"I flow dirty like a butt-naked slut that's bagging it up, smuggling crack in her butt" -No Lay

Right now I've got these Bashy earworms and it's doing my head in. In fact for about three weeks I've been hearing that vocal he does "Oiiiiiii! It's Bashy, Mannn!!!! I have a dream... to be a freedom fighter...". Something about how disconnected all the elements of the line are really annoys me. Like he's just gone "Blimey! Stone the crows! It's Bashy! Tell you what, I heard a funny thing on the way here...". The other bit that's been cropping up in my head is that track where he's having an argument with his girlfriend where she's asking "I saw you calling on the phone- I wanna know what's going on" - "nothing's going on" Bashy says, about 1000 times. I'd rather watch Trisha than listen to this track again.

The carnival was fun. Couldn't see any grime sound systems as such, but Bear Man's PA at the Rampage 1xtra stage got a massive response, rewound about four times. you could argue that this is because he's only got one tune, but hey, it was big. Lots of girls dancing to it, too, and I couldn't see any gun fingers. As I said to the missus, it's good that it's a song about drinking beer, because you'd feel a bit odd raising gun fingers to it. Brap! (in a non-aggressive sense)

Don't hold tight all those novelty ska musicians at the Gaz's Rocking Blues sound system. This kind of ultra-bouncy knees up mother brown ska sounds, to me, like the kind of thing the Teletubbies would frolic around to. It starts normally, but the tempo speeds up until you're jumping around like Zebedee. So don't hold tight, hold it loosely, in a manner negligent to your own personal safety.

There are about 1 billion great grime tunes out there at the moment. You know why? 'Cause the English summer is over. Grime is about the dark wet streets, which is every road in London on this extremely wet Wednesday.

"Right now it's Riko Dan London city WAR-LORD. And I got Trimble and I got Scratchy Demus and Pliers. And if any soundboy wants to test, BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOYYYYYYYYYYYYYY, I wound't want to be you, you get me!". Check this, 19 minutes through Logan's show. From the first stuttering-strings of this track, you know it's going to be a Roll Deep classic. Trim also gives himself a fantastic introduction- "........ and that's my department".

You don't hear much about the "central London crew", do you? They didn't make it on P-Jam's Compass EP, which repped everywhere else. Perhaps the CLC aren't from the "ends" as such, but the "beginnings". A sleeping giant in the grime scene perhaps.

What is "shower-curtain business"? Something to do with absorbing moisture? That Dolphin bathroom crew dem heavy.

"I'm big on the streets, larger than life, harder than nails, sharper than knives..." - download this awesome radio set from seclusiasis radio with Kano and Roll Deep. Great interview with Kano where he sounds like it's 5pm and he's just got out of bed (not in a sexy way, but in a too many bacardi and cokes sense). But you gotta check this for Kano and Ghetto over the Fire Hydrant rhythm, which has Kano laying down about 128 bars.

Standard ultra efficient rhymes from Kano, the Andrei Shevchenko of grime innit, and an intruiging line from Kano "ain't no flow bigger than mine, but ain't no dough bigger than Dizzee's". Back to the streets is the message I guess. Ghetto here is massive, as Silverdollar would no doubt agree; lots of "yeah yeahs" and "yos"- when was the last time a grime MC sounded like he was having so much fun? His rhymes are so big that he doesn't just get a bomb sound from the DJ, he gets an AIR RAID SIREN. "Yeah, yeah what's happening, what's really good cuz, what's crackling? I'm still big in the hood, still battling, still selling drugs, so when I see feds, they only see legs, yeah I'm still panicking..."

Tonight I'm off to BigSexyLand in Old St, run by my man John Doran from Playlouder. Promising "synth pop maxi singles (Yazoo ‘Situation’ 12”, Killing Joke ‘Eighties’ Serious Dance Mix); DFA (LCD Soundsystem ‘Daft Punk Is Playing At My House’ Soulwax Mix, Black Leotard Front ‘Casual Friday’); new wave (The Creepers ‘Baby’s On Fire’, The Fall ‘Mr Pharmacist’); acid (Joey Beltram ‘Energy Flash’, Mr Fingers ‘Beyond The Clouds’); goth (Bauhaus ‘Kick In The Eye’, Siouxsie ‘Spellbound’); nu electro (Vitalic ‘My Friend Dario’, Simian Mobile Disco ‘The Count’); electro (Fearless Four ‘Rocking It’, World Class Wrecking Cru ‘Juice’); post punk (Gang of Four ‘To Hell With Poverty’, A Certain Ratio ‘Shack Up’). And then everything from Annie to Joy Division; Rocker’s Revenge to The Cure; early Simple Minds and early Ultravox!; late 70s Bowie and early 80s Numan."

