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- [00:00]
A
Foreign welcome to the Accelerated Culture Podcast. A sonic journey through the vibrant and revolutionary sounds of the 1980s and 1990s. And now 2024. Webby honoree for best Indie Podcast. I'm Lori, along with my co host, Scott Free. And in this podcast we explore how new waves stormed the airwaves in the early 80s and gave way for the rise of alternative music in the 90s. Find us on the web@acceleratedculturepodcast.com hello and welcome to the Accelerated Culture Podcast. I'm Laurie.
- [00:48]
B
And I am Scott Free.
- [00:50]
A
And Scott, this is our last episode of 2024. Can you believe it?
- [00:55]
B
I can believe it. It has been a long but very interesting year. And hell, I wasn't even here for the first couple months of it.
- [01:04]
A
That's true. That's true. Yeah. So a lot has happened with the podcast in the last year. Previous co host quit on me, so that's how we started the year. So Scott, you stepped in and you have taken to it like a duck to water. And you have a few fans. You have a few fans. We were Webby honorees for best Indie podcast, which is exciting.
- [01:27]
B
That's a big deal.
- [01:29]
A
And since the start of the year, we have had 90,000 downloads of the podcast.
- [01:36]
B
So in the previous year, about 14k total and in the last year another 90,000. I feel like that is. That is some good momentum right there.
- [01:50]
A
Yeah. Yeah. So I hope we can keep it up. This has really been good. You have been an excellent company collaborator. I mean, I knew that we worked well together before, but I think we really have a good thing going here.
- [02:01]
B
Well, yeah, thank you. Thanks for having me on the show and it's been a blast. And I have learned a lot. Like within my friend group, I am one of the people who like knows a lot about music and researching for each of these episodes. I realize how much I don't know and learn so much more. So really getting to do these deep dives has been a. It's been a real treat.
- [02:27]
A
Well, yeah, thank you. Thank you. Happy to be taking this journey with you. I do want to mention that if you want to listen ad free, you can subscribe on patreon.com acceleratedculturepodcast 5 bucks a month and you will get the ad free versions and some bonus content.
- [02:44]
B
Yee haw.
- [02:46]
A
Yes. So for this episode I chose a favorite of both of ours, if I'm not mistaken.
- [02:52]
B
Yeah. Big fan.
- [02:53]
A
KLF and their 1991 album, which would turn out to be their final album, the White Room.
- [03:01]
B
Man, if you're talking about the klf, you can't just talk about the white room. The white room did not exist in a vacuum. It was the logical, if that word can be used with the klf. Logical culmination of all, all their efforts over a five year period into this really focused piece of absolute batshit crazy weirdness.
- [03:31]
A
That is a really, really good way to describe it. Yeah. And man, I really went down the rabbit hole for the research on this one. I mean.
- [03:39]
B
Oh, same.
- [03:41]
A
Oh my gosh.
- [03:42]
B
And it sounds like different rabbit holes we went down.
- [03:45]
A
Yes. Because you know me, I'm into the mystical, esoteric stuff. And so I kind of went in that direction.
- [03:51]
B
I was going pretty hard on the electronic music front in particular and the wild inventiveness of entire genres of electronic music that these guys were in on.
- [04:03]
A
So cool. I think we'll balance each other out nicely on this episode as we do. And as we do, I want to start by naming a few of my sources for this episode. So the big source that I used is a great, great book. So entertaining. It's called KLF Chaos Magic Music Money by JMR Higgs. I also pulled some info off of the klf.de website, which I don't know that it's an official site or if it's a fan site. It's definitely an older site, but there's some good stuff there. And then also my old standby whosampled.
- [04:42]
B
Com Good stuff. I, for my part, got a little YouTubey on it and in particular saw an amazing BBC short documentary in a series called the New British Canon. And the specific episode was the KLF beyond the Band that Burnt £1,000,000. That documentary drew relatively heavily from a book by Richard King called How Soon Is Now. Another short doc from a series called Scottish Pop Music the story of the KLF, which was a BBC TV production from 2018.
- [05:20]
A
So the KLF, depending on who you ask, KLF could stand for Copyright Liberation Front, Copyright with a K or Kings of the Low Frequencies. I kind of like the Copyright Liberation Front because as we're going to see as we talk about the band here, their use of samples did get them into some trouble with some record labels.
- [05:44]
B
Just a little.
- [05:46]
A
KLF are basically two guys, Bill Drummond and Jimmy Cauty. They were very, very heavily influenced by the writing of Robert Anton Wilson, specifically his Illuminatus K trilogy. And so that's a theme that I'm going to be coming back to over and over throughout this episode. So this is really going to get, like I said, A little esoteric. Bill Drummond, I was surprised to learn, actually started out playing guitar in the band Big in Japan in 1977.
- [06:23]
B
English punk band. Yeah.
- [06:25]
A
Yes, yes. He founded the band with Ian Brudy, who later would found the Lightning Seeds, one of my favorite bands. Clive Langer was in the band. He is a producer. I know him mostly for his work with Madness. Holly Johnson from Frankie Goes to Hollywood, Pete Burns from Dead or Alive, and then later on, Budgie from Susie and the Banshees would also be a part of that band.
- [06:54]
B
They were all big in Japan.
- [06:57]
A
Yes. Not all necessarily at the same time.
- [06:59]
B
But yes, but wow, that is quite a revolving door of 80s music luminaries.
- [07:06]
A
Right, right. I was very surprised at some of these names too. Now, the band didn't last very long. They disbanded in 1978.
- [07:15]
B
They lasted for one year, I think.
- [07:18]
A
A little less than a year.
- [07:20]
B
Yes, that is perfect.
- [07:22]
A
They did end up in that short time with a lot of debt. So Bill Drummond and his best friend David Balfi got the bright idea that they could found a record label, which they called Zoo Records, and they would release some of BIG in Japan's music as singles to try to recoup some of that money.
- [07:46]
B
Right.
- [07:47]
A
Zoo Records was a little bit unusual though, because they decided early on they would only publish singles and not LPs, and they wanted bands that had a uniqueness about them, you know, something different. They produced singles for Julian Cope's band the Teardrop Explodes and Echo and the Bunnyman's debut single, Pictures On My Wall. Later on, Bill would become the manager of Echo and the Bunnyman. Eventually, Bill Drummond became an A and R man for Warner, Electra, Atlantic Records. We A. He was known for signing fellow Scottish musicians Strawberry Switchblade.
