Concrete and Clay

Quarter to five, Friday afternoon, and London's hot and ready for another three-day weekend. Yes, Monday's a Bank (Public) Holiday once again, and this time we'll all be remembering that important date in the Christian calendar, Whitsun. Hmm...

Anyway, here's a little something to stick in your MP3 player and get your weekend rolling regardless - an exclusive mix from Concrete & Clay's favourite beat juggler, New York's DJ Drinks.

DJ Drinks Mix Tape
Download | Stream

Enjoy. Standard.

Fly to Bologna on Wednesday at seven in the morning, leaving from Stanstead, absolutely free, £45 per head for name changes, two tickets for a week. Get in touch if interested. Gear.

She's trying to get me drunk and listen to his crazy music. All I can do is write this on their PC as she goes to the toilet to do God knows what. He passed out a long time ago.

He tells me I must write the music to their next track. Its called "It's the crack head".

I'm not sure what to do. They got an odd Isley Brothers Sample but its all Techno apparently.

Whatever,

I think I'll put it out on Concrete & Clay.

Ken

Calling all people who like music!

Carvery cuts is an East London based vinyl manafacturer of small runs and dub plates, they are cheap and offer a high quality service. Make your own battle record or send your voice to a loved one.

Nice.

(A great name for a Trustafarian dub outfit)

A diary of a depressed man: Day 8

I ask for another shot of anaesthetic because the first did nothing, I pretend to feel the third injection as the needle slides painlessly into my gum, after the fourth I feel ready. I hold eye contact with the dentist as he inserts a pair of mole grips into my stretched mouth. After some five minutes of trying to listen to the radio while a nurse mops blood from my chin and protective spectacles, I concentrate on the clogged pores of the dentists forehead. A crack that can not be replicated echos inside my head. I have lost a tooth and gained a hole. My face still feels numb. You are meant to have thirty two teeth but apparently you only need twenty.

A diary of a depressed man: Day 7

Sitting in the seat where I last saw my stalker I struggle to relax. A girl walked up to me at a party and gave me a photo of myself. She returned later saying "its OK, I have more". I was disturbed. I have since seen and avoided her in the shadows in the drains and late at night in dodgy corners of festering Hoxton. I am surrounded by freaks and fiends, amazing people. I know I have good friends, family and people who love me. Big up yourself.

The Vibe Bar, offering free internet access is today's setting, the risk of seeing the freak is worth it. The sun breaks through the clouds and the haunting sounds of DJ Shadow Entroducing smother me reminding me why I hate this bar. Times change as quickly as people, I relish the beautiful moments which armour me against the inevitable shitness to follow. I know this is a chemical imbalance.

The medication has caused few obvious side effects, vomiting at Liverpool Street on Thursday morning in response to photo me machine number: PH 20777835 eating my £3.50, sweatier palms than usual and slight decrease of interest in the "before and after" pictures of breast enlargement operation adverts scattering the back pages of Ms London. Opticians this afternoon and a journey to the dentist on Wednesday.

Some cock just walked up to me and said "Tell me you're going to be finished soon!", keys jingle, doors slam, DJ Shadow skips back to track 1 twice as loud, I am sure there is a sign here somewhere.

It has been an unusual week. On a beautiful Sunday afternoon, with brilliant sunshine and a deep blue sky I said goodbye to my lovely grandmother as she slept peacefully in her orange room. It was a fitting ending for someone who was such a colourful character. Gone but absolutely not forgotten.

Last night I said lots of goodbyes, this time followed by a hearty handshake and the occasional manly thump on the arm. My boys, whom I had nurtured since that first day in September 2000 have graduated and the birds have flown from the nest. I was lucky enough to give a little speech in their honour (and spit some bars for them too!). I shall be speaking again on Sunday when I say my final farewell for the week. It's funny how you find strength in adversity, but it pumps through you like the biggest rush you can imagine, and it (hopefully) lasts a lot longer. Goodbye my friends, you know where I am if you need me. X

A diary of a depressed man: Day 1

I have taken the biggest step and gone to my GP, bored of the paranoia and horrible feelings of woe I am back on the antidepressants. After finding that my preferred brand Seroxat has now been banned I took reassurance that Citalopram Hydrobromide is the active man's blend and offers few uncomfortable side effects. I have written the day of the week next to each tablet on the blister strip and I am ready for the twenty eight days of "Nausea, decreased sexual performance, difficulty in passing urine, vague feeling of unwell, amnesia, joint and muscle pain, ringing in the ears, coughing, increase or decrease in weight" as described in the accompanying leaflet. I neck the first and wait for something to happen.

Milk & Beef's new album "Do or Die" is out on May 16th 2005.

"EXPERIMENTAL BEATS FROM THE BACKGROUND OF THE UNDERGROUND"

www.thethinman.co.uk

It's a vinyl only release, and Concrete and Clay have five pairs of copies to give away. Featuring fourteen short-and-quirky head nodding tracks, this album makes some epic moves from it's sunny latin opener "Turkish Harlem", to the dark wintery electronica of the closing track "Unclaimed Melody". Along the way, we're presented with some refreshingly "fresh" perspectives on the "hip hop instrumental". This record will surely be a creative foil to visionary beat jugglers, knob twddlers, MCs and film directors alike. Plus it's all wrapped up in a beautiful piece of black and white sleeve art.

You know the routine: email quoting "Do or Die" to ed@concreteandclay.org, and we'll sort you out.

What more can I say?

I sit in a public library watching five learn direct advisers-tutors-mentors crouched round a photocopier, the problem remains, a suited balding white collar anxiously lifts up and down the hood of the machine like a car bonnet. The training gurus fight amongst themselves with words of resetting and contrast whilst deep down knowing they know nothing of the workings of a photocopier. All the man power or high flying won't change the fact they can not mend that photocopier because deep down they know this was made recently, it is a modern piece of magic. The suited white collar and the draping dressed middle aged mentors know they can't change the fact that it does not work.

I reckon I could mend it.