That’s me being amazed by the glory of the UNKILLABLE THUNDERCHRIST print, a thing of gargantuan beauty that measures a whopping 10″ square, comes with a lovely matte finish that stops light reflecting off it meaning you can enjoy it from all angles even in extreme lighting conditions, and can be ordered from my shop right now for the incredibly low price of ten (10) english pounds, which is $15 (fifteen) in Americana. AMAZING! This will go in the post tomorrow, along with the UNKILLABLE THUNDERCHRIST CDs, which I had hoped would go out while I was in the USA, but did not, for reasons far too boring to go into here. Suffice to say it will be worth the wait and I got the candies – as my dear Yankee chums call them – in.

YES! Hold tight for the big photo stuffed blog depicting the final third of my US adventures, along with the artistic spoils of said excursion, like those songs and that video I shot with Issue. Here’s a nice picture of us at the video shoot. Note the fitting sign above our lovely heeds.

Yeah, we were swagging hard. And speaking of the Bay, I just got an email from someone at Billboard, who thinks I run Lil B’s record label.

How weird is that? It reaises an intesrting and pretty amazing point though: Lil B described this record as a classical album, despite it being performed entirely on synths and sounding more like New Age relaxation music, and for that reason alone, it’s appearing the Billboard classical music charts this week. Absolutely amazing reality creation from the Basedgod there. I raise all of my hats, including this one, which is probably the illest hat in the Uk since I bought it back.

Yes, yes, yes and YES. That hat is almost as good as Andy Falkous from Future of The Left‘s open letter to the guy at Pitchfork who gave his album a bad, and factually inaccurate review.

…On ‘robocop 4 – fuck off robocop’ we will simply have to agree to disagree. However, if it is truly amongst the worst songs of the year then I am a giant bat and Pitchfork a cave into which I will shit golden effigies of your face.

Seriously, go read it right now, it is amazing, and probably the best music writing I’ve read since something Swells did in 96. Incidentally, I once described Andy Falkous in print as looking exactly like Steven Wells in my 5 star review of the first Mclusky album, which is probably why I got a thank you on their second album. See, my music journalism career wasn’t all Wu-Wear and Acid.

“As for the cover, well, there’s a penguin on it you stupid cunt.”

Hey! Speaking of clever politically aware musicians, here’s a lovely photo of my homie Time, with whom I made the modern classics Full Metal Alchemist and Too Sweet To Be Sour, all suited and booted and smiling next to the good Dr Noam Chomsky, who liked one of his articles (he writes articles on politrickery and whatnot as well as the dystopia-rapping) so much he invited him to come and speak with him the other week.

To that, I will raise a bowl of strawberries and a bottle of water. CHEERS!

Oh, finally, I got the following letter from a new listener:

I replied by informing William that the song was pretty self explanatory, then suggesting he read the lyrics on my website, as sometimes people can’t understand what I’m saying cos I say it so fast. It later dawned on me, hoever, that as a new listener, William might not have the level of context that say, I do, and people who’ve been with me since Living In The Future or even earlier have. See, William, I was, as the song says, always broke, from birth in fact. As recently as this song I was scrabbling down the back of the sofa for pennies when the electric went. Brokeness, once one is past the crawling stage anyway, is as much a mental trap as anything, and I wrote the song as a kind of magical sigil, designed to work continuously on a subconscious level, in order  that its joyous existence in the world would help bring material wealth in my direction, so that I might live a free, and less stressful life, and keep my woman in a manner more desserving of a creature so beautiful as she.

Thusfar it’s been working pretty well. I am about three times as well off monetarily as I was when I wrote it. True story! The solid gold house is not yet in my possession, and “some dope film” has yet to use the song, but I believe it to be close. I had an email from my publisher just the other day saying he’d had a number of LA based music supervisors in touch extolling my virtues. Just look at LiL B and his classical album. We are the architects of our destiny. And my destiny has a libary full of so many comics I’ll need a lader just to get to the S section in it.

