![The Justified Ancients Of Mu Mu (The Jams [AKA The KLF]) - All You Need Is Love](http://web.archive.org./web/20110908023126im_/http://i.ytimg.com/vi/S4OF0Fnq0UM/0.jpg "The Justified Ancients Of Mu Mu (The Jams [AKA The KLF]) - All You Need Is Love")
| Coordinates | 55°45′06″N37°37′04″N |
|---|---|
| Name | The KLF |
| Background | group_or_band |
| Alias | The Justified Ancients of Mu Mu, The JAMs, The Timelords |
| Origin | London, England |
| Genre | Acid house, hip hop, techno, alternative dance, ambient, House |
| Years active | 1987–1992 (Reunions: 1995 and 1997) |
| Label | KLF Communications, Arista, and other international licensees |
| Associated acts | The K Foundation, Disco 2000 |
| Past members | Bill DrummondJimmy Cauty |
The KLF (also known as The Justified Ancients of Mu Mu, The Timelords and other names) were one of the seminal bands of the British acid house movement during the late 1980s and early 1990s.
Beginning in 1987, Bill Drummond (alias King Boy D) and Jimmy Cauty (alias Rockman Rock) released hip hop-inspired and sample-heavy records as The Justified Ancients of Mu Mu, and on one occasion (the British number one hit single "Doctorin' the Tardis") as The Timelords. As The KLF, Drummond and Cauty pioneered the genres "stadium house" (rave music with a pop-rock production and sampled crowd noise) and "ambient house. The KLF released a series of international top-ten hits on their own KLF Communications record label, and became the biggest-selling singles act in the world for 1991 The duo also published a book, The Manual, and worked on a road movie called The White Room.
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. Their most notorious performance was a collaboration with Extreme Noise Terror at the February 1992 BRIT Awards, where they fired machine gun blanks into the audience and dumped a dead sheep at the aftershow party. This performance announced The KLF's departure from the music business, and in May 1992 the duo deleted their entire back catalogue.
With The KLF's profits, Drummond and Cauty established the K Foundation and sought to subvert the art world, staging an alternative art award for the worst artist of the year and burning one million pounds sterling. Although Drummond and Cauty remained true to their word of May 1992—the KLF Communications catalogue remains deleted in the UK—they have released a small number of new tracks since then, as the K Foundation, The One World Orchestra and most recently, in 1997, as 2K.
Re-reading Illuminatus! in late 1986, and influenced by hip-hop, 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.
The JAMs' debut single "All You Need Is Love" dealt with the media coverage given to AIDS, sampling heavily from The Beatles' "All You Need Is Love" and Samantha Fox's "Touch Me (I Want Your Body)". Although it was declined by distributors fearful of prosecution, and threatened with lawsuits, copies of the one-sided white label 12" were sent to the music press; it received positive reviews and was made "single of the week" in Sounds. A later piece in the same magazine called The JAMs "the hottest, most exhilarating band this year.... It's hard to understand what it feels like to come across something you believe to be totally new; I have never been so wholeheartedly convinced that a band are so good and exciting."
The JAMs re-edited and re-released "All You Need Is Love" in May 1987, removing or doctoring the most antagonistic samples; lyrics from the song appeared as promotional graffiti, defacing selected billboards. The re-release rewarded The JAMs not just with further praise (including NME´s "single of the week",) but also with the funds necessary to record their debut album. The album, 1987 (What the Fuck Is Going On?), was released in June 1987. Included was a song called "The Queen and I", which sampled large portions of the ABBA single "Dancing Queen". The recording came to the attention of ABBA's management and, after a legal showdown with ABBA and the Mechanical-Copyright Protection Society, the 1987 album was forcibly withdrawn from sale. Drummond and Cauty travelled to Sweden in hope of meeting ABBA and coming to some agreement, taking an NME journalist and photographer with them, along with most of the remaining copies of the LP. They failed to meet ABBA, so disposed of the copies by burning most of them in a field and throwing the rest overboard on the North Sea ferry trip home. In a December 1987 interview, Cauty maintained that they "felt that what [they]'d done was artistically justified." The song uses samples of the and Shaft themes alongside Whitney Houston's "I Wanna Dance With Somebody". Ironically, Drummond has claimed that The KLF were later offered the job of producing or remixing a new Whitney Houston album as an inducement from her record label boss (Clive Davis of Arista Records) to sign with them. Drummond turned the job down, but nonetheless The KLF signed with Arista as their American distributors. The second single in this sequence—Drummond and Cauty's third and final single of 1987—was "Down Town", a dance record built around a gospel choir and "Downtown" by 1960s star Petula Clark. These early works were later collected on the compilation album Shag Times.