- [08:28]
B
Ooh, there's a name on here every day.
- [08:30]
A
Yeah, right. He also signed a band called Brilliant, which featured former Killing Joke bassist Youth and another artist named Jimmy Cottey. Now, prior to this, Jimmy Cauty was best known for painting those Lord of the Rings posters that you could find in record stores in the late 70s. You know the one I'm talking about? So he was originally a visual artist. Speaking of visual artists, before his days in BIG in Japan, Bill Drummond actually was a set designer in 1975 for a theatrical production of the Illuminatus trilogy.
- [09:14]
B
Oh, perfect. That makes some sense.
- [09:16]
A
So that's a theme that we're going to keep coming back to and coming back to, I guess it was an eight and a half hour production. And according to the director, one day Bill Drummond announced that he had to go get some glue for some set design and he never came back.
- [09:34]
B
Perfect.
- [09:35]
A
But Jimmy Cauty, he didn't know Bill Drummond at the time. He actually was in the audience for one of those productions, man. So it seems like they keep crossing paths, like at some point they were destined to meet.
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B
Yeah. Coming together and circling back on itself is a theme that you'll see over and over with these guys. The present feeding on the past.
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A
Like an Ouroboros.
- [10:01]
B
Like an Ouroboros, Yeah. So while Bill Drummond was an ANR rep for Warner Music and he had signed and was really trying to push this band, Brillian, that Jimmy CI was the guitarist of, and, you know, I watched the video of one of their big singles and, you know, it had that 80s, late 80s, kind of R and B pop music thing going for it, but it just didn't have it, you know. Yeah. It just is kind of. And it did not hit.
- [10:43]
A
I know. I did read that the label had spent £300,000 promoting and recording Brilliant.
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B
Trying to make Brilliant happen.
- [10:54]
A
Yes.
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B
Stop trying to make Brilliant a thing. It's never going to be a Thing.
- [10:57]
A
Yes.
- [10:59]
B
With that is a sort of major fizzling out of a project that Bill Drummond was championing on New Year's Day. In 1987, at the age of 33, Bill Drummond decided that he wanted to start making hip hop. It's 1987. Hip hop is becoming the big thing. And being particularly impressed with the Beastie Boys and Schooly D, he decided he wanted to make hip hop. He quit his job as an A and R rep for Warner Music and recruited guitarist Jimmy Cauty from Brilliant to form a new band, because he knew that Jimmy had a sampler, and that's absolutely critical for making hip hop in 1987. And really, to this day. And so was born a partnership that would get real weird.
- [11:54]
A
Yes. Now, I think listeners might come away with the impression that that was the only reason that he asked Jimmy to collaborate. But they really had a very, very strong connection from the time they first met in 1985, a writer named Richard King wrote that they had, quote, an almost telepathic way of communicating with each other. I don't know. I mean, I guess, you know, in life you end up with certain partnerships where things just kind of click creatively.
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B
Yeah.
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A
Right. Sound familiar?
- [12:29]
B
We could be so lucky.
- [12:32]
A
Oh, man. We. If we could get away with half of the crap that these two got away with, I would consider it a life well lived.
- [12:40]
B
Oh, yeah. How about It. So Bill Drummond in the Story of Pop in 1994 said this about the start of the partnership. Although I can play the guitar and I can knock out a few things on the piano, I know nothing personally about the technology. And I thought, I know Jimmy. I know he has a like spirit. We share similar tastes and backgrounds in music and things. So I phoned him up that day and I said, let's form a band called the Justified Ancients of Mumu. And so was born the Jams.
- [13:15]
A
That is a reference to Robert Anton Wilson's Illuminatus trilogy. The concept of the Justified Ancients of Mumu was a secret group battling the authoritarian forces of the Illuminati. Now, they spelled it differently in the book. It's M U, M M U. One word. And Mumu is actually a Mesopotamian God represented by a ram or a sheep. And I think that there's actually gonna be a mention a sheep later in this episode.
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B
This will come up.
- [13:53]
A
So according to the author, Higgs, the name would represent the principle of chaos working against the corporate music industry. A guerrilla band of musical anarchists who existed to disrupt, confuse and destroy.
- [14:11]
B
Yeah, that sounds pretty. Pretty jams. Pretty klf.
- [14:15]
A
Yes. So they took on pseudonyms, right?
- [14:21]
B
They are so white English guy from the late 80s rap names. It's so good.
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A
Okay.
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B
Bill Drummond dubbed himself King Boy D and Jimmy caught he became Rockman Rock.
- [14:37]
A
They also created their own record label at this time called KLF Communications to release the Jams records. And the logo for the label was a pyramid blaster. So if you can think of on your dollar bill, the pyramid with the all seeing eye at the top, that's sometimes considered an Illuminati logo. And that's a recurring theme again in the trilogy. But they replaced the all seeing eye at the top of the pyramid with a ghetto blaster. So it's no longer the all seeing Eye observing, now it's broadcasting.
- [15:15]
B
So while Jimmy Cawte was working with Youth on the band Brilliant, and that band really didn't go anywhere. But the two of them were studying that whole time, the production process, and looking at how sampling worked, particularly how sampling worked in club music. So they took that and ported it over to this first hip hop effort. You guys kill me. Because they don't limit sampling just to guitar hooks or drum samples. They lift entire concepts and for that matter, entire titles. So the first Jams production was a little something called all you need is love. And if that sounds like the title of a Beatles song, oh, it doesn't stop there. They sampled the chorus from the Beatles, all you need is Love. And if you know anything about Beatles and hip hop trying to sample the Beatles, they were never having it. They did not want their music used for anything other than the Beatles.
- [16:20]
A
You know, sampling had been done before and it used to be a little piece here, a little piece there. These guys were like lifting big pieces of other music wholesale.
