KLF - did they rock you?

they never made a dent in the us charts

"3 a.m. Eternal" was big in the US and wikipedia says top 5 Billboard.

And oh yeah, they rocked me. One of the greatest ever groups/artists/acts etc etc of all time.

i think you missed the subtext in my earlier remark which might be dumbed-down as, "they never made a dent in the us charts during a period when i was paying more attention to the billboard charts than to my toenails and hey check out this insane sloth."

subtext

/unfunny

it kinda blows my mind that they made #5 in '91, cuz at that point i WAS at least half aware of radio pop and i missed it entirely.

I guess it was a hit because it mentioned "Rock"

plus i lied earlier abt not being a fan. i now remember owning and loving the shit out of their cover of the dr. who theme once upon a really long time ago (late 80s sometime, basically in my childhood). so i guess the truth is that i not only now but always have loved the klf. so what must i hear next?

"If you ask me, there isn't nearly enough Africa in their sequenced drum patterns"
what on earth does this mean?

just finished reading the 17 and was left feeling disappointed, drummond has turned into little more than a grumpy old fart. standing in front of a class of schoolchildren and telling them music is irrelevant seems unhelpful and dickish. plus i don't feel the whole 'recording 17 people going hmmmm then deleting it' is quite the genius idea he thinks it is.

i fought my way through the 17 book recently as well.
enjoyable in parts, but yes, he needs to lighten up.
i ended up agreeing with his mate at the end who bluntly tells him on one of their traditional journeys that the whole 17 thing is crap basically.
the breakdown of his life on a year by year basis is rather fascinating though.

Yeah, just got to finish it about 2 days ago.

Seems like the dude's rich enough to just fanny around thesedays.

weren't the klf & co the biggest selling act in the world in 1991 or thereabouts? playing huge stadiums in russia etc. burning £1m probably wasn't probably as big a kick to his bank balance as you'd expect

part of the current wealth reason : the ongoing success of the Proclaimers

he admits as much re their chart topping charity single for which he refused to let go of the royalties

http://www.youtube.com/user/klfcommunicationsnet

^AMAZING RESOURCE

it is - just wasted an hour there. "doctoring the tardis" turns out to be more goofy than revelatory, tho fun. and i realize now that i also used to own the "justified & ancient" 12-inch (or an album it appeared on, something like that). more or less the version featured in the vid. shit is bonkers yo - SO FUCKING GREAT tho i remember it being too fruity for me at the time.

i think i am a fan

Their last public appearance before retiring always raises a smile from UK types of a certain age.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vgaik2as06c

I feel compelled to recommend Drummond's AMAZING early solo album The Man on every KLF thread.

Yeah, it's great. Notwithstanding his current, well-earned curmudgeon status, I think he's a genius.

Revive!

Where the hell are these chants of "MU-MU! MU-MU!" in "Last Train to Trancentral"?

Wigglypedia sez:
Splendid Magazine said of the LP version: "The cries of "Mu Mu! Mu Mu! Mu Mu! Mu Mu!" take on a strangely liberating, mantra-like feel. It's the essence of great pop music, of great dance music, wholly compressed."

Tom Ewing, in his Top 100 Singles of the 90s list, sez:
And then it fades away and the chanting begins – “MU MU! MU MU! MU MU! KLF!”

Yes they did rock me.

At the end of the Live from the Lost Continent version, it changes from "Woo-Woo" to "MU-MU"(?)

I've been on a early 90s jamz kick and never realized before how much of an exact rip the 3AM Eternal single is of Snap - 'The Power', down to the Eastern European voice sample at the start. feckin brilliant - How to Have a No 1 the Easy Way indeed...

I think 3AM Eternal came first though - the first version came out in 89, The Power was a hit in 1990.

I just remembered that in one of his books Julian Cope inspiringly uses "Bill Drummond" as an adjective, as in "David Balfe was Bill Drummonded to the tits". Made me laugh.

Here is the "Last Train to Trancentral" video:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aqxtBggVsi0

Now would that be the "MU MU!"s there at 3:24?

That's what I was thinking, yeah. It's "woo-woo" up till then, then for the last chorus it's "MU MU!".

Has anyone got/heard "Edits", the 'legal' version of the LP? So short, it retailed at the price of a 12" single + came with instructions on how to recreate the original record. I could never decide if this was classic or dud.
― Jeff W, Sunday, February 24, 2002

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m-lDwwW7Ql0

+ the instructions themselves:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/woolner/3339270412/sizes/o/

consider me 100% rocked.

you could use a Roland 808 drum machine (well cheap

lol1987 - you know what's gone (up in price dramatically)

What about the DR550 Boss Dr Rhythm?

Mark 1 or Mark 2?

Mark 1.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=erm6WijDfYc
^^^ this is the interview (from the Antoine-why-does-he-have-his-hands-behind-his-back-all-the-time-de-Caunes programme Rapido {"Rapeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeedo"}) that had me going to a bookstore J R Hartley style to get a copy. Luckily this was in 1998 a month before it was republished - it wasn't until I read Drummond's foreword to the new edition that I found out how difficult to get hold of it was.

