* cracks knuckles *
Sinicalypse Rodriguez
Intro to Electronica 101
Mr. Rex, Period 3
20/12/2008
A Brief History of the KLF
in the mid-late 80s, bill drummond was a record label A&R who managed some pretty solid bands, most notably one of them with a lead singer named julian cope, who asked drummond what he should do to sell more records. drummond replied that he should kill himself, which cope scoffed at... this was later glorified on drummond's song "julian cope is dead" off of his folk album "the man" which preceded the whole KLF thing.
i believe around this time he also wrote a book called 33 1/3, released when he was approximately 33 1/3 years old, about his life and times as an A&R and basically a biography of everything going on.
meanwhile, during his college time he made a mate named jimmy cauty, who participated with him in the production of a play called illuminatus!, a farce/pisstake of a tale embellishing about the illuminati and their arch enemies, the justified ancients of mumu. cauty was doing things like being a founding member of the orb and i think some other dance music stuff... anyways, as legend goes, drummond and cauty were mates and billy-dee approached cauty saying "let's make a rap group called the justified ancients of mu-mu" which they did, known as the JAMs or the JAMMs as some people mislabel the acronym. they had a single or two i think, but basically the first big release was 1987: what the fuck is going on?!#@ where they sampled a whole bunch of pop songs throughout the ages and mashed them up, juxtaposed with bits of them doing shitty english rapping in the vein of the beastie boys mixed into parts. song titles like hey hey we're not hte monkees give you an idea of what they're about.
sample laws had yet to be established, suffice to say this record basically helped to establish them. relatively quickly the sample laws said "hey, you cannot do that" leading the KLF to have to go and burn a bunch of the oriignal unsold copies of 1987, and legend has it they dumped a bunch of others off of a boat into some sound somewhere. some of these songs later appeared on a compilation called shag-times, and of course, 1987 was later repressed and rah rah rah.
as time went on, they took on a couple'a other monikers... one which worked was "the timelords" where they created what i consider to be their greatest song, doctorin' the tardis. as one might imagine, the song was a very heavy doctor who influence, as the song itself was essentially a mash of the doctor who theme song with gary glitter's rock and roll part 2 along with a little bit of original noises sprinkled in, also some dalek samples, and a few other chanting type things. the song made it to top of the pops #1 glory and spawned a book called "the manual: how to have a #1 the easy way" which guaranteed that, after reading, the reader would have a #1 within 6 months of the reading. if you didn't get it a full refund would be provided. if you did get that #1, you would win a trip to madagascar with the JAMs, all expenses paid. once again, the book was a very limited pressing and is likely pretty damn valuable if you have one today. here's them performing doctorin the tardis on the top of the pops tv show... even tho it's hard to see, they had cheaply constructed knockoff daleks rolling around the stage with them:
somewhere around this time they came up with the name "the kopyright liberation front", aka the KLF. the KLF started off, i believe, with a bunch of 12s released in the "pure trance" series, and this is where their mainstay songs "what time is love?" and "3am eternal" came from. they made godknowshowmany versions of what time is love and 3am eternal, releasing remixes wherever they could. the KLF became the #1 singles selling group of 1991. whilst they were far from the most gifted producers to man electronic equipment (we are on a derivative of an aphex twin board, after all), all in all they, especially drummond, were geniuses overall, especially when it came to crafting an image and being all kinds of avant garde artistic and cool. their music went around many different styles, from the dark moody ambient-type-laid-back-stuff of "it's grim up north" (which i think was under the JAMs moniker, actually) to some evolved takes on that (kylie said to jason) and then they went further than that: a notable musical achievement was the recording of the ambient album "chill out", which was painstakingly recorded in one take. i think it was cauty insisting on that, and it took many takes resulting in something odd like nearly 24 hours of nonstop studio action in order to get it done properly.
there was another laid back ambient type album, tho with some beat-driven songs and of course rehashes of what time is love and 3am eternal and last train to trancentral, which was to be the soundtrack to a film they made called "the white room." i don't think the film was ever formally released, or if it was it was very very limited, and i believe bootlegs might've made it out somewhere along the ways (speaking of, there were some other videos... dunno if they were pure trance or something, but they too are limited and rare and likely worth a pretty penny, same as a legit KLF shirt, which i believe goes for $100 on e-bay with bootleggers lurking to make big bucks off of re-presses) from there, as time went on into 1992 they started jamming out with a band called extreme noise terror, and they were working on an LP called "the black room" which was going to be a collab with them, and as one might guess it was the antithesis of the whole white room experience. the LP was never released, however bootlegs got out and it is slskable... it's not very good it's kind of like anoymous rocky metal, but hey, it's there for you. later on they also did a single with the late country singer tammy wynette called "justified and ancient", which i believe was a single from the white room LP, and i think that's up there in terms of their quality songs. it's head-nodding enjoyable and fun and tammy's got some pipes, and it's got the trademark KLF chanting and people singing mu-mu and references to their ice cream van and other things. they always were heavy on the symbolism, seeing as the justified ancients of mu-mu were the natural enemies of hte illuminati in the illuminatus! trilogy and this was a central message the KLF attempted to propagate throughout their tenure: going against the establishment of music from the inside out.
