A little birthday gift to Joe. As regular readers of this blog – and of Live Fast, Die Young – will know, gift exchanges between us come with a certain level of pressure attached. Not for us the latest box set of The Wire or monographed handkerchiefs it seems – it was a birthday gift exchange, after all, that started a coast-to-coast quest for the spirit of rock and roll America. Anything not pregnant with significance just won’t do. But times being tight, and therefore lacking the funds to buy something made out of gold, I had to get creative. I brainstormed, thinkercised and waterholed.

The title of the resulting video gift (below), like so many things to do with Missing Parsons and its ‘output’, is a reference to Bill Drummond’s work in progress The Smell of Money Underground. The eagle-eared among you will recognise the song in the first half as Bob Marley’s Redemption Song. To find out exactly how all his relates to our story – well, yes – you’ll have to read the book. (For a video of just the music from this clip, go here. Best enjoyed on headphones, better to facilitate emancipation from mental slavery.)

I don’t believe in fate. For me there is no predetermined path, no pattern, no destiny. I believe existence is arbitrary, events determined by a combination of chance and free will. But today has been a very odd day. A random series of happenings, entirely unconnected to each other and invisible to anyone but me and Joe, have conspired to make today the kind of day when you question whether there isn’t some sort of bizarre matrix which reaches down into your tiny existence from time to time and plays jokes on you.

Some background. As – fingers crossed – you will read in Live Fast, Die Young when it comes out on 4 May (pre-order now for a 25% discount), Joe and I are massive fans of The KLF. Without them – without Bill Drummond especially – the Live Fast quest would almost certainly not have happened. I won’t say much more than that here because I don’t want to spoil your enjoyment of the book, but suffice it to say that Drummond’s trademark grand gestures rubber-stamped our pointless peregrinations in a very powerful way. We were out both to prove him right and wrong at the same time.

In 1988 Bill Drummond and Jimmy Cauty, then known by another of their aliases The Timelords, released a record called ‘Doctorin’ The Tardis’ (see video above). A cheesy but exhilarating mash-up of the Doctor Who theme music, Gary Glitter’s ‘Rock & Roll (Part Two)’ and ‘Blockbuster’ by The Sweet, it was described by the music press variously as ‘excruciating’ (Melody Maker), ‘rancid’ (Select) and ‘noxious’ (Sounds). It sold over a million copies and went straight to number one.

Their next hit was a book. The Manual (How to Have a Number One the Easy Way), was as much a swipe at the music industry as a fascinating and revealing exposition of how to have a number one record. In the section on ‘plugging’ – radio promotion by record labels – they assert that being a BBC Radio 1 producer is the fastest way to lose touch with whatever finer qualities your soul once had. As Radio 1 producers we were keen to prove them wrong.

As you will also have gathered, Gram Parsons is a big part of Live Fast, Die Young too. Odd then, having written a book inspired in part by The Timelords and Gram Parsons (and incidentally containing a brief mention of Gavin Rossdale from Bush) to open The Sun newspaper today and see this …

… a picture of Gram Parsons, Doctor Who and Gavin Rossdale mapped over the Joshua Tree National Park and the southwestern United States. It seems Matt Smith, the latest incarnation of Doctor Who, is a fan of Gram Parsons – indeed woo’ed his current girlfriend Daisy Lowe by singing Gram songs to her – and they’ve gone on a pilgrimage to Joshua Tree to see where it all went on. While they’re there, Daisy is going to introduce Matt to her dad – one Gavin Rossdale (see the full article). Gobsmacked isn’t the word.

You may also know that Glen Campbell’s ‘Wichita Lineman’ plays a big part in our story.  Whilst surfing the internet this afternoon checking my KLF facts for this piece, I stumbled across a tune I had completely forgotten about:

Bill had found us again.

Oh, and today is Glen Campbell’s birthday. Happy birthday Glen. If you’re celebrating in Joshua Tree, having just received a Doctor Who DVD boxset and a Bush best of, please keep it to yourself. I’m not sure my fried brain could handle it.

(This week’s Parson of the Week is Parson Yaz Ewers, who has been kindly sharing our blogs with her friends on Facebook. To read the incredible story of how she came to be a Parson – another coincidence which we can still hardly believe ourselves – click here.)