- [16:32]
B
Oh yeah. All youl need is Love. Also included the title line from Samantha Fox's big single Touch Me, touch me, touch me now I want to feel your body. Also included a sample from a British AIDS psa. And then of course, all you need is love. The sampling too, when it's not just outright lifting of huge chunks of other songs, it it is that mid to late 80s sampler thing where they take the same short sample and percussively repeat it and pitch bend it. The equivalent of the dogs barking Jingle bells like that was the style of sampling that was then going over other artists songs with then Jimmy CI rapping with a heavy Scottish accent. It is unlike anything else out there. It's cuckoo bananas. And you know, by today's standards it's trash. But it is very fun, very in your face trash. That is again making this point about the ouroboros of pop music eating its own tail.
- [18:06]
A
And that did get them into a lot of trouble. Within a month of the release of that single all youl Need Is Love, three major record labels took out injunctions against them.
- [18:16]
B
A great quote about their process from an interview on Snub TV in 1989. We were just rolling around in the studio laughing, throwing things in, that'll do, this will do, that'll do like that as fast as we could do it. And the product was a one sided white label 12 inch single of which they self produced 500 copies. And it sold okay until it was named single of the week by Sounds magazine. And then all 500 copies sold out pretty much immediately.
- [18:52]
A
And that was it. They didn't release anymore after that because of all of these injunctions.
- [18:56]
B
Right.
- [18:57]
A
So again going back to that biography by JMR Higgs, he points out that this was kind of a response to pop culture being forced down people's throats and pop music. And so according to Higgs, the basic principle that you have the right to do what you like with whatever culture is thrust at you. So if mainstream media and mainstream radio are going to force pop music like Samantha Fox or the Beatles or whatever down our throats, you know what we're going to take it. We're going to mix it up and repackage it and do what we want with it.
- [19:41]
B
Love it back.
- [19:42]
A
Yes.
- [19:44]
B
So that was the only big single. But they get down to work with this same process and three months later they release a fulllength album appropriately entitled what the Is Going on comes out in 1987. And just the audacity of their sampling work is unbelievable. The first track on the album called the Queen and I, they lifted a full 45 seconds of Abba's dancing queen. They just threw a little bit of other stuff over it. Some drum machines, some scratching, some humming. But it's Dancing Queen. They just re released Dancing Queen basically. At least for those 45 seconds.
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A
Yes.
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B
When facing accusations of outright theft of other artists music and that it's just piracy, not musicianship. Jimmy Cottey said in Sounds magazine In May of 87, it doesn't bother us. Their records are still there. It's not as if we were taking anything away, just borrowing and making things bigger. If you're creative, you're not going to stop just because there's a law against what you're doing.
- [21:00]
A
Yeah, the whole Copyright Liberation Front again, right?
- [21:03]
B
Yep.
- [21:04]
A
In response to this, instead of fighting the potential lawsuit, Drummond and Kati traveled to Sweden with a journalist named James Brown from NME magazine. This is hysterical. So they played the song outside of abba's publishing company.
- [21:21]
B
They went to Sweden to try to get permission from ABBA to use the single to undo the injunction.
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A
They would not be seen.
- [21:32]
B
They showed up at three in the morning, they were playing the music at three in the morning and it's like, of course nobody's gonna see you. It's just absolutely absurd. And yeah, it was for show and it was for going through the motions, but it was no. No serious sort of legal attempt to do anything other than make a statement.
- [21:53]
A
Well, of course. I mean, the fact that they're traveling with a journalist would seem to indicate that. Right. And then they presented a fake gold record to a sex worker who they claimed looked like one of the women from abba. After the gold record sex worker thing, which is something I never thought I would say in a podcast episode, they went to a farmer's field and set fire to most of the remaining copies of the album. Then on the ferry ride home, they tossed the remaining copies into the North Sea and then they performed an impromptu music set on the ferry in exchange for a large Toblerone. And this is the only known live performance by the Jams.
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B
Wow. Brilliant.
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A
Oh, and it's just. It's just going to keep getting better.
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B
By the end of 1987, they decide to give up on hip hop. They've done what they came to do. They made an album. They destroyed most of the copies of that album. They had injunctions against them. They've made their statement and they move on. This is Bill Drummond in Sounds magazine in November of 1990. We were a band that existed in the news pages of the music press. And I wanted to get away from that. Both Jimmy and I have an eternal thing of as soon as something becomes a stable thing, of wanting to destroy it. So they've given up hip hop and have decided to go hard on house music. House music had really caught on in Europe and in England and in Scotland. And so they are making dance music and they're trying to make big house anthems. But they had one sample that they really wanted to use and that was the Delia Derbyshire synthesizer intro to the Doctor who television show theme song. And it is a brilliant piece of music, the Delia Derbyshire song. And they want to make a house music track of it. And the problem is the baseline underneath that. That's not a house beat. House beat is four on the floor with claps on the twos and fours. And this is in triplets. And it just doesn't work. And they try to force it. Had a great quote here. Not until a couple of days into it did we realize how terrible it was. It was like an out of control lorry, you know, you're just trying to steer it. And that track took itself over, really, and did what it wanted to do. We were just watching. And so they decided to abandon it being a house track and just said, okay, it's in this triplet time. There's only one song we can think of that actually does that. And it was a 1970s glam rock hit. By now disgraced glam rock idol of the time, Gary Glitter. And it was Rock and Roll Part two, which you might not know by name, but if you have ever been to a sporting event in the last 30 years, you've heard it. Can we play a short clip of Rock and Roll Part two?
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A
Absolutely. Or should we play Doctor in the tardis?
- [25:28]
B
I guess amounts to the same thing because once again, they just lifted it wholesale and made a new song out of it.
- [26:19]
A
And I think I hear kazoozed too. I think, I swear I think I hear kazoos in this song. By the way, I mean, right now, in 2024, Doctor who is a cultural Phenomenon. I mean, they rebooted it, boy, I don't know, 2005, back in June of 88 when this came out, it really had kind of fallen off. It hadn't been rebooted yet.
