Over the years I have had the following question, or versions of it, a lot:

And so, in this week’s Vlog, recorded in a nice field in Kent when I went wandering off during a wedding and wrote some songs over the sound of the echoing disco, I answer that question!

Enjoy. And if you have any of your own questions for future Vlogs, do let me know.

Meanwhile, I had one of the loveliest days in London I’ve had in ages today. I was treated to free celebratory coffees by my all knowing barristo (barristos are much more intuative than psychics), I edited that vlog up there, then I got on a train and ran all the way up Crouch Hill for a delicious luncheon of chicken wings and barbecue sauce with my little brother Alexander Velky and his daughter Sybil, who was amazingly well behaved and didn’t throw bits of carrot at the barstaff once.

I then went two stops down the line, running into Video Highway starlett and very tattooed latex clothing designing superstar Nina Kate along the way, which was most fortuitous as I’d been meaning to ring her to find out who’s the best person to ink comic book tattoos these days. Natrually she was on route to visit the wife of a tattooist who also happnes to draw for Marvel comics. Pow.

I met BJ, my Godson Kio, and his big brother Hanzo in Gospel Oak (see above). Hanzo was most enamoured with my glasses, but didn’t want to paddle, and repeated as much until we stopped trying to get him to paddle and went for a nice walk up a hill, upon which we truned around and were stunned by a panoramic view of London, which momentarily stunned us all.

After that I went to Camden to find birthday presents for my six year old neice Sophie Ella De Bun Bun. The place felt more magical than it has since I was first there 14 years ago, full of wonder at the stalls and the punks and the Good Mixer, whihc i’d spent my teens reading and dreaming about. Camden seemed to be dusted with magic today, perfect shops I’m sure never existed before popped up like they do in Terry Pratchett novels and supplied wonderful gifts, I had the best smoothie I think I’ve had that wasn’t made by me, and I couldn’t go five paces without someone stopping to say hi and complement me on my glasses, or my last mixtape.

Now the sun is setting over Nu Olympia, my beautiful wife, just back the future Mrs Velky’s hen night, is radiating happily on the sofa sharing Good News with her sister, and my little brother Zef Cherry Kynaston and his fine young lady person Kelly, who recently moved down from Cornwall to a nice flat a few miles up the road are on their way over to spend the evening with us.

Scrub that, they just turned up, raving about the cable car they took from Victoria to Greenwich this afternoon, so I better go. I realise as I write this that my family, and London, are both things I have taken for granted somewhat over the years. So let me say right now, while this clarity is upon me, I love you Family, and I love you London.

PAX!

@!

— Saturday, June 30th, 2012

SLOOP IS THE WAVE.

OK?

Good.

My god! It’s almost Thursday! How did it get this far into the week without a proper blog post? Still, I have been keeping the Blob Blog updated and tending my various gardens. I have also done a bunch of artwork, filled in a great many XL spreadhseets and rendered much audio for the iTunes release of my back catalogue, and made a great deal of New Music, some of whihc is on its way to various International Rap Artists, and some of which will be with your ears shortly in the form of a series of releases I am going to announce next week.

Truly it is seventeen full time jobs being The Don!

Still, it is  nothing on the terrible pressures of being an international criminal and former Prime Minster of the UK, I am sure.

LOL.

Oh, hey, here’s a doodle I did of Rick Ross last night.

I am inspired by Rick Ross every day. He’s so lovely. Look at how long he’s nurtured Gunplay, before finally letting that mental mono-dreaded coke monster take pole position on his big group single? Amazing.

Incidentally, that image up there is of me having uts woken up. every day I wake up with mental hair, then I have a shower and it calms down. I wish it would stay mental really, but it won’t. In additon, each morning the back of my hair starts to dread itself. If I left it to its own devices, I would look like a Simpsonian Gunplay, most likely.

I’m at the round table, where your seat at?
Where your plate, where your lobster, where your sea bass?

Oh hey, I fucking love this record. Found it today on This Is My Jam. Shout out Temple Grindin, whoever you are, I love your song.

New vlog tomorrow. In the meanwhile, enjoy the last one. PAX!

— Wednesday, June 27th, 2012

FIRST UP!

New thing in the Little Shop of Awesome alert!

It’s a beautiful limited edition high quality massive 10″ x 10″ PRINT of the Manga Music sleeve, rendered by my fair hand in Photoshop with a Wacom DT-520. The thing comes with a matte finish for the non-refelecting, and a nice white border for the framing. Each print comes signed and numbered.

Get yours now! And there’s only a few Thunderchrist and Broke prints left also! So get in!

Yeah. You can get a look at the thing on video in my new VLOG, which is coming up in 5, 4, 3, 2…

Pow! Yes. I am being pretty good at this regular Vlogging thing. Today’s includes an instructional guide to WAXING ONE’S MOUSTACHE… which I hope you find useful. I also ask a question at the end, which is an important one: is it disrespectful to swang up at a wedding rocking the Candy Coated Drop Kicks?

I am starting to think it might be disrespectful not to… I would have been honoured to see these at my wedding. They are the finest shoes in the known galaxy.