A second album, Who Killed The JAMs?, was released in early 1988. Who Killed The JAMs? was a rather less haphazard affair than 1987, earning the duo at least one five-star review (from Sounds Magazine, who called it "a masterpiece of pathos".)
===The Timelords=== In 1988, Drummond and Cauty became "Time Boy" and "Lord Rock", and released a 'novelty' pop single, "Doctorin' the Tardis" as The Timelords. The song is predominantly a mash-up of the Doctor Who theme music, "Block Buster!" by The Sweet and Gary Glitter's "Rock and Roll (Part Two)", with sparse vocals inspired by The Daleks and Harry Enfield's "Loadsamoney" character. "Doctorin' the Tardis" reached number one in the UK Singles Chart on 12 June, and charted highly in Australia and New Zealand.
Also credited on the record was "Ford Timelord", Cauty's 1968 Ford Galaxie American police car (claimed to have been used in the film filmed in the UK). Drummond and Cauty declared that the car had spoken to them, giving its name as Ford Timelord, and advising the duo to become "The Timelords".
Drummond and Cauty would later portray the song as the result of a deliberate effort to write a number one hit single. However, in interviews with Snub TV and BBC Radio 1, Drummond said that the truth was that they had intended to make a house record using the Dr Who theme. After Cauty had laid down a basic track, Drummond observed that their house idea wasn't working and what they actually had was a Glitter beat. Sensing the opportunity to make a commercial pop record they abandoned all notions of underground credibility and went instead for the lowest common denominator. According to the British music press, the result was "rancid", "pure, unadulterated agony" and "excruciating" and—in something of a backhanded compliment from the normally supportive Sounds Magazine—"a record so noxious that a top ten place can be its only destiny". A single of The Timelords' remixes of the song was released: "Gary Joins The JAMs" featured original vocal contributions from Glitter himself, who also appeared on Top of the Pops to promote the song with The Timelords.
The Timelords released one other product, a 1989 book called The Manual (How to Have a Number One the Easy Way), a tongue-in-cheek but nonetheless insightful step-by-step guide to achieving a number one hit single with little money or talent.
The name change accompanied a change in Drummond and Cauty's musical direction. Said Drummond (as 'King Boy D') in January 1988, "We might put out a couple of 12" records under the name The K.L.F., these will be rap free just pure dance music, so don't expect to see them reviewed in the music papers". King Boy D also claimed that he and Rockman Rock were "pissed off at [them]selves" for letting "people expect us to lead some sort of crusade for sampling". In 1990 he recalled that "We wanted to make [as The KLF] something that was ... pure dance music, without any reference points, without any nod to the history of rock and roll. It was the type of music that by early '87 was really exciting me ... [although] we weren't able to get our first KLF records out until late '88".
Also in 1989, The KLF embarked upon the creation of a road movie and soundtrack album, both titled The White Room, funded by the profits of "Doctorin' The Tardis". Neither the film nor its soundtrack were formally released, although bootleg copies of both exist. The soundtrack album contained pop-house versions of some of the "pure trance" singles, as well as new songs, most of which would appear (albeit in radically reworked form) on the version of the album which was eventually released to mainstream success. A single from the original album was released, however: "Kylie Said to Jason", an electropop record featuring references to Todd Terry, Rolf Harris, Skippy the Bush Kangaroo and BBC comedy programme The Good Life. In reference to that song, Drummond and Cauty noted that they had worn "Pet Shop Boys infatuations brazenly on [their] sleeves".
The film project was fraught with difficulties and setbacks, including dwindling funds. "Kylie Said to Jason", which Drummond and Cauty were hoping could "rescue them from the jaws of bankruptcy", flopped commercially, failing even to make the UK top 100. In consequence, The White Room film project was put on hold, and The KLF abandoned the musical direction of the soundtrack and single. Meanwhile, "What Time Is Love?" was generating acclaim within the underground clubs of continental Europe; according to KLF Communications, "The KLF were being feted by all the 'right' DJs". In December 1991, a re-working of a song from 1987, "Justified & Ancient" was released, featuring the vocals of American country star Tammy Wynette. It was another international hit—peaking at number two in the UK, and number 11 on the Billboard Hot 100—as was "America: What Time Is Love?", featuring the vocals of ex-Deep Purple member Glenn Hughes (number four on the UK singles chart), a hard, guitar-laden reworking of "What Time Is Love?".
