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The KLF story part 1
The KLF (also known as The Justified Ancients of Mu Mu, The Timelords and other names) are Bill Drummond and Jimmy Cauty, they were one of the seminal bands of the British acid house movement during the late 1980s and early 1990s. As The KLF, the duo pioneered the genres "stadium house" and "ambient house"
From the outset, they adopted the philosophy espoused by esoteric novel series The Illuminatus! Trilogy, gaining notoriety for various anarchic situationist manifestations, including the defacement of billboard adverts, the posting of prominent cryptic advertisements in NME magazine and the mainstream press, and highly distinctive and unusual performances on Top of the Pops. The KLF were pop music’s first ‘illegal art’ ideologues, though they were loath to be pigeonholed as mere copyright criminals. ‘As far as sampling is concerned’, they wrote in one of their many ‘KLF Communications Info Sheets’, this one dated January 22, 1988, ‘I’m sure we will continue doing it and from time to time get into trouble because of it, but it has always been only a part of the process of how we put our records together and not the reason for them existing’ (KLF Communications, 1998). However, this didn’t stop them from also firing off zingers like, ‘Intellectual property laws were invented by lawyers and not artists’ .
In 1986, Bill Drummond was an established figure within the British music industry, having co-founded Zoo Records, played guitar in the Liverpool band Big in Japan, and worked as manager of Echo & the Bunnymen and The Teardrop Explodes.On 21 July of that year, he resigned from his position as an A&R man at record label WEA, citing that he was nearly 33⅓ years old . Jimmy Cauty was, in 1986, the guitarist in the commercially unsuccessful three-piece Brilliant—an act that Drummond had signed to WEA Records and managed. Cauty and Drummond shared an interest in the esoteric conspiracy novels The Illuminatus! Trilogy, and, in particular, their theme of Discordianism, a form of post-modern anarchism. Re-reading Illuminatus! in late 1986, Drummond felt inspired to react against what he perceived to be the stagnant soundscape of popular music. Recalling that moment in a later radio interview, Drummond said that the plan came to him in an instant: he would form a hip-hop band with former colleague Jimmy Cauty, and they would be called The Justified Ancients of Mu Mu.
Early in 1987, Drummond and Cauty's collaborations began. They assumed alter egos—King Boy D and Rockman Rock respectively—and they adopted the name The Justified Ancients of Mu Mu (The JAMs), after the fictional conspiratorial group "The Justified Ancients of Mummu" from The Illuminatus! Trilogy. The JAMs' primary instrument was the digital sampler with which they would plagiarise the history of popular music, cutting chunks from existing works and pasting them into new contexts, underpinned by rudimentary beatbox rhythms and overlayed with Drummond's raps, of social commentary, esoteric metaphors and mockery.
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The Justified Ancients Of Mu Mu - 1987, What The Fuck's Going On
1987 (What the Fuck Is Going On?) was released in June 1987 on The JAM's' own record label, "The Sound of Mu(sic)".Like "All You Need Is Love" before it, the album was made using an Apple II computer, a Greengate DS3 digital sampler peripheral card, and a Roland TR-808 drum machine. Also as before, The JAM's liberally plagiarised from the history of popular music, cutting chunks from existing works and pasting them into new contexts, stealing "everything" and "taking... plagiarism to its absurd conclusion. Three months after independent release in June 1987, The JAMs were ordered by the Mechanical-Copyright Protection Society to destroy all unsold copies of the album, following a complaint from ABBA. In response, The JAMs disposed of many copies of 1987 in unorthodox, publicised ways. They also released a version of the album titled "1987 (The JAMs 45 Edits)", stripped of all unauthorised samples to leave periods of protracted silence and so little audible content that it was formally classed as a 12-inch single.Of the original LP's stock, some copies were disposed overboard on the North Sea ferry trip across, and the remainder were burned in a field in Gothenburg before dawn (as shown on the cover of their next album, Who Killed The JAMs?), after a failed attempt to sway ABBA. Bill Drummond summed up The JAMs' approach to composition in the first "KLF Information Sheet", sent out in October 1987: "We made [the album] not giving a shit for soul boy snob values or any other values, we just went in and made the noise we wanted to hear and the stuff that came out of our mouths.... Not a pleasant sound but it's the noise we had.
The Justified Ancients Of Mu Mu - 1987, What The Fuck's Going On (87 99mb)
1. Hey, Hey We Are Not The Monkees (6:06)
2. Mind The Gap (1:05)
3. Don't Take Five (Take What You Want) (4:02)
4. Rockman Rock (Parts 2 And 3) (6:35)
5. Why Did You Throw Away Your Gyro (0:20)
6. Me Ru Con (2:27)
7. The Queen And I (4:44)
8. Top Of The Pops (2:51)
9. All You Need Is Love (4:55)
10. Next (7:50)
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The Justified Ancients Of Mu Mu - Shag Times
The title Shag Times relates to the slogan "Shag Shag Shag", a lyric from The JAMs' 1987 debut single "All You Need Is Love" that also appeared as promotional billboard graffiti at the time of the single's release. Released in January 1989, Shag Times includes a selection of The JAMs' singles and album tracks. The remainder of the album consists of tracks originally by The JAMs, The Timelords and Disco 2000, remixed by and credited to The KLF. These KLF remixes were produced in 1988 by Drummond and Cauty. The compilation showcases The JAMs' characteristic sample-driven hip hop and bastard pop, and in equal measure it introduces the minimalistic house sound of The KLF that characterised their subsequent "Pure Trance" releases...Shag Times also introduced Bill Drummond and Jimmy Cauty's new incarnation - and one which would become considerably more famous - The KLF.
The Justified Ancients Of Mu Mu - Shag Times (89 157mb)
01. All You Need Is Love (5:01)
02. Don't Take Five (Take What You Want) (4:06)
03. Whitney Joins The JAMs (7:09)
04. Down Town (4:28)
05. Candyman (3:28)
06. Burn The Bastards (6:30)
07. Doctorin' The Tardis (3:37)
08. Whitney Joins The JAMs (Remix) (6:38)
09. I Love Disco 2000 (5:29)
10. Down Town (Remix) (6:30)
11. Burn The Beat (Club Mix) (4:58)
12. Prestwich Prophet's Grin (Instrumental Remix) (4:17)
13. Porpoise Song (Instrumental Remix) (5:14)
14. Doctorin' The Tardis (Minimal) (4:32)
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