Sonic Youth Goo Deluxe 2xCD

Got this the other day. The radio advertisments on this disc- with Thurston free-forming poetry over tracks from Goo- sound completely from another time, which indicates that this a pretty good time to have a reevaluation of Sonic Youth's commerical zenith. It's a timely reissue, then, and a good package, but not a massively revealing experience. The demo of Disappearer for instance, like the demos of A.N.Other mainstream rock band, just a little more slow and delibarate than the album version, as they work to get to grips with the song. The guitar ad-libs in the middle 8 are exactly the same as in the final version.

Indeed there's nothing chaotic about this version of Sonic Youth. The demos on another recent repackaged double CD package, Fleetwood Mac's Rumours, sounds like spazz-rock in comparison to Sonic Youth. Each tone and sound of their noise assault is pretty much painstakingly planned in advance. Still some good moments, though- the beatnik poetry vibe Thurston exudes in his radio advert is a defining theme of the album, and the songs which are more elusive and noir-ish are rather good. Disappearer definitely, as befits it's title. This idea of elusiveness this package kinda interesting- their slurred lyrics and random quoted references are intended only to appeal to the hardcore rock listener- you had to persevere with this stuff to get into it; if you wanted instant melodic hits in those days, you listened to Crowded House.

It's the ethos of Goo, the band's elusiveness which is core to the interest of this reissue. It's not the music per se. And that's why you'll listen to this package once, smile, and then not listen again..

"I deal with views and opinions / grew up on a reggae band called Abyssinians" - Wiley

With the benefit of hindsight, I reckon Roll Wid Us is an absolute classic, with those melancholy strings and verse after verse of urgent, clipped lyrics.

A cool little subtext of grime this year has been that, after infamously murking Demon on Rinse ("let me murk him one time, you had your go and now it's my go mate, and then we'll forget about it"), Riko didn't actually lay the beef to rest, but seemed to just go on dissing him at every opportunity- at Heatwave, and then on Logan's last Rinse show etc. etc. etc. Seemed to work anyway, as Demon seemed to go a bit quiet about it afterwards (what was Demon's problem in the first place? it's not clear). But Riko wouldn't let it lie would he? The Jeremy Paxman of grime!

Of course, the wickedest bit of Logan's last show is when he plays the Dead Dat rhythm, and they stop the tune for about 5 minutes while they go and find Riko so he come and do the lyrics to it, and it rocks. Truly a "wasteman can't spit on my tune" moment.

One reason grime albums haven't quite felt right (although they've had loads of good bits innit) is ego-related. There's such a big gap, kudos and cash wise, between making it (Dizzee) and not (most others), that they're understandably desparate to succeed. They start writing their own success story before it comes to try and make it real, to re-ify it, creating a meta-feedback loop where the heavy weight of expectation starts should do start polluting, invading standard working practices. Result is bloated ideas, too much RnG etc. etc. Anyway, this problem of self-definition hits hardest when there's either a big crew (SLK, Roll Deep) or just a sole member; what about a duo, where MC personnas are shaped in collabo with a reflection. That's why the Newham Generals album is gonna be wicked innit (okay they have a third member too, but not a big boy, it's a duo really). Their first few tracks, esp. Mic Centre, where they ping-ponging tales of sexual intruigue between each other in a manner which is both touching and clandestine. In fact there have been loads and loads of fantastic MC duos- Mobb Deep, EPMD, Cypress Hill (more or less). Perhaps it's the ideal model for rapping (perhaps The Alliance (Crazy/J2K) would be a good duo if they actually got round to doing some tracks).

DJ Logan! Make you tear off your shirt like Hulk Hogan! A new free CD download available here. If you haven't already got and dug Logan's old promo CD from 2004, well, you may as well paint yourself blue.= and wear a whack hat.

I remember back in the day, some hip hop DJ (maybe a young Tim Westwood) dogmatically stating you should never play instrumentals of hip hop tracks without the vocal cuts. there's the same ethos in reggae of course- you play the version and the vocal, or "chapter and verse" as Steve Barrow puts it. I agree with this, because I think the best absolute best thing about grime is, prety much, the lyrical/song structures. To restate it, it's not primarily the lyrical content but the form. You rarely get a rhyming couplet which is essentially profound, ie something as dark and coldhearted as Mobb Deep; it's always the movement of the words (overlapping, changing focus, supporting and subverting themselves) rather than the words themselves. Blah blah blah Derrida etc, but you know what I mean. And it's rarely the sonics per se which are futuristic, but only these sounds within the context of how they apply to the song. The string stabs in Boogieman, the horns in Destruction VIP, Target's accordians, there's nothing essentially extraordinary about them, it's just how they act as a background for word play.

