So, last month The Quietus sent me into central London to link The Prodigy, and have a chat with them about a bunch of stuff for a podcast. Problem was, I only had a crappy eighties analogue tape recorder, so its taken me a month to clean up the audio enough that its, um, audible. Still I prevailed! And we have a podcast!

And its quite enlightening. Tragically the tape chewed up the bit where Liam told me that he would never forgive The Beastie Boys for their hypocrisy, and that they would be lucky if he listened to them ever again, but it DIDN’T chew up my final, and most important question.

So listen on, faithful reader, and learn.

STREAM: Akira The Don Vs The prodigy – The Quietus Podcast

— Tuesday, June 30th, 2009

As you might well remember, a few weeks back, me and the boy genius Joey2tits linked The Chef Raekwon, who was recovering from his celebrated performance at matter, in a nice hotel room in Canary Wharf, and had a conversation about Joe Budden and coke rappers.

Well, here are the edited highlights of the rest of the conversation.

Rae discusses the forthcoming Cuban Linx 2, including J Dilla and Dr Dre‘s invovement, how Busta Rhymes helped put it all together, and how it’s the “best shit.. since Wu.”

“We want to take you back to 95, vintage Wu… that Wu Shaolin style, a lot of storytelling, you know, interesting shit that you can really see on wax. When you hear it you’re gonna be like, yo this the best shit I’ve heard since Wu.”

He also speaks on the legacy of The ODB…

“Dirty’s a legend man… you don’t get too many kinds of emcees like that. He was a beatboxer and he was a producer and he was rhymer. He gave the whole crew the abilty to feel like, yo we could be something. Everybody assumed that RZA was always the candle or whatver on the cake… but Dirty was the candle.

…and confirms the rumoured Shaolin VS Wu-Tang album. Is RZA gonna be allowed back in?

“Nah. I think we gonna have to keep it true to what we wanted to do. We wanna make it more action, I wanna explore with other producers as well.”

And his last word on Cuban Linx 2:

“If y’all don’t go and get this album, something’s wring with hip-hop.”

BLAOW!

Cheers Kruger and Lady D for hooking a brother up.

— Tuesday, June 30th, 2009

EYYYY!

Our buddy Colin, AKA The Zombiehamster gone done got another year older today. DAMN!

So, for you, our buddy Colin, AKA The Zombiehamster, here’s a picture of your creation Godzilla Boy bursting out of a cake.

POW!

Happy birthday to everybody else too. You’re special.

So, anyone else that was in Hackney Wick yesterday will back me up on this, crazy as it sounds, but yesterday, right, I thought the frickin’ work was ending, serious as funk, because, right, one minute it was all lush and sunny, and me and my boo were preparing a picnic to take to the park, then suddenly

CRAK-THOOOOOOM!

That happened (yeah, I took that photo with my G1, daps!), the sky opened up, and a torrential downpour of fucking HUGE BLOCKS OF ICE came pouring down, and didn’t stop for half an hour.

Seriously, it was nuts. Them shits were like rocks. Honest to God. Bouncing off the floor like ping pong balls they were. I have never seen anything like it.

Some other shit happened, but I can’t remember now, that was just too much. What next, frogs?

— Sunday, June 28th, 2009

This just in from Joey2tits, regarding the new Michale Jackson sampling 50 Cent Joint:

I sampled that tune two years ago, do I get props?… I also threw in a william s. burroughs, partial credit?

Credit? CREDIT?

ALL CREDIT GOES TO JACKSON, FOOL!

Saying that, Joey’s thing is dope. And its got William Burroughs in there too. Check it out.

STREAM: Joey2tits – The Cut Up

And for contrastage:

STREAM: 50 Cent – Where You Are

And the OG:

Michael Jackson – I Wanna Be Where You Are

— Friday, June 26th, 2009

Twitter went crazy.

Mean people told mean jokes.

Nice people said sweet things.

The world turned.

Brilliant Pop Music Lives Forever.

These were the last words Steven Wells wrote:

And of course all this bollocks is written by an idiot who has polished his image as an existentialist, atheist hard-man and anti-mope, forever sneering at the tribes who wallow in self-pity — the gothers, the emo kids, the Smiths fans — the whole 900-block-wide marching band composed entirely of the white male urban middle classes who are convinced that (as the most affluent and pampered human beings who have ever walked the planet) theirs is a story worth hearing. Blissfully unaware that they are but a few generations away from regular visits to the doctor who would wind parasitic worms from their beer bloated assholes using sticks.

You could blame this fallacy on poor education, cultural deterioration, or simple moral decline.

Me? I blame it on sunshine. I blame it on the moonlight. I blame it on the boogie.

— Thursday, June 25th, 2009

As I mentioned earlier, about a decade ago the combined efforts of Steven Wells, myself, and many, many awesome people got Daphne And Celeste onto the main stage at the Reading Festival. Despite being pelted with piss and spears by a neanderthal section of the crowd, the girls put on an awesome show, and had a great time doing it. That performance was an incredible feat, 20 minutes of pure, PUNK ROCK, POP AS FUCK defiance, and embodies the TRUE punk rock spirit that ran through everything that Swells did.

It was suggested on Twitter today that someone should find Daphne And Celeste, and get them to reform for a gig to be held in the honour of The Greatest Music Journalist Who Ever Lived, our dear friend Steven “Seething” Wells.

I think that is a fucking ACE idea.

I think Steven would love that. I think a lot of people would love that. So I think that we, the awesome people who loved Swells, and are still here on Planet Earth, should make it happen.

EDIT: Andrew WK would be amazing as well, Swells loved him too as I recall. And brother John Robb has suggested The Three Johns….

— Thursday, June 25th, 2009