilarity interjected by Mr Sunglasses At Night, this would still have been a fine work, able to stand proudly on its own away from the music, and the egos that inspired it. The movie is charming, affecting, emotive, playful, beautiful to look at, and boasts a fucking ill ass soundtrack, that any other movie on general release will find bloody difficult to come close to. Unless Hanz Zimmer’s doing it, obviously, he’s practically infallible.

Joey didn’t get me pregnant, by which I mean he pulled out at the last minute (but I must forgive him, as he is a sweet and sensitive creature, and we did record some flipping bangers yesterday), so I sat alone on one of Screen On The Green’s plush two-man sofas, and very bloody comfortable it was too. There was even a foot rest. The popcorn was a little stale, and the Guinness came from a can, but that those were the only quibbles I could make about the whole experience (well, those and Peaches’ wig) speaks volumes. I look forward to seeing it again. With some fresh popcorn.

The Q&A finished at 1am, and I cycled home in the pissing, spitting, retching rain, and happened upon a mobile telephone device, blinking forlornly in a puddle. I returned it to its owner this afternoon on my way to the gym, and she tried to give me £20, and I refused it, then her boyfriend tried to give me £20, and I refused that too, and they both agreed that their faith in humanity had been somewhat restored.

My faith in humanity is rock solid, based on little solid evidence and a lot of conjecture, although you might remember that I lost my telephone around this time last year after getting so pissed at a wedding that I ran away from the party and my girlfriend without warning at around 2am and proceeded to go on some weird bamboozled adventure across London, wherein I managed to get into a fight with a taxi driver – actually maybe it was two taxi drivers - and totally left my phone in the back of his taxi. So I really wasn’t expecting anyone to ring me the next day saying they’d found it in the back of a cab, apart from maybe the cabbie, who wished to track me down and pull my larynx out with his bare hands or something. But, lo, a nice young man who was about to have baby (well, his girlfriend was, obviously, dude’s don’t have babies, no matter what The Weekly World News and Tory HQ might have you believe) totally gave me my phone back, and I didn’t give him £20, so I wasn’t about to take it off of anyone else thank you very much.

No!

Anyway, I am totally going to a wedding in bloody Grimsby tomorrow, so I shall try very hard not to go apeshit on whiskey and flee alone into the night like a greased piglet shot out of a cannon. It shouldn’t be too hard, as I have matured an awful lot this past year thank you. Why, only today I bought one of those Digital Art magazines instead of a Spider-Man comic, and I deliberately put chopped vegetables in my mackerel and rice yesterday. Who’d ever have thunk it in a billion years?

http://www.dec.org.uk/

DOWNLOAD: Akira The Don – The Doncast # 25 (Right Click and Save As)

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Happy Thursday! Here’s last night’s Doncast. It was a damn good one, thanks and praise be to all. It starts a little slow – literally, but I suss it out quite early. I think it’s good to leave the mistakes in sometimes.

So, as mentioned, this lunchtime Chilly Gonzales came round for a game of chess, which Joey filmed and will be online next week. NO I CAN’T TELL YOU WHO WON! I can tell you he refused to get on the Weed Song as the beat was too “Tribe” for his tastes! Ha! Anyway, right now I am trying to record ATD25 raps, which isn’t going as well as I’d like as I am writing this. But once I ve written this I’ll get back on it. Joe’s back round later for recording and mixing then we’re off to see Gonzales’ movie, Ivory Tower, which also stars Peaches, and Tiga, who will be in attendance, and I have been warned about.

When I’m putting together packages  to send to the fine customers of Akira The Don’s Little Shop of Awesome, oftentimes I’ll rummage in the middle drawer of my scrappy little old Ikea chest of drawers and see if there’s something extra I can put in, like a doodle or a setlist or a lyric sheet. Famous Los Angelino JJ Fabulous ended up with the lyric sheet for Sky, spilling misstakes and all, and she writes:

I framed my beautiful lyrics sheet! We’re breakin’ it in by using it as a surface to break on weed before I hang it. Yeah! It’s awsome! Here’s a picture.

Which is nice. Reminds me of a great picture of Raekwon I saw once.

Good ole Rae.