I've always hated people who are only into dub and not reggae as a whole, and similarly it strikes me as bizarre when people are just into dubstep. The sounds of dubstep are nothing particularly new I don't think, it's primarily when there's an MC there that these sounds come alive. The belligerent, non-rational side of me would like to see a new Westwood-esque dogma in grime/dubstep- no strictly instrumental DJ sets! You've always got to do vocals too, chapter and verse!

Pop grime. The pure joy of pop grime releases has to be contrasted with it's lack of functionality. Tinchy Strider on Uptown Girl- a superbly vigorous smash and grab job, but on the other hand it's quirkiness makes it somewhat lame (ie lame physically, undanceable, no physical stature).

The first thing I like about this stuff is it's transgressive nature- rowdy kids gatecrashing a polite party (of course this is explicitly referenced in Roll Deep's Shake A Leg). A perhaps more poigant element of pop-grime is how it feels like it's dreaming of a better life (Uptown Girl especially)- two, opposed, sides of the tracks, looking at each other from afar and dreaming of each other. Of course by using beats/breaks which are specifically not from garage, it risks losing it's physical impact. This is where all the vocal trademarks (cf Woebot) are important- rhythmic ticks, non-lyrical tatoos- Wiley spitting "Eski- Eski" at least evokes the physical side that has been somewhat lost.

This means pop-grime places a big emphasis on the MCs to rock it without a riddimic chassis. This is where the Tinchy Strider track falls down, he's too reserved/screwfaced and doesn't draw you into the track. A shame as Strider is good at that screwfaced/impervious business. Anyway, pop-grime like hip house has to feel it's way, make it up as it goes along, frequently making some rather terrible tracks.

The other day, I bumped into one of our new employees on the way into the record shop. He's a new Scottish guy, and is notable for being the guy who Franz Ferdinand named the song "Michael" after. Anyway, I was enjoying talking to him about David Toop and sundry other stuff, but I couldn't remember his name for the life of me. I didn't remember what he was called until I got to the office- Michael, for fuck's sake.

2005. Inspektah Deck wanders wearily through the car park at The Wu Tang's headquarters, Shaolin Shack, in New Jersey up to the door. He looks at the cess crop him and Ghostface planted in 1996, now dry and withered. Where did it all go wrong for the Wu Tang.

These days Deck makes sure he gets in early; it leaves the afternoon open to dub some guest appearances for UK hip hop artists onto tape. It's not glamourous, but it pays the bills. The clock on the burglar alarm says 9am, and, with the RZA on continuing sabatical, he's the first one here. He picks up the package on the matt, sent by the RZA from his top secret studio, which contains a CDR with "the new shit" scrawled across the top in ornate script. Ambling to the kitchen, he makes himself a brew, and grabs a joint from the Wu Tang packet in the desk. Put there to stimulate creativity, on more than one occasion they've stimulated a rambling monologue from the RZA about need for the need for extended periods of doing nothing to maintain a balance with the frantic activity of his 1000s of other projects. That day, they didn't lay down a beat, and not a single verse was written. "The all seeing eye, heavenly divine the truth brings out the temper in my spine" it says in an ornate font where the cigarette health warning should be. Sparking it up he coughs heavily. "what a load of crap". "Fresh beats" it says on the note in the package. As Deck pulls the CD out, a few reams of random mythology fall out. "the samurai style is the new shit" RZA has written on a post-it note attached to one of the sheets. Bunging the CD in the player, a kick and snare sluggishly loops through the speakers at 85 bpm. "Samurai" a voice intones. "Samurai" says another voice, slightly deeper. "SAAAAAMMMMMMMMUUUUURRAAAIIIIIII". "Fuck's sake" says Deck.

"Whassup" says Method, rolling through the door, dressed in his customary spotless tracksuit. These days Method is clean, no weed or booze, and fresh into work when he's not at Pilates. Since his herb-smoker comedy act with Redman has got off the ground at the movies, there's no need to smoke weed the stuff in his day to day real life to keep up the image. "We've got to bless these new beats, pronto, yes?" Method's words are a strange mixture of languid street talk and urgent management lingo. "Let's see whose available" says Meth as jumps into the swivel chair, next to a sleek computer. calling up the MC Rota, he checks who can come and do a verse in the studio for them. "August 8th, 2005- 1 (one) MCs available, Cappadona aka Cappacino". Deck sighs. "I know" says Method.