- [26:44]
B
What's fun about this? There's so many things that are fun about this single. The samples, samples coming together, the by their own admission, moronic chant. That is the chorus of the song. Most people will hear that song and be like, wow, that's really dumb and fun. I kind of love it. And honestly, that was my reaction when I first heard it as well. Even Jimmy and Bill recognized how dumb it was and did not want their names associated with it. So they rebranded as the Time Lords. And in their press interviews promoting this single, they did not speak. They appeared as a 1968 Ford Galaxy that went by the name of Ford Timelord. And they would have this car on camera in interviews with the press and make the interviewers ask the car questions and make. And the car would respond in voice, but with blinking lights in its grill. And it's just hilarious. Just so goddamn funny.
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A
Okay, so first of all, Ford Time Lord, that has to be a reference to the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, Ford Prefect.
- [28:01]
B
It stands to reason.
- [28:03]
A
And the single sleeve for Dr. And the Tardis had a photo of the car which kind of looks like it's painted almost like the Bluesmobile, right? Like an old crappy cop car. And the caption said, hi, I'm Ford timelord, I'm a car. And I made a record. And the single went to number one in the uk. They sold a million copies. They would take the money from this. And their plan initially was to create a movie called the White Room. But they sunk some of it into building a recording studio in Jimmy Cawty's basement, which they nicknamed Trans Central. T R A N C E N T R A L Like trance music.
- [28:56]
B
In a house that Jimmy Cottey was squatting in. They have huge hit record money at this point. And still he's squatting in a house and making a record studio in it, which is just tell you something about the mindset of these weirdos.
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A
They're anarchists.
- [29:13]
B
Indeed. Also of note, during this era, having created this unlikely number one record and having experience in the music industry, both on the musician side and Bill Drummond on the record executive side, they decide to take this experience and write a book. And this book is again, just so damn funny. It is called the Manual how to have a Number One the Easy Way. And it is a step by step manual on how to create a hit record and in their press junket for it they claimed that if you followed the steps in this book you were guaranteed to get a number one hit and if you didn't, they would refund your money.
- [30:03]
A
And did they?
- [30:05]
B
Did they refund the money? I can't tell you that part. But they did have at least one other band that did follow the steps and did get a number one record. So if I can Just a few excerpts from the manual how to have a Number one the Easy Way four Steps one firstly, it has to have a dance groove that will run all the way through the record and that the current 7 inch buying generation will find irresistible. 2 Secondly, it must be no longer than 3 minutes and 30 seconds. Just under 320 is preferable. If they are any longer radio one daytime DJs will start fading earlier, talking over the end when the chorus is finally being hammered home. The most important part of any record 3 thirdly, it must consist of an intro, a verse, a chorus, second verse, second chorus, a breakdown section back into a double length chorus and an outro and four fourthly lyrics. You will need some, but not many. All right, there's also another bit in there. Compose your music with bits you've nicked from other songs. And that right there is the formula.
- [31:24]
A
On the subject of books, although I don't know if I can top that necessarily. The Illuminatus Trilogy by Robert Anton Wilson and Robert Shea is a complex, satirical and mind bending series of novels exploring conspiracy theories, countercultural ideals, and the nature of reality itself that was published in 1975 and consists of three books, the Eye and the Pyramid, the Golden Apple and Leviathan. Kind of hard to summarize everything in these three books, but a couple points that I think are worth mentioning because they do relate to what we're going to be talking about. The story follows two New York detectives, Saul Goodman and Barney Muldoon, who stumble upon a labyrinthine conspiracy involving the Illuminati, a secret organization alleged to control world events. The investigation leads them into a surreal world of interconnected plots, where seemingly everything is part of a grand design or a chaotic lack of one. So key. Right? Right, Keith Key threads in the narrative include the battle between the Illuminati and an anarchist group called the Discordians, who oppose hierarchical control and worship Eris, the Greek goddess of chaos, a quest to uncover a secret hidden within the mysterious eye in the pyramid, a symbol of the Illuminati, a web of real and imagined Historical events including the assassination of John F. Kennedy, the sinking of Atlantis and the myths of ancient Egypt. And characters ranging from countercultural revolutionaries and occultists to dolphins and computer hackers, all caught up in the chaotic interplay of conspiracies. Our listeners might be familiar with Discordianism or the Discordian, I guess, for lack of a better word, religion.
- [33:27]
B
I would say more of an ethos than a full on religion, but, you know.
- [33:30]
A
Right, right. And that actually kind of originated with the publication of this book in 75. So there are some things that are really significant that keep coming up in this book. One of them is the number 23. 23 is a mystical number with special significance in the chaotic nature of reality. Now, throughout the novels, the number 23 appears in connection with the Illuminati, reinforcing its role as a sacred or magical number for secretive organizations. It did come up on the COVID of Doctor and the Tardis. The number 23 is actually painted on the roof of Ford Time Lord.
- [34:10]
B
All coming together in really weird ways.
- [34:14]
A
This was a big part of the inspiration. And it's really hard to tell sometimes in the story of the klf, whether it's life imitating art or art imitating.
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B
Life, or art imitating other arts. Art cannibalizing life.
- [34:32]
A
Yes, yes, yes, yes. So Robert Anton Wilson and Robert Shea were big influences on the band. And then the other thing that I think might be an influence, although I haven't actually seen any documentation supporting this, is the writings of William S. Burroughs. Because the whole remix culture thing that he's really credited as like the father of the whole remix culture, where, you know, he would do the cut up method and shuffle is writing around to create something new. Burroughs also claim to notice strange coincidences involving the number 23. And a lot of people who read the Illuminatus trilogy will tell you that after they read it, they start seeing the number 23 everywhere. Now, that did not happen with me when I read it, not the number 23. But I will say I did read this book about 15, 16 years ago, and it was life changing for me. This, it is really heavy. It's difficult to get through. Bill Drummond has joked that he never got past page two, but that's obviously not true.
- [35:37]
B
I made it further than him, but I only made it to about page 100. And I was like, I will get back to it one day.
- [35:44]
A
Okay, well, you know. And it's all about chaos and mystery and questioning authority, perceiving the absurd and finding meaning, or lack thereof in A chaotic universe. Now, where am I going with this?
- [36:00]
B
That's a good question.
- [36:02]
A
Well, then, this whole discordian theme of disorder and pranks, blending house music with this mythology at the heart of the Illuminatus trilogy, and with a big helping of irony thrown in for good measure, Willow Kazan. And I think that that brings us to the White Room.
- [36:27]
B
Does it?