In 1990 and 1991, The KLF also remixed tracks by Depeche Mode ("Policy of Truth"), The Moody Boys ("What Is Dub?"), and the Pet Shop Boys ("So Hard" from the Behaviour album, and "It Must Be Obvious"). Pet Shop Boy Neil Tennant described the process: "When they did the remix of 'So Hard', they didn't do a remix at all, they re-wrote the record ... I had to go and sing the vocals again, they did it in a different way. I was impressed that Bill Drummond had written all the chords out and played it on an acoustic guitar, very thorough."
After successive name changes and a plethora of highly influential dance records, Drummond and Cauty ultimately became, as The KLF, the biggest-selling singles act in the world for 1991, still incorporating the work of other artists but in less gratuitous ways and predominantly without legal problems.
There have been numerous suggestions that in 1992 Drummond was on the verge of a nervous breakdown. Drummond himself said that he was on the edge of the "abyss". BRIT Awards organiser Jonathan King had publicly endorsed The KLF's live performance, a response which Scott Piering cited as "the real low point".
In 1995, Drummond and Cauty contributed a song to The Help Album as The One World Orchestra ("featuring The Massed Pipes and Drums of the Children's Free Revolutionary Volunteer Guards"). "The Magnificent" is a drum'n'bass version of the theme tune from The Magnificent Seven, with vocal samples from DJ Fleka of Serbian radio station B92: "Humans against killing... that sounds like a junkie against dope".
On 17 September 1997, ten years after their debut album 1987, Drummond and Cauty re-emerged briefly as 2K. 2K made a one-off performance at London's Barbican Arts Centre with Mark Manning, Acid Brass, the Liverpool Dockers and Gimpo; a performance at which "Two elderly gentlemen, reeking of Dettol, caused havoc in their motorised wheelchairs. These old reprobates, bearing a grandfatherly resemblance to messrs Cauty and Drummond, claimed to have just been asked along." The song performed at the Barbican – "Fuck the Millennium" (a remix of "What Time Is Love?" featuring Acid Brass and incorporating elements of the hymn "Eternal Father, Strong to Save") – was also released as single. These activities were accompanied by the usual full page press adverts, this time asking readers "***k The Millennium: Yes/No?" with a telephone number provided for voting. At the same time, Drummond and Cauty were also K2 Plant Hire, with plans to build a "People's Pyramid" from used house bricks; this plan never reached fruition.
As of 2010, Bill Drummond continues to work as a writer and conceptual artist, with occasional appearances on radio and television. Jimmy Cauty has been involved in several post-KLF projects including the music and conceptual art collective Blacksmoke and, more recently, numerous creative projects with the aquarium and the L-13 Light Industrial Workshop based in Clerkenwell, London.
The KLF Communications catalogue remains deleted in the United Kingdom.
The "Pyramid Blaster"
There is no definitive explanation of The KLF's name, nor of the origin of 'K' in the names of the K Foundation and 2K. KLF has been variously reported as being an acronym for "Kopyright Liberation Front" and "Kings of the Low Frequencies". This mirrors Illuminatus!, where the fictional JAMs are in alliance with The LDD—who regularly change the origins of their name—and The ELF ("Erisian Liberation Front").
Although Drummond accounted for the adoption of The JAMs name in the first KLF Communications Info Sheet, the reasoning behind Drummond and Cauty's decision to reference the Illuminatus! mythology with such consistent intricacy is unknown. Indeed, it has been suggested by journalist Steven Poole that the public's inability to fully understand The KLF results in all their subsequent activities (as a partnership or otherwise) being absorbed into The KLF's mystique. In a review of Drummond's 1999 book, 45, and an appraisal of The KLF's career, Poole stated that "[Bill Drummond] and collaborator Jimmy Cauty are the only true conceptual artists of the [1990s]. And for all the beauty of their art, their most successful creation is the myth they have built around themselves." He concluded,
Fire and sacrifice were recurring ceremonial themes: Drummond and Cauty made fires to dispose of their illegal debut album and to sacrifice The KLF's profits; their dead sheep gesture of 1992 carried a sacrificial message. The KLF's short film The Rites of Mu depicts their celebration of the 1991 summer solstice on the Hebridean island of Jura: a tall wicker man was burnt at a ceremony in which journalists were asked to wear yellow and grey robes and join a chant. They granted few interviews, communicating instead via semi-regular newsletters, or cryptically phrased full-page adverts in UK national newspapers and the music press. Such adverts were typically stark, comprising large white lettering on black. A single typeface became characteristic of all KLF Communications' and K Foundation output, being used almost exclusively on sleevenotes and record labels, merchandise and adverts.
