in praise of KLF - the white room

yeah, its ace. we will never see their like again.

make mine a 99

Flawed genius. Side One is amazing of course. Side two suffers from lost interest a little by the time "Build A Fire" is finally over.

'the white room' is my favorite track

xpost. I should mention that I've only got the US version which is handicapped somewhat.

there's difference?

isn't it just that they had to take the crowd noise samples out?

classic in theory and practice!

xp: wiki sez they had to remove "U2 Rattle n Hum"-sampled crowd noise and "Last Train" and "No More Tears" are cut in half.
Bummer, now I'm going to have to track down a swede copy or sumthin

i need to dl all the 12"/cd singles

i don't know how but i managed to get the uk version in a used bin way out in rural mn

its worth dling the white room sdtk too

the singles are all totally necessary for the "pure trance original" versions

anyone else see/hear any parallels between this and duck rock? dudes must have been fans of mclaren.

i think i've heard most of the singles, but i dont have them on the computer anymore

Y
S
I

Taking out the crowd noises is pretty significant. Especially at the beginning of the album which should sound like the start of an exciting rock concert. Instead it sounds like some kinda half-assed noise collage.

I don't really like the album that much. The singles are great but i) Last Train is not on the album properly and ii) What Time Is Love on the album is fluffed by the intro.

What is the US version? I have the vague idea that that might just have the singles the way you want to hear them.

The US version is just the same but the crowd noises are omitted which generally makes all the side one songs begin and end clumsily. Then there's a different version of "Last Train", and "Build A Fire" is shorter by a couple of minutes. There may be some other differences too.

"3 A.M. Eternal" still sounds GRATE.

Questions:

1. Did they "retire" their catalogue for 23 years or something like that? If so, can we expect a grand boxset in 8 years time, assuming such things still exist then?

2. Is the story that their Brit Award was found in a field near Glastonbury true, cos it sounds like a story to me.

3. Are any of Jimmy Cauty's post-KLF releases worth checking out?

one of my all time favorite albums. i think it's brilliant the whole way through, i listen to it quite often to this day, and i had it when it came out in 90 or 91 and i was in 5th grade or whatever.

this album would be crippled without the crowd sounds! Why did they have to take them out for the US one?

Oh, U2 sampling. Sorry, I wasn't paying enough attention

i was in 5th grade or whatever.

A ten year old into The KLF? I now believe in God.

You kidding? My 12-y-old sis used to walk around saying "KLF is gonna ROCK YA!" that whole damn summer.

"A ten year old into The KLF? I now believe in God."

hey man, "3am eternal" followed by the tammy wynette version of "justified and ancient", it was pop dance bliss. all those early 90's dance jams were my shit.

3. Are any of Jimmy Cauty's post-KLF releases worth checking out?

All the ones with Bill are, but The Magnificent most of all.

Most of the others aren't especially - the Dandy Warhols remix is basically a bluffer's guide to the entire Blacksmoke audio catalogue, so try that first. Solid Gold Chartbusters was dire. The Token Kings/Custerd have some decent stuff, but it's unclear how much Jimmy actually did before faffing off. If he was on that track with Simon Day playing the lighthouse-keeper at the end of the Orbcast, then YES.

All of Bill's post-KLF records are GREBT.

The japanese mix is flawed too

YSI

Does anyone have the ambient tracks from the aborted white room movie that formed this? Also, have you guys read about the BLACK ROOM?

White Room movie soundtrack is actually much more songy, less ambient (including a version of Born Free inna Build A Fire stylee. Build A Fire itself has an extra verse or two too!). Black Room demos are just Extreme Noise Terror in a rehearsal room, never went any further than that.

(would leo White Room OST but I'm moving in a week and my CDs are in storage already)

i was in 5th grade or whatever.

A ten year old into The KLF? I now believe in God.

-- Kevin John Bozelka, Wednesday, 3 October 2007

i think i was about ten when i got the "justified and ancient" single!