- [36:28]
A
I think it does.
- [36:29]
B
You don't want to talk about the trance series?
- [36:32]
A
Sure, go ahead. Go ahead.
- [36:34]
B
Yeah. So the Pure Trance series is pretty interesting to me from an electronic dance music perspective. And it really figures into the album the White Room. That is what this episode is allegedly about. We will get to it, I promise. So the plan was to release five 12 inch singles, each of them called Pure Trance. 1, 2, 3, 4 and 5. They spent £8,000 on music gear, as Laurie said. In a house that Jimmy Cotti was squatting in. Day one, they record the first single, what Time is Love? The first in a planned series of five acid house 12 inch singles. The plan was to release one single per week for five weeks, pressing 2,000 copies of each. They got one of them out and then did not come out with another one for three months because it proved harder than they originally planned. But the next one was called 3am Eternal. And the third one, Last Train to Trans Central, Pure Trans, March 1990. And at that point they stopped. They did not make it to five in the series, but these three singles kind of trace the arc of a night out at a rave or a club. The first one, what Time Is Love? The second one, 3:00am Eternal. It's 3:00am, it's late, you are still going. And the third, Last Train to Trans Central, that quieter train ride home. All still acid house songs, but together they have this sort of narrative arc and this arc of energy and mood, this arc of emotion, and they're just really, really good, simple, minimal acid house singles. And they got kind of big. You mentioned how they tried to make the White Room a road movie and realized after spending a lot of money and time making it, that it was incredibly boring and basically unwatchable.
- [38:51]
A
Have you watched it?
- [38:52]
B
I have not.
- [38:53]
A
I got about 2/3 of the way through and I couldn't take it anymore.
- [38:57]
B
Well, they couldn't take it, so they didn't even really release it. They give up on that project. They release another unrelated single, a Pet Shop Boys inspired anthem called Kylie Said to Jason in 1989. And while they're doing this, Italian club DJs start picking up on what Time Is Love and it Blows up without them even knowing about it. They later relate. And then it started happening in Europe in the clubs, and then it started getting played in London quite a lot. And then it became a huge sort of club thing without us really realizing we'd never even been inside a club. They start making appearances at clubs and raves, promoting it. At one in Scotland, they tossed their entire night's fee, the money they got for the night, they tossed that cash from their DJ stand onto the crowd. And at other times they just gave away their gear at the end of the night to rave goers, which pissed.
- [39:57]
A
Off the owners of the venue because they didn't actually own the audio gear that they gave to the crowd.
- [40:02]
B
Yeah, right. And interesting side note, as if we're not doing enough of those. At the same time, when they weren't playing KLF shows, Jimmy Cauty teams up with one of the former roadies for Killing Joke, a guy named Alex Patterson. And they were making ambient music and they called themselves the Orb, which went on to become the quintessential ambient band. Cotty left the Orb after just two singles. But among the other things that the KLF or members thereof were responsible for is the invention of ambient house music. There had been cheesy ambient music like spa music before then, but this was a more viable form and they, the klf, released Chill out, an ambient album. This album is actually really beautiful. Again, it sort of follows the arc of a road trip, much like the White Room movie tried to do. But it's a road trip through the American Deep south and there's sounds of the road and of railroads, of driving through the country and animals. There's really beautiful slide guitar throughout it and the sound of AM radio being played. So again, sampling other songs while you're on this audio road trip through this ambient house music, other tracks of 1970s AM radio gold will start popping in and driving by and fading off into the distance. It's like a really beautiful work. While this is happening, popular music starts changing and dance music becomes mainstream, not just in England, but in the States and really globally. Club music starts to cross over and become pop hits. You may remember Black Box or Technotronic. Crystal Waters and Jimmy and Bill realize that this is changing and that's the direction they decide to take the band. Not just ambient house or acid house, but making these massive club inspired dance anthems. And with that, stadium house becomes the KLF's new focus. And so begins the production of the White Room, the KLF album.
- [42:26]
A
The White Room album was Released in March of 1991. And as you had mentioned, it was originally intended as a soundtrack to a film project. There are a couple different versions of the album, but as you mentioned, they ended up reworking those three. Chill out. Yeah.
- [42:48]
B
Talk about the snake eating its own tail. Their MO in their earlier musical phases had been eating other bands pop music to create the White Room. And particularly the three big singles from the White Room. The KLF starts cannibalizing its own earlier music. They take those three 12 inches from the pure trance acid house series and put new beats on them, bigger production, crowd noise from stadium shows, and make this absolutely huge bombastic sounding big room house music. And it levels it up in a way that is just amazing.
- [43:34]
A
So I think that this is a good point for us to start our track by track.
- [43:39]
B
Well, we're finally going to do that.
- [43:42]
A
I mean, you know, I think I told you earlier, Scott, if we didn't have a set time for you and me to meet to record this today, I could have written notes maybe for another three or four days. I mean, there's just so many things about this band that are just even one or two of them by themselves are just so wild. But then taken as a whole, it's just like it kind of leaves you to question how much of it is actually real. That whole discordian idea of chaos and the nature of reality.
- [44:19]
B
So they did go down the rabbit hole.
- [44:22]
A
Yes. Okay, so I'll start us off. So this is the first, first of the so called stadium house trilogy. This is called what Time is Love? Live at Trans Central.
- [44:46]
B
Take the chance to advance you might hallucinate exaggerate, I devastate we had to pass a pyramid blast A jam's a hit it's what you been after I make you shake to break you Take two.
- [44:56]
A
Right in the past of what they.
- [44:57]
B
Call Zamu Kof Boy we come rough bring the break what time is love? What time is love? Love, love, love, love what time is love?
- [45:20]
A
This song was inescapable. It was all over radio here in Chicago when it came out. And I was actually quite surprised to learn that KLF were actually a couple of white dudes from Scotland. Yeah, this was my first exposure to them. I assumed that they were a house or rap, you know, like deep house, Chicago thing.
