www.big.co.ck

I foolishly agreed to give a talk this morning at the University of Ottawa. (Foolish because I’m in no condition to be standing upright in front of people.) I was doubly foolish because it wasn’t till 5:00 AM that I got around to actually preparing the talk. Why the delay? Well, my droogies, for the past day I’ve been pretty much laid up at home, lying supine, nursing my bad back… and listening ad nauseam to the Stone Roses.

Yep, ever since Thursday’s post on this British band, I’ve done little else but listen to their songs over and over again. I know myself; when I get into these obsessive moods, it’s best to just wait it out till I bore of the topic. Not bored yet.

I dug up this video of the band playing their psychedelic classic, “Waterfall“, on Tony Wilson‘s legendary show, “The Other Side of Midnight.” It’s a great piece of music history. Note the centre stage taken by the band’s drummer, Reni, known as “the Jimi Hendrix of the drums”. I don’t know much about drumming, but even I’m impressed by his “liquidity”. Also dig the freaky dude dancing by the mixer:

Now, the first (and classic) Stone Roses album had a weird little song on it called “Don’t Stop”, which sounds like another song played backwards. You can hear it here.

Some clever fellow has reversed “Don’t Stop” and allowed us to hear it backwards. Guess what? It’s the same song –“Waterfall”– played in reverse! Listen to it here.

Also, Roses singer Ian Brown actually had a cameo in the 4th Harry Potter movie. Blink, and you’d miss him. Here‘s the clip:

Okay, that’s all I’m going to blog about the Stone Roses, I promise. But I still have a few more hours of listening to get through, first. I will, however, tell a little story in song…

It begins with one of my favourite post-punk bands, Joy Division, playing their classic song, “Digital”:

Now we have, from the movie 24 Hour Party People, a bunch of actors pretending to be Joy Division, syncing to the same song:

The actor playing Bernard Sumner, the guitarist from Joy Division, is John Simm. As we all know, after the death of singer Ian Curtis, the remnants of Joy Division became New Order.

So, from the same movie, here are actors –including John Simm as Bernard Sumner– playing New Order, playing their classic song, “Blue Monday“, which was about the Monday after the death of Ian Curtis:

Fast forward a few years and we have the actor John Simm on stage with the actual New Order performing the Joy Division song “Digital”:

Confused?

More to the point, why have I taken you on this convoluted journey? Because John Simm has another claim to fame. He is the present incarnation of Dr Who‘s arch-nemesis, The Master. Here are the fantastic 10 minutes of actor Derek Jacobi discovering that he is The Master, then “regenerating” into John Simm:

See? Two of my favourite things in entertainment –Dr Who and Joy Division– are actually linked! Isn’t that cool? Well I thought it was cool. That’s all that matters. I guess if I could find a Joy Division reference in a Dr Who episode, that would be cooler.

In Other News

Cousin Ajay recommends that one register a domain name with the Cook Islands (domain extension “.ck”), so that one might own www.big.co.ck

Can you tell we’re related?