Amen.

Weekend dies in 5 4 3 2…

I wish I could do that in supermarkets. Shout “5 4 3 2″ then start playing One Love that is. Or One Blood.

“5 4 3 2…”

When I am rich I am going to hire a band to follow me around for that sort of thing. I am also going to learn to tapdance.

Anyway.

To the channels!

This just in via Facebook: Lil B just hit the same sample me and Joey2tits did on Surrender from ATD20…

Great minds and all that. I’m considering a trip to The Bay, so if I see him, James Lillin, I will pass on your regards.

How’s your weekend been anyway? Mine’s been great thank you. I met a baby yesterday:

Babies all over the shop these days. A strange overabundance of girls amongst all the folks I know as well. Not one boy in ages. Just tons and tons of girls. I have no idea why. It’s probably just me, but if you’ve noticed this in your circle, let me know, and we’ll investigate. It might have something to do with the bees. Speaking of which, what happened with the bees anyway? Did anyone work out why they all died? Adam Fletcher, you out there?

Remixes keep on coming in. Shout out everybody fucking with my acapellas out there. There’s an updated list at the bottom of this post. This latest one’s from Dr Joseph Scott Stubblefield, and I was pretty sure Dr Stubblefield traded in turbo metal mixes, but this is on some Banjo Kazzoey And The Blooey Kabooey bouncing around on clouds type shiz. Dude also coulred in the sleeve in an ill fashion, SWAG HIM OUT. Hey Scott! How’s about sending me the instrumental for this baby? I kinda fancy spitting on it, as if ’twere a Nazi.

Aside from meeting babies and listening to remixes, I’ve been editing a music video (not Broke… Aaron’s on that, he assures me, and I’m gonna check in tomorrow). It is super fun because it’s all greenscreen, so I’ve been having a whale (trail) of a time super imposing myself on top of stuff. Finding Aaron and Tom was one of the best things that happened to me last year (and a lot of amazing things happened last year). Video was the big missing component in my artistic life. I feel like a kid that just discovered Lego or something. I just wanna play.

A nice side effect of video is that the chunks of time it takes to render things so you can see how they really are – 20 minutes here, 30 minutes there – those chunks are perfectly sized for allowing oneself to play quests on Skyrim. I battled my way through some dwarves caves today and found the fucking elderscroll. Swag me out!

Now, back to The Channels… This via Youtube:

Record companies are stupid part 32,964. A bet those coffers are looking swole with Megaupload out the way, huh? Anyway, thank you, sir. It’s folks like you that keep this ship sailing, may you live forever.

Oh yeah, Fuck ACTA.

DOWNLOAD: Akira The Don ft. Envy – I Am Not A Robot Acapella 139.997
DOWNLOAD: Akira The Don – Evangelion ft Pixel & Marvin The Martian Acapella 140
DOWNLOAD: Akira The Don – Fist of The North Star ft Littles Acapella
DOWNLOAD: Akira The Don – We Won’t Be Broke Forever Baby ft Gruff Rhys Acapella
DOWNLOAD: Akira The Don – I Am not Dead YEAH Acapella 105
DOWNLOAD: Akira The Don – Nothing Lasts Forever ft Envy Acapella 105
DOWNLOAD: Akira The Don – Video Highway Acapella
DOWNLOAD: Akira The Don – We Are Not Alone Acapella 125

Merry happy everybody! Christmas sure is looming hard. My bank account looks like the inside of a black hole. Whatever that looks like. And my studio looks like a ransacked toy factory. I have posted out about 100 festive swag parcels this week. I have just cut up 100-odd cards for friends and family which may or may not make the post in the morning. And I just rendered and borkmastered you an instrumental (I say bork-mastred because that basically mans putting a limiter and a bit of compression on the track, as opposed to the fine artistry employed by proper mastering engineers like Gaz who does all my stuff).