- [45:44]
B
Yeah. If you saw any of the videos from the singles from the White Room, they were these huge stage productions, performance videos, but on a huge stage in a sound stage or warehouse space. But there have to be 20 people on that stage. And Most of them are people of color. There's large black men in African tribal outfits with a huge Zulu shield and spear. There's women in almost gospel choir robes, singer in a huge beehive hairdo and like Las Vegas showgirl dress. There's all these people on stage and then these two white guys in sometimes rain slickers, mostly covering their heads, sunglasses on, playing guitars. And you would have no idea that these guys are the actual brains behind the outfit. It just seems like it's this massive, incredibly diverse group and it's really just Bill and Jimmy putting on a show.
- [47:00]
A
Not what it seems to be. Right.
- [47:01]
B
Putting on an act, rather.
- [47:03]
A
Yes. So we've already talked about Transcentral being what they named their recording studio in the basement of Jimmy's squat. Do you know where the title what Time Is Love came from?
- [47:17]
B
I don't know that I know that.
- [47:19]
A
Oh, this is an interesting story. Jimmy and Bill were at a rave and they had taken some ecstasy and Bill wanted to know when he could expect. Expect it to kick in. So he turned to Jimmy and instead of saying, you know, what time is it going to kick in? He just accidentally blurted out, what time is love? I guess it did kick in at that point. So the most obvious difference between the pure trance original and this version is the addition of some fresh rap vocals by a guy named Azat Bello, who at the time was half of a British hip hop group called Outlaw Posse.
- [48:02]
B
All right. I was not familiar with the work of Outlaw Posse, but yes.
- [48:06]
A
Oh, actually, you know, what we didn't talk about is at the very beginning of the song, there's a small portion of the song Justified and Ancient, which will occur later on the album.
- [48:18]
B
Yeah. So the album opens kind of soft and slow with smooth, smooth sung vocals. And it doesn't strike you at first that this is going to be a massive house record. But the opening lines of They're Justified and they're ancient and they like to roam around sung so smoothly. Yeah, it's. It's a bit of a bait and switch. It's one verse of a song that will end up closing the album. And then well known sample from the MC5 kicks in with right now, right now, right now it's time to kick out the jams, motherfucker. And then bam, Stadium house in your ears hard.
- [49:10]
A
And I think that particular choice of sample, I think that really has a very strong underlying meaning because they had kicked out the jams. Right. They had been the jams in a previous incarnation.
- [49:23]
B
Yep.
- [49:24]
A
And yes. So some Other samples in the song that you might recognize. There's a sample from Home Computer by Kraftwerk. That I wanna see you sweat is a sample from Wanda Dee's song To the Bone. Now, I believe she or her record label actually did sue for the use of the sample. And they added her name to the credits. The crowd noise that you referenced, that was taken from when the Music's over live by the Doors. And they added that to give the impression that their new version was not recorded in a studio, but actually in front of a live audience. So this whole stadium house sound that they were going for, it says live, but it's not, you know, it's deception.
- [50:13]
B
Are you telling me the KLF lied to us?
- [50:18]
A
Well, and then, you know, again, if, you know, Trans Central is their studio. Live from the studio. What? What? Okay, this is where I get into the story about the crop circles.
- [50:32]
B
Please.
- [50:33]
A
Okay.
- [50:34]
B
I am not familiar with the story of the crop circles. Tell me the story of the crop circles.
- [50:38]
A
Okay. Well, according to Bill Drummond, quote, it came about initially because of our paranoia about what time is Love? Not getting any airplay. We thought that the only thing we could do is get on news at 10. And then Jimmy Cawty said the idea was we'd plant fields with poppies in the shape of a giant KLF and get it photographed by satellite. But we didn't get it together in time. And we found ourselves in the middle of the night in the middle of a cornfield without really knowing why we were there. But we had to do it. So this was summer of 1990, so this actually predates the album. And if you remember, 1990, there was a big to do about crop circles appearing in Britain and appearing in Europe. So they went out and started creating their own crop circles. And there was Operation Blackbird, which was a government investigation to investigate these crop circle appearances around the world. And on the second night of Operation Blackbird, the researchers were really excited. They saw a crop circle and they went to examine it. And at the center, they found strange circular board game boards in the center of every circle. And then the next day, one of the researchers received a letter from, quote, the notorious UK dance band, the klf, allegedly from Bill Drummond. So I don't know how many crop circles they were actually responsible for, but a lot of them around that time. And again, having the board game in the middle of it. I mean, it's obvious they're playing with people. They're literally playing games. And this was an attempt to promote this single.
- [52:35]
B
Brilliant.
- [52:45]
A
We're gonna See a lot more stuff like that. Oh, yeah, that's all I got on that one. What? Do you have anything else on this one that.
- [52:53]
B
There is a video to this, as I mentioned, to all the singles, they have these big videos and the video isn't necessary per se, to the whole experience of what Time Is Love Live at Trans Central. But it really does enhance the experience and makes visual this huge sound, the bombast and this everything but the kitchen sink approach that is stadium house. Like there's just so much reverb in. In this song. And that sampled crowd noise. We talked about also having this reverb. So it's just you feel like you're in this huge room and then this video gives you that huge room and this frenetic experience and these choreographed movements kind of dance, but not really. It's as much with their arms as it is with anything else. And the guys going nuts on the guitars in the front. Yeah, they're as much of visual experience as they are an audio experience. And the videos are definitely worth checking out.
- [53:50]
A
One more thing worth noting on the female vocal in the background. Moo moo, moo moo.
- [53:57]
B
Yep.
- [53:57]
A
Another reference to the Illuminatus trilogy and the Justified Ancients of Mumu.
- [54:03]
B
All right then, just fair warning, this is, especially on the first side of the lp, a dance record. As we said, it is a stadium house record. And as such, that dance beat is incredibly important. And you know that when we've got a dance beat, I like to talk about beats per minute. Zabe, I know you like to take a drink every time I mention bpm. Oh, you might want to be sitting down for this particular track by track, my friend, because. Yeah, what time is love Live at Trans Central? What time? 120 beats per minute. That's two beats per second. And that is a solid dance floor stomp. That brings us, I guess, to track two, Make It Rain. We been waiting but the rain don't come. The rain will come, the rain won't come.
- [55:14]
A
You been a waiting I've been waiting.
- [55:18]
B
We've been waiting so long but the rain don't come, the rain won't come, the rain.
- [55:27]
A
Oh, God. I couldn't find out a lot about this one.