Anyway. I dunno if you noticed, but my last Vlog – that one where I was getting ranty about Prometheus Space Jesus theorising in my pink towel dressing gown – racked up a crazy 11,000 views in a week, thanks in no small part to the efforts of some newly acquired haters. This was, hilariously, my most divisive video ever, and it racked up 11,000 views in a week. That equates to a whopping $14.30 in ad revenue, which just about covers my new glasses, bought to replace the ones the ocean took for me out in LA the other week.

Speaking of Prometheus, the film’s linguist has revealed what David The Face Bending Android said to that big Voldemort looking space jockey at the end. It was not, as I thought, “rip my head off and beat that Biff Tanner looking ass old weirdo to death with it then go make sweet love to a giant squid,” but something far more pedestrian and lame: ”This man is here because he does not want to die. He believes you can give him more life.”

Well, more life can lead us into the news that I’m reissuing my entire (legal) back catalogue, so you’ll be able to cop all my old shit on iTunes and Spotify and all those other legal channels of modern muzak consumption. I’m getting some of it remastered – some of it never got properly mastred in the first place –  but I’m not re-recording or mixing anything, much as it pains me to listen to my youthful naivety and mistakes, as that would ruin the purity of those recordings. I have had to adjust some of the art, mind you. My first EP, for example, was initially a CD, and thus has recatngular, not square, art.

I can also confirm that the long awaited Full Metal Alchemist video, co-starring my Denver brother Time, will drop on the same day as the new season of Breaking Bad: July 15th.

I COOK! I CHEF! I WALTER WHITE!

Meanwhile, our most recent collaboration, Thunderchrist jump-off Too Sweet To Be Sour is the subject of young Corey McNulty’s college project. Forsooth:

@akirathedon youtube.com/watch?v=hbjRV7…Peep this dude its my college project thanks buddy!

— Sir Squeeble (@DJsSpirit) June 22, 2012

Shout out everyone using my music in their Youtube videos! It is the ultimate sign of respect in the modern age! That and uploading one’s records to Youtube.

Speaking of which, expect a lot more activity in that area coming up very soon.

OK, over and out, I have beats to lace, and a wedding to go to. In case you hadn’t noticed from all the big ass squares, the nice ass camera in my shiny new HTC One X has had me going ham on Instagram lately (username akirathedon, obvs)… even if I am still cut off for running up an £800 phone bill in Yankland (which I am contesting bitterly!). I am merking that shit on wi-fi. All of them end up on my secret Tumblr, so check that shit if you need more DON in your life.

PAX!

PS – the homie Eddie Argos is moving house and has found a bunch of ill stuff he’s selling on his blog, check it out.
PPS –  That Judge Dredd trailer looks ass, but it did remind me that one of the many ill things about the OG Robocop movie was they dubbed his mighty footsteps with an 808 kick drum. You might wanna consider that, movie people. Just a thought. Just planting seeds.

— Friday, June 22nd, 2012

Geekout alert starting in 5, 4, 3, 2…

ONE!

So, recently, whilst making Unkillable Thunderchrist, I came across a problem, which took me four hours or something to figure out, so I thought I should make a little video showing how to do it, thus sharing my knowledge and making the world a better place.

What I wanted to do was play sliced audio with my Maschine Mikro’s pads straight into Logic. Which is harder than one might imagine. The super short version is that you need to slice up your audio, then hit APPLY… but don’t just click it, you need to drag apply to a new track in Maschine. You will then be able to trigger your sliced audio via the Maschine in Logic which is very ace and joyous.

The video I mention that shows you how to set up Maschine in Logic is by Altruwest, and comes highly reccomended.

OK!

GEEK OVER!

My next video will be something that you can all get behind, or at least understand. My last one, which concerned the reaction to Prometheus and that Space Jesus theory, got mildly notorious and did 8000 views in a few days, becoming a hotbed of heated and intelligent debate, like:

You are a British hipster with bleached hair in a pink dressing gown, your argument is invalid.

and

2DEEP4U

Currently it has 49 likes and 49 dislikes, which is delightfully symmetrical and divisive.

People keep telling me that as people are talking so much about Prometheus, and going to see it, it must be good. This afternoon a sequel to that post about terrible Rob Liefeld drawings was published: 40 MORE Of The Worst Rob Liefeld Drawings. It dawned on me, half way through reading it, entirely fascinated by the Awful, that in that sense Prometheus is sort of the movie equivalent of Rob Liefeld. People will likely be debating its awfulness for generations, its flaws obvious and laughable to its detractors, while an eternal legion of apologists defend it as being being “pretty” and “tense”, and theologically over the heads of the haters, just like Liefeld’s Jesus comic, Godyssey.

In other news I just dined on my last WHEAT for the foreseeable future. Long time friends of the site might recall back in 2007 or so I steered off of the demon grain’s path for a fine summer, in which time I developed near superhuman cognitive powers and lost my tummy and woke up dead early and saw great strobing beams of light emanating from pavements, and that sort of thing. Then somehow I fell back into bready old habbits, and I am now too big for my best suit, so it’s back on the path of righteousness I go.