An instrumenal, you ask (having conceniently failed to read the post’s title)? Why yes! Because of this:

Merry Christmas Stuart! And Merry Christmas everybody else. Play this on repeat and before you know it, you, and everyone in the vicinity, will be infected with JIMMY SAVILE SWAG. Click the arrow on the right for your free download.

Mighty Tom Coles, who shot that beautiful A Very Merry Ho Ho Ho video is coming round tomorrow to do another Christmas video, by the way. I think we all know whihc song from Saturnalia Superman’s getting the treatment too.

*whispers:

swag

Remember I said I was going to do a letters page? Notice how I never did? Despite getting tons of letter? Laying out a letters page just takes too much damn time, annoyingly. So I am going to start blogging more regularly, and including your letters, interesting, questioning, relevant, funny, or inspirational, like this one:

Thank you Lucas. You’re right, I never consider what impact my music has. I just make it, but sometimes a letter like your gives me cause to reflect, and i am awed. So thank you, for listening. I have been doing this for seven years now, and I still feel like I;m just getting started. Saturnali Superman was a production breakthrough for me on a number of levels, and I am very excited to get into my third album proper in the new year…

That’s my UPLOADING AND DOING METADATA face, by the way. Sometime it seems half of my life’s work is uploading and metadata.

This was sent in via Twitter, thusly:

That is, indeed, nice. I was amazed by the likeness. Shit looks just like I do when I walk into the Post Office.

Speaking of which, today was the last day for post if you wanted your stuff to arrive for Christmas (and that was cutting it fine and living dangerously), not that that’s any reason not to buy cool stuff from my shop – digital stuff comes instantly as well (insert That’s What She Said Joke here __________ ). And there is but ONE Saturnalia Superman CD left.

There’s an ace review of Saturnalia Superman here, by the way, from transylvanilla.com, who say (amongst other things):

“In a sense, all of Saturnalia Superman follows this model: simultaneously celebrating the holiday season (and life!) while offering thoughtful reminders of its reality – murder, drugs, rampant commercialism and Akira’s trademark resolution to carry on all make appearances here.”

Amen, and thank you.

I have been answering questions on social networking sites, but that sin’t fair on those of you that understandably choose to stay away from such places, so I shall start bring that stuff back in here too. Kody, for example, asked me about my favourite websites on Facebook. I wrote the first things that popped into my head:

Hey, remember I was saying the other day that I lost all my and Envy’s early tunes in a horrible hard drive incident?

Amazing. Thank you Daniel. I shall add that to the discography pronto so we all call enjoy it.

Now then. It is getting late, and I have christmas cards to write. So how’s about you go watch the prometheus trailer, which has me so gassed you could light a match in my vicinity and blow up half of the 2012 Olympic grounds, and I’ll be back with more advent fun tomorrow. Shamoooooon!

Happy Eleven Eleven Eleven, gang!

How are you gonna mark this auspicious occasion? How about listening to the new R Kelly song on repeat all day? It is a work of genius, after all.

Me and the wife are celebrating by getting in the Silver Saab and aiming the beast in the direction of North Wales. We have the Alan Partridge autobiography and some Red Ices to listen to, so it will be a pleasant journey no doubt.

I am excited to be taking a break, and a a little sad, like always, as I am right in the middle of making lots of things. I am nearly done with the second Manga Music mixtape video. Here’s a still from it, it’s very colourful considering it was shot at night in Brixton.

I also started work on the next Akira The Don project this week. The Spirit Of Adventure – Joey2tits, Euro Jim form bangor, and myself – reconvened for the first time since Aim For The Brain to work on some – wait for it – CHRISTMAS MUSIC.

HO HO HO!

I am pretty excited, I gotta say. I’ve been wanting to make a Christmas record for many years. Now is the time. I can feel it. Oh, and look at that sweet T-Shirt Joey got me! How awesome is that? THANKS JOEY!