Lots of 10 year-olds digged "3 AM Eternal" i 1991.

i guess it is interesting to consider what it is about that track that appealed to young kids at that time. it was definitely very different even to other pop dance acts around at the time (as i remember, snap, c+c music factory, etc were all pretty big in 90-91...).

science fiction mysticism always big hits with the youth

catchphrases too.

It's the ice cream van, innit.

http://cdn.last.fm/coverart/300x300/152736.jpg

it was definitely very different even to other pop dance acts around at the time (as i remember, snap, c+c music factory, etc were all pretty big in 90-91...).

-- pipecock, Wednesday, 3 October 2007 14:49 (1 minute ago) Bookmark Link

the beats weren't that different tho, most of the time. and they had a rapper + exciting sounds (sirens or whatever) that should've appealed to kids easily. i loved the Timelords record and was 10 when it hit #1. i think their enthusiasm for big videos, TOTP, crazy costumes and filling the stage with a variety of different characters also really boosted their appeal to us in the 'i wanna be like them' sense.

despite this i never did buy The White Room - probably because i'd read it didn't feature the single mixes. It would've been my 3rd or 4th album if i had bothered tho.

plus, Jimmy and Bill are like "Best Friends"

"i think their enthusiasm for big videos, TOTP, crazy costumes and filling the stage with a variety of different characters also really boosted their appeal to us in the 'i wanna be like them' sense."

the mention of TOTP makes me assume youre from england, which i guess makes it more obvious how they would be popular there as they were on the pop charts. in the US, im not sure they had such a large scale impact, i know at least locally their tune got play on the pop stations but usually at night on their "dance mix" type shows. i actually dont recall ever seeing a video for them at the time, either. but i know that i was not the only kid in my class who was feeling them....

"Does anyone have the ambient tracks from the aborted white room movie that formed this?

-- Catsupppppppppppppp dude 茄蕃, Wednesday, 3 October 2007 06:44 (9 hours ago) "

i can leonardo if you want

yes pipecock. i would find it v strange and impressive for young kids in the US to have heard of them at the time let alone be into them having assumed they had no real chart success there).

most Brits my age and a few years older probably appreciate them with the pop hits as the starting point and indeed their artistic apex, funny as that may sound. those older (e.g. college students at the time) may have been more likely to have got into them for the leftfield/ambient stuff? i think now, esp. in the US, it seems more likely that downloading teenagers would also be more likely to start with 'Chill Out' rather than the hit singles too, at least probably valuing the ambient stuff above the 'silliness'. But maybe not.

Yea, that'd be cool brah

Meanwhile, I should torrent the video stuff rather than watching dodgy youtubes

their videos were played on MTV in the US.

prompting a certain US student not really into dance music at the time to ask "is this what raves are like???" -- playing sitars with bandsaws, etc.

I enjoy getting big air in my truck while blasting last train to trancecentral. unfortunately, and this is probably totally hypocritical of me to say so, a lot of the material on this record hasn't aged that well. I think I just didn't listen to it on repeat enough times when I was 14

i'd rather listen to Ex:El but that is me

i was really disappointed by the 3AM mix 12" i bought at the time.

Has anyone read the book that came out recently? (About them, not by them.) Has ILX discussed that already and I missed it?

I've studiously avoided the documentaries and videos and films and things because... well, I don't want to destroy the illusion that it was all terrifically *fun*. Also, just not wanting to separate fact from myth because the myth was so fantastic. I *want* to believe it. But, also, at the same time, I'm kinda curious.

Read the book and it added to the myth for me, go for it.

^ otm

Book was fantastic. Highly recommended.

OK, I was hoping that the Bill Drummond obsession would die with my hangover, but I am now resolved to read this book. Thanks for the recommendations!

bound for mu mu land atm

In the end, we are *all* bound for Mu-Mu land.

It is strange, though, to come to things I once loved unreservedly, with new eyes. Watching those wonderful KLF videos of yore, which at the time were so amazingly over the top and just incredible and strange, and now this twinge of discomfort and "did they really just do that?"