- [55:35]
B
It's got a thumping four on the floor beat. It's got that syncopated high hat driving electronic baseline. This is ready made for a big room dance club and comes in at 124 beats per minute. Sorry, Zabe.
- [55:51]
A
The original version had a sample of Fingertips Part two by Stevie Wonder. But it was removed for the US release, presumably again for copyright issues. There's another. I assume it's a sample. I was not able to identify that. Pump. Pump A Little Harder.
- [56:10]
B
Yes, that is by the Moody Boys.
- [56:12]
A
Oh.
- [56:13]
B
XL Records. And then the lead vocals, the actual Make It Rain vocals are by Maxine Harvey. The KLF did actually learn the lessons that you can't just make the entire track from samples. If for no other reason, then the other record companies are either going to sue you or you have to clear the samples in advance and share your songwriting credits. Unlike many other house artists where they would use samples for the main vocals, they hired vocalists. They hired guest vocalists to come in and sing the big hooks. Maxine Harvey in this case.
- [56:50]
A
Oh yeah, I think she's on a couple tracks on this album. Yeah.
- [56:52]
B
Yes. Yep. The lyrics, as I mentioned, step four from the manual, fourthly lyrics, you will need some, but not many. And this track definitely follows that formula. I've been waiting, you've been waiting. We've been waiting. But the rain don't come, the rain won't come. That's pretty much the song.
- [57:18]
A
Yeah.
- [57:19]
B
Gonna make it rain, make it rain.
- [57:21]
A
And I was thinking to myself, what's the significance of that? What is the meaning of that? And what I came to. And this may be totally off base, but the idea of rain being cleansing. Ever since Bill Drummond decided he was gonna quit the corporate music biz with leaving wea, it seems like a lot of the actions that he and Jimmy had taken after that point were an attempt to free himself or cleanse himself from the taint of the whole corporate vibe. I guess. So I don't know if that's what he was going for or not.
- [58:00]
B
Well, yeah, I mean I could see that. And you know, other than that, there are just some production so sonic techniques that are pretty cool. That high sonar esque or telegraph like beeping sound just adds another layer. So much reverb and radio vocal sample, all treble. That kind of harkens back to that chill out album of ambient music on the road trip where you would hear high all treble, crackly staticky voice coming through on the radio. This is just a technique they are recycling yet again.
- [58:38]
A
Yeah, okay. That's all I got on that one.
- [58:42]
B
That's plenty. And that brings us to. Oh man, love this track so much.
- [58:48]
A
3:00Am Eternal live at the SSL. KLM's gonna rock you.
- [59:03]
B
Of course you have to move to the flow of the BT bladder baseballistics. I'm gonna kick this hard and you can catch it down with the cuckoo Talking about the moon Justified Ancient liberation tools Got to teach and everything you learn don't point to the fact that time is E K is going to rock Y.
- [59:37]
A
So this is the second of the Stadium House trilogy singles.
- [59:42]
B
I loved this song from the first time that I heard it. It's just so huge and so energetic and overblown and seems like it takes itself so seriously, but also, like, even back then, loving it even as I did. There was also an element of like, what the hell are these guys even talking about? Is it nothing? It seems like maybe it's nothing, but it doesn't matter because it's just so damn cool.
- [60:14]
A
The very beginning of the song sounds like machine gun fire. And then this is Radio Freedom. So that's an actual sample from the station ID of Radio Freedom, which was an anti apartheid broadcast in South Africa.
- [60:31]
B
Cool.
- [60:32]
A
It was actually considered a crime to listen to their radio broadcast. And again, this was a reworking of the previous Pure Trans version. They decided to keep large chunks of the bits sung by Maxine Harvey and the eternal chants from the original. They ditched Bill's spoken bits. Azot Bello was not available at the time they recorded this one. So they brought in Ricardo DeForest and he did the rap lyrics. KLF is gonna rock ya ancients of umu. Yeah, yeah. Which, you know, again, I could see where that would sound like nonsense, but there's a couple references here. Move to the flow of the PB Blaster, which is, you know, the Pyramid Blaster. Right. Down with the crew. Crew talking about the Moomoo Justified, Ancient Liberation, Zulu got to teach. And everything you learn will point to the fact that time is eternal. And that's another concept from the Illuminatus trilogy as far as time basically being a construct and doesn't actually have meaning except for the meaning that we ascribe to it. The song title on the album, it says Live at the ssl.
- [61:54]
B
Yeah. What is that about?
- [61:55]
A
Are you asking me because you don't know, or are you just giving me asking me?
- [61:58]
B
I don't know.
- [61:59]
A
Ah, okay. Well, according to the website klf.de solid state logic. SSL is a manufacturer of analog and digital audio consoles.
- [62:13]
B
So live from there.
- [62:15]
A
Live from the studio. Again, just like track one, where it was live from Transcentral. Now this is live from their production desk. And the crowd noise in this One came from U2's Rattle and Hum.
- [62:32]
B
Really?
- [62:33]
A
Yes. Bill Drummond actually told Rage magazine In January of 1991, we're not performers. It's ironic that we make these massive, quote, live records. They sound as if they've been recorded in Shea Stadium. In fact, it's just Jimmy and myself in some basement at 2 in the morning sampling bits of rattle and hum and yawning at each other. One other thing that I thought was interesting, so one of the female vocalists, her stage name is PP Arnold, and I found her Facebook and she posted on July 7, 2013, I bet y'all didn't know that was me singing that strong hook on this. I didn't even know that it was a hit until I saw them on Top of the Pops with somebody else miming my vocal. I was livid. After they apparently burned all that money for in parentheses, art's sake, question mark. I fought hard for my royalties and points, but I never got paid properly. Yeah, so we're going to talk a little bit more about the burning all that money. We will get to that eventually. But she.
- [63:50]
B
It's an important part of the KLF story, you know, back to 3am Eternal. It is not every pop song, or every stadium house track for that matter, that you get a clarinet solo. As chopped up and weird as it is, it's clarinet solo being played by one Do Kim doi Kiem. I don't know how to pronounce your name. Doi Kim, but that's as close as.