From the outset of their collaborations, Drummond and Cauty practised the guerrilla communication tactic that they described as "illegal but effective use of graffiti on billboards and public buildings" in which "the original meaning of the advert would be totally subverted".
Music press journalists were occasionally invited to witness the defacements. In December 1987, a Melody Maker reporter was in attendance to see Cauty reverse his car Ford Timelord alongside a billboard and stand on its roof to graffiti a Christmas message from The JAMs. In February 1991, another Melody Maker journalist watched The KLF deface a billboard advertising The Sunday Times, doctoring the slogan "THE GULF: the coverage, the analysis, the facts" by painting a 'K' over the 'GU'. Drummond and Cauty were, on this occasion, caught at the scene by police and arrested, later to be released without charge. In September 1997, on the day after Drummond and Cauty's brief remergence as 2K, the graffiti "1997: What The Fuck's Going On?" appeared on the outside wall of London's National Theatre, ten years after the slogan "1987: What The Fuck's Going On?" had been similarly placed to mark the release of The JAMs' debut album.
Sound on Sound magazine credited The KLF with "set[ting] the trend for a new approach to mixing". Engineer Mark Stent is quoted as saying:
The Timelords' book, The Manual, was reportedly used by the one-hit-wonders Edelweiss to secure their hit "Bring Me Edelweiss".
"Last Train to Trancentral" is used in the finale of Blue Man Group's theatrical shows and was covered by them on an EP. The group's Rock Concert Instruction Manual is a tribute to The Manual.
Ninthwave Records recording artists POP INC name check The KLF in their 2010 micro-hit "Looking 4 The KLF", which starred a voice over by BBC actor Simon Jones.
In 1992, NME referred to The KLF as "Britain's greatest pop group" and "the two most brilliant minds in pop today", The British music paper also listed The KLF's 1992 BRIT Awards appearance at number 4 in their "top 100 rock moments". "What's unique about Drummond and Cauty", the paper said in 1993, "is the way that, under all the slogans and the sampling and the smart hits and the dead sheep and the costumes, they appear not only to care, but to have some idea of how to achieve what they want."
In a largely cynical piece, Trouser Press reviewer Ira Robbins referred to The KLF's body of work as "a series of colorful sonic marketing experiments".
In 2003, The Observer named The KLF's departure from the music business (and the BRITs performance in which the newspaper says "their legend was sealed") the fifth greatest "publicity stunt" in the history of popular music (Elvis joining the army being hailed as the greatest). A 2004 listener poll by BBC 6 Music saw The KLF/K Foundation placed second in a list of "rock excesses" (after The Who).
Early releases by The JAMs, including the album 1987, were performed using an Apple II computer with a Greengate DS3 sampler peripheral card, and a Roland TR-808 drum machine. On later releases, the Greengate DS3 and Apple II were replaced with an Akai S900 sampler and an Atari computer respectively. Of the two Oberheims The KLF used, only one remains. It is now owned by James Fogarty (with whom Cauty founded Blacksmoke).
The KLF's 1990–1992 singles were mixed by Mark Stent, using a Solid State Logic (S.S.L.) automated mixing desk, and The White Room LP mixed by J. Gordon-Hastings using an analogue desk. The SSL is referenced in the subtitle of The KLF single "3 a.m. Eternal (Live at the S.S.L.)". The Roland TB-303 bassline and Roland TR-909 drum machine feature on "What Time Is Love (Live at Trancentral)". and Cauty played electric guitar on "Justified & Ancient (Stand by The JAMs)" and "America: What Time Is Love?". Graham Lee provided prominent pedal steel contributions to The KLF's Chill Out and "Build a Fire". Duy Khiem played clarinet on "3 a.m. Eternal" and "Make It Rain". The KLF track "America No More" features a pipe band, and 2K's "Fuck The Millennium" incorporates a full brass band.
* Category:KLF Communications artists Category:British house music groups Category:Acid house groups Category:Ambient music groups Category:British techno music groups Category:English dance music groups Category:BRIT Award winners Category:Musical groups from London Category:Remixers Category:Conceptual artists Category:Musical groups established in 1987 Category:1987 establishments in England Category:Musical groups disestablished in 1992 Category:1980s music groups Category:1990s music groups Category:Electronic music duos
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![The KLF - What Time Is Love [UK]](http://web.archive.org./web/20110908023126im_/http://i.ytimg.com/vi/okUUD8C88vc/0.jpg "The KLF - What Time Is Love [UK]")