(btw the interview is from 1991, I only saw it in 1998 because I was watching through the bits of old programmes recorded on an old videotape)

to get a copy

I meant "to get a copy of The Manual"

xpost - I was talking 'bout the international top 10 single "3 a.m. Eternal (Live at the S.S.L.)" version, which hit in January 1991 and it still gonna rock you -

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uaQW7e8DfKY

I meant "to get a copy of The Manual"

isn't this available to read online now via tom robinsons website ?
i'm sure he used to have the whole book as a notepad txt file somewhere ..

yeah, he was bootlegging it the whole time the legit reprint was out. glad to be an INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY THIEF WITH A WIFE AND KIDS, morelike

I have a PDF of The Manual. I'm sure it's out there.

yes

yes they did indeed

http://www.kirps.com/web/main/resources/music/themanual/

ouch was that not cool to post that link? i was under the impression it's been out-of-print for ages or whatever

it was out of print from about 1989 to 1998, then in print for about ten years, now out again - the reprint is currently going for 90 quid 2nd hand on Amazon

The original was an A4 size, the reprint (with an additional chapter) was A3.

(I have an orig)

you mean a5 no? as in smaller than the original? i've seen copies of it but only ever read the .txt file myself...

Sorry, yes. I meant to type that. Must consentrate.

the reprint was smaller than standard paperback, WAY smaller than A5

105mm x 148mm = A6

I think 3AM Eternal came first though - the first version came out in 89, The Power was a hit in 1990.

Yeah, but the original 1989 version of "3AM Eternal" is totally different from the 1990 "Live at the S.S.L." remix:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fr7fgFrzTck

It's the "Live at the S.S.L." remix that sounds like "The Power". Don't know which one came out first though, as they're both 1990 releases.

lols at those worrying about the online intellectual property rights of the Kopyright Liberation Front.

I don't much care about intellectual property rights, but I love "The Power" (and Snap! in general), so it'd be funny if those Revered Artists of The KLF were actually biting the Cheesy Eurodisco producers of Snap!

I'm not sure if it'd be that funny, seeing as they also bite, ooh, I dunno, Gary Glitter?

I'm pretty sure one of the Manual's steps to having a #1 invloves going to clubs and sampling the very latest rhythms from Black American dance music, so biting then-current "cheesy" music was certainly part of their MO.

I'm definitely digging this more than the original album. Hello "Madrugada Eterna - Club Mix"

It’s also not the “original” version, which had “Born Free” as the final track.

So, version three.

.. four if you count etc

Despite being labelled "1989 Director's Cut," it's not from 1989 and it's not the movie soundtrack. Nearly everything is shorter than on the soundtrack (bar a couple that seem to be the 1991 album versions, eg No More Tears (is J&A the LP version too?)), the club mix of Madrugada Eterna is plonked in (and edited down)...

Apparently they've since put out a statement saying it's a finalised version from 1990, which sounds more like a cover-up for a new edit - dropping Born Free also feels v. much like a 2021 decision re publishing - but this does flow as a good listen, mostly.

xp lol

It’s also not the “original” version, which had “Born Free” as the final track.

So, version three.

No - promoed on cassette, bootlegged from that.

My personal KLF holy grail would be a long (6minutes+ please) version of Madrugada Eterna (303 mix), but no evidence anything like that ever existed beyond this clip:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aWoueoTDb14

Looks like someone “covered” it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5G6YBzRZRq8

My personal KLF holy grail too. i almost had a copy of the 12" once upon a time and it still pains me to think how close i came.

https://www.theguardian.com/music/2021/oct/19/klf-assert-justified-and-ancient-copyright-claim-to-block-documentary

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ii4k1SeOmlM

Great, read about that in the guardian, didn't know it was going to be free on youtube.

It's been mentioned above but everyone should read The KLF: Chaos, Magic and the Band Who Burned a Million Pounds.

I'm not sure the intention of the producers was / is for it to be free on youtube.

I was wondering, doesn't look much like an official account/upload does it.

I watched Who Killed the KLF? last night and it's really good - the unauthorized-ness of it works in its favor, feeling more like a made-for-TV true crime story: lots of footage of cloaked figures stacking KLF vinyl, drone shots of a black and white '68 Ford Galaxie traversing the UK, burning money, voiceovers from folks who were at one of their events. I can see why Messrs. Cauty & Drummond would hate it - it's a straight-forward, linear timeline, fan movie that makes a case for them being Cool As Fuck still 30 years later.

it's good, though i kind of hated the end, with the belle and sebastian song over the clips of related/un-related things that have happened in the intervening 23 years. i found it really mnoving when jimmy was talking about how they'd ask each other "what would the klf do?"—describing their process with and relationship to each other.

has anyone read their book, 2023? it's simultaneously just what i expected (an increasingly complex, endlessly self-referential mindfuck) and not what i expected (dark af in some ways i couldn't have predicted — like the chapter "what is rape?").

klf kare?

the txt on the website seems to imply it's just tony thorpe messing around with old samples.
not overly impressed, but i guess that's all part of the plan.
if it is actually them.

it seems like a sad and tired, unfunny steaming pile of horse manure to me. hard to believe cauty & drummond had much to do with it.

i have from heard from someone who has knowledge of such things that this is a genuine attempt at an xmas #1 and does involve c&d.
which, despite the pretty awful track, is all fine and dandy,
but how is this possible via a free download that's available on their website !?

“their website”: https://klfkare.com/vibe.php

yeah, exactly.
despite assurances from folks closer to the situation than me, i am somewhat dubious.

It’s no worse than Jimmy’s last attempt at a Christmas #1 tbh