Wiley's new single You Not Real definitely sounds kinda dubsteppy in the echobox fun he has with his own vocals. It's much better than dubstep though, as it's Wiley's voice, and not some King Tubby sample we've all heard a million times to much. It also has the lyric "if I've got a sore throught I'll sip L-E-M / been around since Randall and Kenny Ken", which is brilliant. I might be getting a bit too excited 'cause we've been starved of good grime tunes recently, but this is massive and could be one of the best tunes of the year.

"index finger under my nose / when I MC, my eyes automatically close". There you go Silverdollar, that's Skepta's sharpest lyric so far.

Wiley was presumably murking Shizzle on the Sunday Roll Deep set- not that it matters who it was particularly, but his forty five part rhyming couplet which goes along the lines of "what you saying "for realion" / you can't play football like a Brazilian / you can't beat William" (etc. etc.) is absolutely hilarious.

Google Earth is the first thing in about ten years which has made me want to start smoking weed again.

The new Animal Collective single, Grass. It's well produced and spacious to the degree of recalling Mercury Rev and T[yraannasaurus] Rex; backing vocals have the unrestained joy of Sympathy For The Devil. Lyrics inaudible, so it's a strange mix of clarity and ineffability. Strings or keyboards are echoed to the point of an impressionistic blur; they're very melodic, leaving you with a warm, vague, glow. This really is a terrific single.

There's a big difference between Wiley's MCing today and, say, six months ago. When he was giving on-air slaggings to Bashy and Jamakabi, he seemed overloaded with lyrics to the point where it disturbed his style- so much to say, he garbled his flow, and would get lost in his bars and drift away from the beat. At the moment though, he's angry but lean, succinct, concise. Even his voice sounds stronger.

What with Christian Collective These Tree's fairly impressive psychedlic psalms (on Pomegranate records), and Simon Finn's crazy Jerusalem song from last year, how long is it before acousta-philia starts digging Christian music? It's a worrying thought isn't it. In fact isn't Sufjan Stevens a bit religious? God is a load of nonsense, of course, which suggests something rather naive in the reverent, whimsical meditations of current singer-songwriting.

The big problem with using your own personal playlist for personal enjoyment- tailoring tunes to your exact preferences on Ipod, Windows Media Player or whatnot- is that by enjoying something alone, it excludes the dissenting voice of others. The mate who walks in while you're listening to the M.I.A. album you're getting really excited about and says "the is just total crap", making you feel chastened and forcing a reevaluation. Musical appreciation is formed with others, isn't it? At least they are for me. My tastes are flawed, inconsistent, so it's a good thing when others force me to reconsider whether something is good (I liked John Cage's response when he was accused of being inconsistent- "so what?"). Anyway this was occuring to me while listening to some Asian retro garage pop, which sounded fine as far as it goes, but I felt rather as if i was enjoying it in my own utopian retro world, trying on exotic tastes and flavours in a manner fairly similar to walking around an ethno-festival, tasting lots of curries and buggering off before the food-stall people attempted to talk to me. That is, enjoyable for the palette, but somehow I had no investment in the music, or them in my appreciation of it.

Krafty Kizzle. That's my favorite grime MC name of the moment, definitely.

k-punk, brilliant, on The Cure.

According to Cameo Low Deep ft Kano, Doctor, Ghetto "Get Set" from Run The Road 2 is one of the "biggest tracks to hit the scene in years". To me, the big 'n' brassy riff on "get set" vibe make it sound more like the theme to Superstars or something. Still, there's much better stuff to come on RtR2, trust. But but but, make sure you check out Cameo's show, because someone's done a vocal to Plasticman's Cha- "Shizle... Napa.... new style, ratatatatata!". Brap!

I'm absolutely gagging to hear the new Wiley album.

If you ever know what sort of music would be played at the antiseptic drinking warehouses that are Weatherspoons, simply check out your nearest Goose pub. The music they play is the exact equivalent of those 4.99 bottles of Blossom Hill wine they serve- left on the shelf for years, sold off cheap, and with a nasty aftertaste. Suzanne's Diner by DNA, urghhhh. They also played I'll Be There For You by The Rembrants, the full version with the never-heard middle eight, which is like being forced to eat plastic.

Major listening on holiday in the south of France was Franco and Johnny Cash. There is a major testosterone charge, second only to NWA, in the lines "early one morning while making the rounds, I took a shot of cocaine and I shot my woman down"- the enjoyment of these lines is a [very] guilty pleasure. Nevertheless I think Cash's prison albums have an enormously strong moral core, with many grown-men-crying-into-beer ballads that are sublimely emotional, if old-fashioned. Franco is one of those rare guitarists that can make you dance- as is well known, there have only been twelve such guitarists in history, and nine of these came from Africa.