So, I was stood on my doorstep earlier, not stinking out the house, and it struck me: where the fuck is Gremlins 3? I mean, it just doesn’t make any sense. The original Gremlins was genuinely scary black comedy classic, and the hilarious Gremlins 2 – The New Batch opened the thing wide for unlimited sequel and merchandising opportunities.

That’s from the Gameboy game, for example. Anyway. 1990’s aforementioned Gremlins 2 was awesome and hugely popular, yet since then there has been nothing. Well, nothing except for this BT advert:

The internets says Gremlins 3 is happening – in 3D, natch…  but series director Joe Dante isn’t having anything to do with it.  “They did that once, they won’t do it again,” Dante told Bloody Disgusting, laughing. “They made that mistake once. Its a moot point, they won’t be coming to me. I can tell you that for a fact.“

When asked to elaborate, Dante only grinned, saying, “I don’t have to. See Looney Tunes: Back in Action and I think that will explain it. That was not a pleasant experience.“

Still, Dante believes GREMLINS 3 will happen one of these days, whether he’s involved or not. “I find it hard to believe that they won’t make a GREMLINS 3 because they’re remaking ADVENTURES IN BABYSITTING. I mean, they’re gonna remake everything.”

Not that that need necessarily be a bad thing. Pacino’s Scarface was a remake, after all. Even Bill Murray’s been talking about doing Ghostbusters 3. “I was down in Austin at South by Southwest,” he told GQ. “I got into it one night with a bunch of younger people who were like, Oh, I love Peter Venkman! I grew up with Peter Venkman! We got to talking, and the more we talked about it, the more I thought, Oh Christ, I should just do this thing.”

Praise Jah, huh? One of the iller ideas as to how to approach the movie involves Venkman being dead, and thus a ghost.

“Well, I hadn’t wanted to do the movie,” Murray told GQ. “They kept asking, and I kept saying no. So once upon a time I said, just joking: “If you kill me off in the first reel, then fine, I’ll do it.” And then supposedly they came up with an idea where they kill me off and I was a ghost in the movie. Kinda clever, really.”

See, Ghostbusters wasn’t just two great movies, it was a brilliant animated series and accompanying Ladybird book line. The first magazine I remember making was a Real Ghostbusters how to guide, in which I showed the reader how to make action figures out of OXO Cube boxes and glue. It had staples in it and everything, when I was 7 or something, as it goes. I’ve still got that somewhere, I should dig it out.

*digs

Ah, here it is!

The Real Ghostbusters Book Of Things To Make Out Of Bits And Pieces

Back in the day, if you wanted an expanse of black in a picture, you had to use a whole felt pen up scribbling. Man, if you’d told me back then they were gonna invent Photoshop I might have combusted or something. You can click on that and read the whole thing if you like. It plays you a song when you make it fullscreen. I like it. What do you think of that magazine player anyway? I’m thinking of doing a fanzine with it.

Anyway!

While I was looking for that, I also found this picture I did of some GREMLINS when I was 9. I think I did most of it on a train. Notice the similarity to my Street Fighter sleeve.

Meanwhile back in 2010, I am recording ATD25. LITF!