Heralding Christmas season will be the release of video one of The Life Equation Trilogy, Nothing Lasts Forever, which drops at the top of the month. Starring me and Envy, and directed by Dr Aaron Shrimpton, I saw the first edit yesterday and it bought tears to mine yes. It is a thing of great beauty, pathos, and wonder, and I can’t wait for you to see it.

Speaking of Youtube (kinda), I just swung by my inbox, which I don’t do all that often, and I got the following:

gamerfromtoday has sent you a message:

english military?
To:akdonovan

hey akira i was looking alot about england and watching lots of bbc( doctorwho, being human, and bedlam) i wanted to visit england before i start college i wanted to see the sites maybe visit some friends and i had a question do u know know if the S.A.S is real and wat it requires to join

Well, there’s a question I never considered I might be asked. And to answer your question brother Gamerfromtoday, the S.A.S. is indeed real, but I have no idea what is required to join. I believe one has to Dare, and as a consequence, Win. Can anyone out there help brother Gamerfromtoday? Personally, I wish you all the luck in the world with your quest, and when you come to England, why not make the trip left and check out Wales while you’re at it? Go North. Shit looks just like Lord Of The Rings.

Oh, and guess who got a totally unexpected DM from The Based God yesterday after I poinbted out on twitter that he’s the most influential rapper of the past year easy and his (and CLams Casino’s) sound is all over Drake’s Take Care?

This week is bless-ed.

Ahahaha! Congratulations to Pam Palmer, who won yestreday’s Facebook caption conest with the following:

Hmmm, now where did I put my sunglasses?

AHAHAHAHAHA! FUNNY COS IT’S TRUE! I have done this many times, most recently the other week, when I rang Wade to ask him if I’d just left my sunglasses in his house. He spent 5 minutes searching the place before I realised they were on my HEAD. I then cycled home through a riot, stopping occasionally to say hi to fans and wellwishers.

What a beautiful world.

Speaking of Wade, he’s swinging by Don Studios today to work on some computer game character designs, a secret project with David Piper, AKA The Piper Machine, and to plot the sequel to Stunners 130.

This is my favourite jawn from Stunners 130 today:

Classic.

Now, we have but a fortnight to make this sequel to Stunners 130, as Wade is heading back to LA. He got his visa! Amazing!

So that needs squeezing in, and properly. I still have this Manga Mixtape to finish – I have recorded eleven songs for the project, seven of which still need mixing, and I have two guest verses I wanna get down. My cut off date is next Wednesday, realistically. Meanwhile there is the Babydoll video to mix audio for, artwork for that and the Manga Mixtape, and a lot of logistical stuff and promotion tings to sort, as I don’t have  PR anymore as the last lot were criminally shit. I need to get on with legal action on their negligent asses too. That or write a lengthy blog post detailing their vast awfulness, thus ruining their Google front-page. My SEO is strong. Word to Richard Timney.

But never mind that. Good stuff abounds. I am still juicing (no Larry David), Wacom have amazing new biro-digitiser coming out next month, and The Dream just dropped a free LP. AND!

I am bringing back the letters page! I noticed two things about my Gmail this morning: 1, all my mailing lists and notifications have been going into an unseen folder called BULK for the past month, which has left me with a vast amount of sorting to do if I am to keep up with my Follow Back Real People policy on Twitter…and 2, that I have a vast folder called LETTERS I’ve been putting, um, LETTERS into and meaning to do a LETTERS page.

Now, what the letters page was always missing, and will need if it is to become regular, is a TITLE. SO I hereby declare a mighty COMPETITION, in which I summon upon you to NAME THE LETTERS PAGE! The winner gets a LIFE EQUATION T-SHIRT!

Leave your entries in the comments, or on Facebook. Speaking of which, here are all the entries for yesterday’s caption contest. YOU ARE ALL WINNERS!