You can never really look at the art of the past with today's eyes and see it the same way (Lex and I joking over Boxing Day lunch: can you ~imagine~ the controversy on Twitter, had the Windowlicker been released today? Hahahahahah... oh god.) and is it even really appropriate to talk about "cultural appropriation" with regards to an artist whose entire raison d'etre was "appropriation" in every way, shape and form. But a lot of stuff that was "let's put culture in a blender" at that point does read kinda differently now and it feels dishonest to pretend it's just not there. Cressida jumping up and down wearing a Native American head-dress between someone dressed as a Viking and someone in Xhosa warrior gear seemed all "rave is beyond time and space and culture itself!!!" at the time and now is a a bit "hmmm." But still. Nostalgia wins.

or maybe "rave is plugged into a set of global historical practices"? don't think twice it's alright

From my distant memories (I was a. in my late teens/early 20s when this music came out and b. in another country) it was part of a whole ecstasy-fuelled ethos of "in rave there is no black nor white, in rave there is no east nor west, in rave there is no man nor woman, Jew nor gentile etc." which was written into the music from inception (listening to Can You Feel It specifically right now, as this being what House Music was about) and much of the imagery which reads now as "appropriation" was written within the spirit of that moment and that philosophy.

It's also interesting that my copy of the White Room (I have the American reissue of course, because this is the only legal way to own it - haha, I feel like I'm disregarding artistic intention by owning it "legally" in and of itself) all of the samples are credited, and more specifically, all of the vocalists are credited. I do not remember what the original records were like (had some on cassette, some on 12", all long gone) - if this was the KLF legally covering their arses after their prior experiences with copyright liberation. Or if it was a deliberate statement against artists like e.g. C&C Music Factory? who would sample one woman on the record, then have another (younger, thinner, more commercial) woman "interpreting" the vocals in videos and performances? It just seems such an "of its time" moment.

When "thinking too hard about stuff" becomes part of the pleasure of listening to it.

I hadn't heard there was a book on the KLF until this thread was revived. I've just finished reading it and it was tremendous - it ties together a lot of stuff I'm interested in outside the KLF in a satisfying and surprising way and the author's 'magical thinking' explanation for burning the million quid is hilariously provocative and entirely in the mythmaking spirit of the KLF.

The white room album felt compromised at the time, but on retrieval it's actually a "Keep for all time" great record.

The 'original' was on Spotify last year until 'someone' 'noticed'..

recent(ish) book is so so good

I wish I could find out for myself! I ordered it off the Guardian over a week ago, but of course it hasn't turned up. :-/

So so good

This is an amazing book. And is bringing together so many different threads of things I had been interested in. In so many ways.

But I really don't know if this is a good book for me to be reading right now.

I just really hope they get their souls back.

If you have Amazon Prime and a Kindle in the US, you can "borrow" this book for free - not sure about the UK.

Oh, what a chiz of an ending! Why oh why did I keep reading on past the warning of "if you are satisfied with magical thinking, stop here and proceed on to the epilogue"?

After setting up this entire rollicking tale, encompassing everything from Discordianism and the JFK assassination to the fall of communism and the birth of rave, with bits of Dada and situationsim and psychogeography and the Liverpool punk scene, plus digressions and discourses on the nature of Art and Magic and the Collective Subconscious and the social construct that is money, liberally watched over by Celtic giant rabbit spirits, and basically whipping this huge stringy mess into the most amazing and contrived of fantastic synchronicities, he then goes and... Well, I won't spoiler it for those who haven't read it. But I feel like a child who has had the most wonderful confection displayed in front of their greedy eyes, only to have it whipped away at the last minute and replaced with the chopped spinach of a Moral Lesson.

Bah.

I feel like I should read the Illuminatus! trilogy again (though after reading the Cosmic Trigger trilogy, kinda disillusioned with Robert Anton Wilson). And also read more of Drummond's own books, though I still get the feeling that he doesn't really understand what he did/what happened to him any more than anyone else. It's a very good thing that the book dispells the image of Drummond and Cauty as master manipulators and paints them more as a couple of incredibly lucky people who almost stumbled into their own brilliant ideas.