HOOO GRAAAAAH!

— Monday, June 18th, 2012

Bore Da Brawdren! Your buddy ATD is back like cooked crack with another DON VLOG, this one recorded on the auspicious date of the twelth of the sixth twenty twelve.

In this legendary vlog I pour righteous ire upon the foolishness of that goddamn Prometheus Space Jesus Bollocks theory that everyone and their mum has been tweeting at me of late – wherein it is suggested that the reason the engineers in Prometheus were pissed off with us is that they sent Space jesus to save us 2000 years ago and we kil’t his Voldemort-looking un-semetic ass – which some feel explains the film and proves that it is not retarded crap written by the screenwriting equivalent of Rob Liefeld but in fact amazing theological deep shit that’s been flying over the heads of us doofuses like so many homing doves carrying THE TRUTH back up to the heavnes from whence they came. Well I say BOLLOCKS to that swinedip, and if you really think that Ridley Scott and DayMUHN’s rehashing the plot of Chris de Burgh’s A Spaceman Came Traveling is creating something of such depth we mere mortals cannot understand it I have a Justin Bieber LP for you to spend the next week dissecting the theological worth of on your cotdurned Livejournal.

“When two thousand years of you life have gone bye… the song will return once again.. to a xeno’s cry… and it went

SKRAAAAAGH AAA AAAA AAAAGH!”

Lord have mercy on us all.

Elsewhere in that vlog up there I answer your burning questions, that you left on my Facebook page yesterday. Thank you for your interest, and feel free to hit me up with any questions or requests you have for next week’s vlog.

Now let’s hand over to the channels, and some of the stuff I have been receiving.

That was my birthday last year. What a great day! People email me asking when I am touring again most days, and I am afraid I simply haven’t the time or resources to out one together on my own, so I am gonna focus on my album and hire some people to help me do it. I am however plotting a special one off gig for the end of summer, and I will give you details of that as soon as I have them.

I did a bunch of massive post runs last week, which took the best part of three days and covered me in paper cuts, but it is always hugely gratifying to see people’s reactions when they get their swag in the post. As mentioned previously, last week’s stock check has revealled tme to be stupidly low on almost everything (2 Superman Ts in medium! 3 Revolution in medium! Etc!), so I suggest you get in there quick and grab everything before it’s gone for ever.

Meanwhile I am working on a bunch of NEW STUFF, including some designs based on your lyric T suggestions as posted on my Facebook page. As ever, feel free to hit me u with sugggestions for stuff you’d like me to make for you. I live to serve.

Speaking of which, I reupped 3rd hand Wire Riffs to the mixtape section, as it was mysteriously absent. Holla if you spot anything else amiss and I shall endeavour to fix it.

And with that, I must bif you a fon farewell. I have a 60 minute mix to complete for tomorrow lunchtime, the sequel to an ambient one I did on Sunday. It’s a private comission, to be played at the )2 as part of some festivities, but maybe I’ll be able to let you hear it some day. it is beautiful and i love it, and it remidned me what I loved about my early mixtapes, all that chopping up fragments of audio and weaving together slabs of other people’s music in an evocative fashion. Maybe I’ll do another TAD tape in that mould. Or maybe I’ll carry on making ever more ambitious post-album projects. WE SHALL SEE!

Oh, and before I forget, make sure you check out the @sweden feed on twitter, manned by regular humans who change on a weekly basis. It’s amazing. Earlier I noticed it’s hilarious, but I later noticed it is also RIGHTEOUS!

Shout outs and high fives then, to this week’s Sweden Tweeter, Sonia Abrahamson, “ a 27-year old womanlike human being from northern Sweden [where] people there are relatives and they all own tractors… I’m a single and low educated mother, but at least I don’t do drugs and prostitution.”

Amen.

PS!

I put Thunderchrist on Youtube as a track separated playlist! For your convenience! I LIVE TO SERVE!

— Wednesday, June 13th, 2012

I first noticed that one could sing Justin Bieber’s weirdly chirpy Baby over CBoyardee‘s pathos ridden Robocop cover a few months back. As a TV-less human that doesn’t listen to pop radio, I wasn’t massively familiar with the Bieber song, but had recently listened to it as I’d heard the genius Terius Nash, AKA The-Dream wrote the song.

It occurred to me that, minus the over zealous synth pop-rap production and the ludicrously cheery video (replete with a cameo from a joyful Drake eagerly egging on the dancing Bieber) one is left with a truly tragic and perfectly realised ode to that most Shakespearian emotion: teenage love. Sung over CBoyardee’s brilliant, heartbreaking production, one gets an idea of Terius’ true intent when crafting the song.

What you see above is my recording of the main vocal, which I performed in ONE TAKE, in the manner of the head fo a company, before adding a bunch of autotune and backing vocals, giving it that dreamy pathos robot vibe.

Shout out Terius Nash, and CBoyardee, who I just noticed has revived his beloved Youtube channel! Look out for some future original rap recordings from me and CBRD – we’ve been in email contact and he’s sent me some amazing music.

PAX!

ATD
08/06/2012, Nu Olympia

— Friday, June 8th, 2012