the ending of the KLF was meant to be spectacular, but it fizzled a little bit. at the 1992 or 1993 top of the tops, i can't remember which one, the KLF played accompanied by extreme noise terror. as the band finished up, cauty and drummond came out with assault rifles for crutches and had buckets of sheep blood on the stage... they had wanted to kick the blood into the crowd, drenching execs with it, while shooting blanks off in order to make a grand statement, however the blood got messed up and they just ended up firing the blanks over the head of the crowd. it still did cause somewhat of a ruckus, during which i believe drummond grabbed the house microphone and proclaimed "the KLF are leaving the music industry"
i don't know many of the specifics, tho some OG britons likely know, the KLF were reknown for doing all kinds of odd shows with gimmicks, lights, druids, spectacles onstage, etc... sometimes they'd send bunches of people to other people's shows, the orb comes to mind, in KLF shirts accompanied by druids and wahtnot. around this time, the KLF bought themselves a tank and drove it through the streets of london blaring propaganda (this idea would later be rekindled by our very hero and protagonist, aphex twin, who got a scout tank and kept it to the back-roads of the country, not to mention a submarine and other odd things) and they had an ice cream van in there somewhere. they made a legendary little indie film about them going off and burning a million quid (tho rumor is that it was really like 180k, just said to be a million for effect) they had a "worst art award" where they awarded the lady who won a bunch of cash and then promptly burned/destroyed her art... and they did some other full page ads.
they took the name "the K foundation" and released a track called "k sera sera" which i believe was a single and it was an orchestra thing, and somewhere along the way they did another jungle-y track about peace in israel or something, with some national anthem mashed up with a jungle beat and the usual odd radio freedom sample intro and a few mu mu shouts and whatnot. i believe it was around 1997 or 1998 or even 1999 they did one more show, called 23 minutes with the KLF, where drummond and cauty came out in wheelchairs and smashed around into each other and randomly yelled at the crowd as if they had dementia/alzheimers or something..
they also had some other grandiose idea that never took off called k2 plant hire, essinestially it spawned a few logos and was a cool buzzword to tell someone about what those crazy KLF cats were up to, but it never really amounted t oanything.
from there, they did another EP around 1999-2000 called "fuck the millennium" which featured them taking out another fullpage ad in a london newspaper asking if the millennium should be fucked?! dial one number for yes, one nother for no. the single was just basically defaced versions of what time is love and maybe even 3am eternal, i can't be arsed to remember, but it was basically rubbish.
another funny thing in the late 90s/early 2000s: when the KLF did their big huge hit single what time is love, they sampled an old disco-era-diva (fat black lady with pipes from the disco era, basically) named wanda dee for the "gonna make you sweat!" sample. naturally, the KLF didn't credit her or pay her for it, so some years later the case went to court and obviously wanda dee won, so basically, she somehow ended up with the rights to the name "the KLF" and later teamed up with shady promoters who would have a rave and claim that they booked the KLF, put it on the flyer, but really it was just wanda dee singing with a house DJ/band or something, and legally they weren't lying and got away with it, but really, that's just how it goes.
since then, as it was previously mentioned, drummond has written other books, most notably 45 (written/released for when he turned 45), which i havent read but i'm dying to get my hands on since basically he reminisces and demystifies a whole bunch of the KLF lore/tales from back in the day, which as you could tell would be a properly scintillating read for me. cauty has done other projects, and within the last year or two teamed up with a mate or two to form the transit kings, or well, looking at the site it doesnt list him under the "band members" part but mentions him in the bio, so maybe he left?! i dunno he was involved with the project tho.
basically, i think they've grown older and are active in the art scenes of the world, with drummond really being prettymuchdone with music, tho maybe he wanks off with an acoustic guitar for alls i know.
so yeah, in the end, i summise the KLF to be one of the coolest bands ever, altho, their music wasn't nearly as good as their whole image/legacy/style/geniusness, but that never really bothered me, insomuchas i've been spoiled by the likes of the aphex twins and squarepushers of the world to where i tend to go balls out hardcore avant garde all or nothing, and at their peak the KLF were trying to be mainstream pop and succeeded with a few songs, which is exactly what they set out to do. by and large, the KLF were meant to be shouded in mystery and esoteria, and by and large they succeeded, even if most of it was just dadaist-for-the-sake-of-being-dadaist rubbish, still, there was enough of the principality towards actually taking on the role/concept of the justified ancients of mu-mu from the illuminatus! trilogy to give you an idea of what they were trying to do, which was be a pop music outfit that stood against the grain to make an artistic point about standing up against the perpetual whirlpool of reproductive mediocrity that is the music industry.
they won't be remembered as musical geniuses, and most will consider them a weird goofy teensy little glimmer of a moment in early 90s pop music history, but to those of us who actually got what they were trying to do and by and large pulling off, they'll always put a smile on our faces as a type of genius that undoubtedly influenced the likes of later/next-generation musicians like aphex twin, providing a blueprint of how to be really fucking cool and genuinely artistic in the face of the music-corporation-machine and forge an identity for yourself that will forever resonate with the fans as being true avant garde artistry, again, which definitely influenced the likes of our vaunted heroes aphex twin and squarepusher.
it's why i needs to get me a proper KLF shirt, cuz i'm all about the oldschool 90s really-cool-band shirt, and while they weren't the greatest band in the history of the world, i truly believe that the KLF was the coolest band in the history of the world.
a most excellent and informative summary sini