Is this the book being talked about?
http://www.amazon.ca/KLF-Chaos-Magic-Music-Money-ebook/dp/B00ABFHOS0/

Yes! Ignore my carping above; it's awesome, read it.

I just got one, I recognise the preface which is how far I've got so far, Looking forward to more..

Then again, how are you placed to write the alt:fic version?

I don't understand. Are you suggesting I write KLF fan fiction?

Would it work?

I used to have the same thoughts (well, similar) about the automaton machines that made up the lineup of the Art of Noise. Then they went out of their way to be some blokes and a really great pianist.

No. That would be a very bad idea.

OK, I used them as background characters in the back story of one character in one fiction once, but... NO. NO THIS WOULD BE A BAD IDEA.

Dreamt I saw the KLF live at Wembley. They opened with America: What Time Is Love? Then I woke up. :(

Wow, I wish I could have the KLF back in my dreamspace. They took up residence there for some time in the early 90s (there are pages in the Book of Bernard about them, blossoming out of annoyance that their name was so similar to the name I was going by then, and turning into something warped and strange) but they would be welcome guests now.

In the world of other coincidences, I was pestering my Mum to see if she remembered the Drummond family from when she was small, but her memory's are a 10-year old's. They are just still one of those bands that accumulate coincidences around them, so the coincidence is not that shocking. But the link is still strange to me, because it is so obscure.

about to start reading this book, excited

Yay! I dreamed about the KLF last night! Continuing my "dream up fake songs" tradition, last night I even managed to dream up a complete fake KLF single, including video, with Jimmy Cauty maniacally butchering sheep carcasses. Then Bill Drummond rented me a holiday cottage near Belfast. It was on this long spit of land that stuck out into the sea in what Bill said had to be a secret masonic symbol from the way it looked on the A to Z.

that dream should be a short film or music video imo, or actually i guess i just want to dream it myself

KLF are p much the one band I would most like to see a fictionlised film of the "not really true" story of their adventures, a la "24 Hour Party People" but also they are the one band most likely to never do such a thing. Perhaps I should start writing a film to be made after the 23 years are up, haha.

Isn't the 23 years up, like, already?

since the car bonnet contract? November 2018.

Not long, then..

Bill did bend the contract slightly in this

well, i guess it is time to add this and the 'waiting for the rights of mu' albums to the digital archive.

the 'waiting for the rights of mu' albums

not actually an album

yeah i know ..

but hey lets not spoil the party ..

put the films in yr digital archive instead!

I feel like I found some sort of hidden treasure in the used bins today when I saw Shag Times. Picked it up without hesitation. Love it when I find early KLF in the wild

Double LP version fwiw.

good find.

some of the extra remixes/tracks are a bit superfluous but its a good collection of their various singles.

Richard King, via Twitter...

"Interviews with Bill Drummond & Jimmy Cauty that I couldn't fit into 'How Soon Is Now?' The K Foundation Tapes: http://www.how-soon.com/index.php/blog/entry/the_k_foundation_tapes";

was doing some reading on this album and saw that 3 AM Eternal hit #5 on the Billboard chart in 1991. What kind of radio stations played it?

it was #1 in the uk!

I remember it being on the radio all the time, because I used to listen to it while driving, and there was no tape deck. But I can't remember what kind of stations were playing it.

In addition to 3AM Eternal, Unbelievable by EMF, Right Here Right Now by Jesus Jones, Silent Morning by Noel, True Faith by New Order and other Freestyle/dance tracks made a dent in the charts in the late 80s/early 90s.

The videos for "3AM Eternal" and "Justified and Ancient" got some MTV rotation.

I just found this album for $1.50 and am listening to it for the first time. It's really good. Very much enjoying.

3am was on the top 40 station a LOT here.