Television
by Roald Dahl

The most important thing we’ve learned,
So far as children are concerned,
Is never, NEVER, NEVER let
Them near your television set –
Or better still, just don’t install
The idiotic thing at all.
In almost every house we’ve been,
We’ve watched them gaping at the screen.
They loll and slop and lounge about,
And stare until their eyes pop out.
(Last week in someone’s place we saw
A dozen eyeballs on the floor.)
They sit and stare and stare and sit
Until they’re hypnotised by it,
Until they’re absolutely drunk
With all that shocking ghastly junk.
Oh yes, we know it keeps them still,
They don’t climb out the window sill,
They never fight or kick or punch,
They leave you free to cook the lunch
And wash the dishes in the sink –
But did you ever stop to think,
To wonder just exactly what
This does to your beloved tot?
IT ROTS THE SENSE IN THE HEAD!
IT KILLS IMAGINATION DEAD!
IT CLOGS AND CLUTTERS UP THE MIND!
IT MAKES A CHILD SO DULL AND BLIND
HE CAN NO LONGER UNDERSTAND
A FANTASY, A FAIRYLAND!
HIS BRAIN BECOMES AS SOFT AS CHEESE!
HIS POWERS OF THINKING RUST AND FREEZE!
HE CANNOT THINK — HE ONLY SEES!
‘All right!’ you’ll cry. ‘All right!’ you’ll say,
‘But if we take the set away,
What shall we do to entertain
Our darling children? Please explain!’
We’ll answer this by asking you,
‘What used the darling ones to do?
‘How used they keep themselves contented
Before this monster was invented?’
Have you forgotten? Don’t you know?
We’ll say it very loud and slow:
THEY … USED … TO … READ! They’d READ and READ,
AND READ and READ, and then proceed
To READ some more. Great Scott! Gadzooks!
One half their lives was reading books!
The nursery shelves held books galore!
Books cluttered up the nursery floor!
And in the bedroom, by the bed,
More books were waiting to be read!
Such wondrous, fine, fantastic tales
Of dragons, gypsies, queens, and whales
And treasure isles, and distant shores
Where smugglers rowed with muffled oars,
And pirates wearing purple pants,
And sailing ships and elephants,
And cannibals crouching ’round the pot,
Stirring away at something hot.
(It smells so good, what can it be?
Good gracious, it’s Penelope.)
The younger ones had Beatrix Potter
With Mr. Tod, the dirty rotter,
And Squirrel Nutkin, Pigling Bland,
And Mrs. Tiggy-Winkle and-
Just How The Camel Got His Hump,
And How the Monkey Lost His Rump,
And Mr. Toad, and bless my soul,
There’s Mr. Rat and Mr. Mole-
Oh, books, what books they used to know,
Those children living long ago!
So please, oh please, we beg, we pray,
Go throw your TV set away,
And in its place you can install
A lovely bookshelf on the wall.
Then fill the shelves with lots of books,
Ignoring all the dirty looks,
The screams and yells, the bites and kicks,
And children hitting you with sticks-
Fear not, because we promise you
That, in about a week or two
Of having nothing else to do,
They’ll now begin to feel the need
Of having something to read.
And once they start — oh boy, oh boy!
You watch the slowly growing joy
That fills their hearts. They’ll grow so keen
They’ll wonder what they’d ever seen
In that ridiculous machine,
That nauseating, foul, unclean,
Repulsive television screen!
And later, each and every kid
Will love you more for what you did.

Screencap by Andy

DOWNLOAD: Akira The Don – The Doncast # 24 (Right Click and Save As)

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Photo by Mary Wycherley

Praise Jah for we have had fine adventures these past days – travelling to God’s Favourite Country, Wales, to entertain children and grown ups with our incredible pop songs and Beard. Croissant Neuf is the sort of festival where the security smile at you and are helpful, and you can get to the front of the tent and watch Ranking Roger playing off of an Ipad in close qarters. We had a wonderful time, enjoying such marvels as PIZZA and falafel and The Old Man’s Great Fire, and the blacked-up white guy in the dreadlock wig (wo). Jim got to see his favourite Magic Numbers song performed live, and I saw my ace pals Martin and Mary’s little cherub Sonny dance to my songs, and Joey had a spiritual experience by The Old Man’s Fire and whupped me at Car Games on the journey home, where Jeres overcame his fear of the middle seat, and Charlotte did all the driving and went for a 5k run straight afterwards.

So hail Croissant Neuf, and all the ace people we met there!

Since I got back I have written a number one hit hook for Big Narstie, some dark ass raps for ATD25, and completed 4 levels on GTA The Ballad Of Gay Tony on Xbox. I have cleared 3 pages of email, designed one half of  a pair of shoes,  two thirds of a website, and a logo.

Oh, and I found this:

Rob Liefeld's Jesus

A thing that defies all reason and might case the universe to explode if enough people tried to comprehend it at once.

OH! AND we completed Sonic! Achievements galore round these parts. We should celebrate. To close then, have a brand new song from my buddy Narstie.

Will write proper tomorrow, promise! I am writing a song! It is a number one! Oh boy! I am scared for what it will do! It’s a single for another rapper as well! Oh man, someone’s gonna be mad! Anyway! There’s stuff in the Blob Blog! So go there! It’s grayte! Peace!