- [64:17]
A
We'Re gonna get, you know, If I'm not mistaken, I think this was actually their highest charting single in the US it was released on January 7th of 91 and it reached number five on the US Billboard Hot 100.
- [64:32]
B
I have it on Kasingle.
- [64:34]
A
Do you now?
- [64:35]
B
Oh, once I heard it, I'm like, I must have that. And I went out and got it on Kasingle. I mean, again, video is so fun.
- [64:43]
A
Yeah.
- [64:44]
B
In a warehouse. Massive staged performance. But then also the band driving around in Ford Time lord, including Ricardo DeForce, wrapping into his massive brick cell phone. It's about as 1991 as anything that's ever 1991. Two girls, presumably the singers, sleeping on each other's shoulders in the back seat while Ricardo DeForest is rapping into his brick phone or into a handset for the car's external loudspeakers. And then Bill and Jimmy in driver's seat and shotgun, just tearing ass through the dark and slicked streets of wherever they are.
- [65:29]
A
Yep. And then, of course, the very end of the song, ladies and gentlemen, KLF.
- [65:35]
B
Have left the building.
- [65:37]
A
You know, first thing I think of is Elvis.
- [65:39]
B
That's Elvis.
- [65:40]
A
That's Elvis.
- [65:42]
B
And this will come up later.
- [65:43]
A
It will. All right.
- [65:47]
B
I suppose that brings us to track four. Church of the klf.
- [66:01]
A
SA.
- [66:29]
B
Love.
- [66:31]
A
And, hey, I think this is the song that has the most blatant religious themes. I mean, it's the Church of the klf. I know. I kind of like the sample of Mendelssohn's Wedding March. That's a little unexpected, right? Especially after the previous song.
- [66:55]
B
Yeah, you know, Take Me to the Church of the KLF Love, Peace, Love and hate, War and Peace. They've all been tried before. That's most of the song right there.
- [67:07]
A
I don't really care for the very beginning that. Take me, take Me. You know, if you get past that, I think it's a decent song. It's just that little intro there I don't like.
- [67:20]
B
Fair enough. The vocals are two names we've heard in the previous tracks so far. Maxine Harvey on vocals and PP Arnold on backing vocals, as well as Kate Kisson on backing vocals.
- [67:34]
A
All right.
- [67:36]
B
Yeah. Not a ton to say on this one. 119bpm, though.
- [67:41]
A
Oh, okay. Save's gonna be on the floor by the end of this episode. Okay, so next, Scott, we have the third of the stadium house trilogy singles, Last Train to Trans Central. Live from the Lost Continent.
- [67:59]
B
This is what KLF is about. Also known as the justified ancients of Moomoo. 12 are more known as the Jazz. Yeah.
- [68:42]
A
I wonder how many of our listeners will recognize this song from Blue Man Group.
- [68:46]
B
I was gonna say this was the finale song for the Blue Man Group show for a lot of years. And you can see why. The energy of this song, like, whips the crowd into a frenzy. It's like a family friendly rave.
- [69:02]
A
And so we've got Ricardo DeForest in the very beginning. This is what the KLS is about. Also known as the Justified Ancients of Mumu. Furthermore, known as the Jams. The other male vocalist on this one is Black Steel.
- [69:18]
B
Yes, Black Steel, reggae bassist and vocalist who had been around for a long time already at this point.
- [69:26]
A
I'm trying to think what else I want to include here. So, I mean, we've already kind of talked about what Transcentral is. We've talked about Muumu. So the Lost Continent, referring to the lost continent of Mu, which is equivalent of Atlantis. Except I think most people who are familiar with the myths would put the lost continent of Mu in the Pacific. But then, you know, there's this whole Justified Ancients of Mumu. Maybe it's both I don't know. There's also a lyric about a liberation loophole.
- [70:02]
B
Okay.
- [70:03]
A
And that's a discordian idea. Bill Drummond actually explained it like this. Something may appear to be one thing, but then turn out to be the opposite. Or how something could be what it is and its opposite at the same time. This chimed with a contradiction I had long felt to be at the heart of human existence, that we are totally trapped and totally free. Free at the same time. So, yeah. Yeah. And it's almost like a cognitive dissonance where you can hold two seemingly contradictory ideas at the same time. And the idea with Discordianism is you just kind of accept it. You just accept the fact that there's contradictions and you just kind of let it go. And that's the liberation loophole. So, yeah, you know, speaking of the discordianism. And I think we'll probably get to some of this with the next song too. But I actually have participated in a few discordian rituals, and it's surprisingly fun because they do not take themselves seriously at all. There was one that was a weasel ritual. And yes, there were actual. Well, ferrets, not weasels, but close enough. But we called it the weasel ritual. It was. It was. Yeah. Anyway, so, yeah, listeners who don't know me, I've always been into this weird, esoteric woo woo stuff. And Scott is. Yes. And Scott just kind of tolerates it.
- [71:38]
B
Oh, no, I think it's fun. Back to the song. The synth hook, the big central synth hook to this track. Talk about the KLF being recyclers and the snake eating its own tail. That synth hook had been used on Pure Trance 12 inch of last Train to Trans Central, as well as having been used on the Chill out album. The ambient album. It appears in the track. Wichita Lineman was a song I once heard. So they just keep using the same hooks over and over, but finding new ways to give them new life. So you got that big recycled synth line. There's also a couple other musical moments in here that are pretty great. That huge organ break comes in. It's like being in a church, but it's like rave church. I just love that break. And then there's also that grinding, clearly synthesized fake guitar cord that, you know. It figured prominently in another big song from around this era, the Power by Snap. You know the one I got the Power?
- [72:52]
A
I do.
- [72:54]
B
It's that same guitar sound, but it's a synth guitar sound. And it turns out it is a guitar sound from the AAI5950 sample library playing a power chord and it just is this super compelling driving crunch. Yeah, I've always loved that sound.
- [73:15]
A
Cool.
- [73:16]
B
Yeah.
- [73:16]
A
Can I. Can I quote some of the lyrics here, please? Thoughts that seem to draw me Heading for transcentral Still I'm seeking something and some things I am seeking in the carriage on the fast train of the last train to Trans Central on one level, you know, as you kind of mentioned earlier with this stadium house trilogy, it's going home after the night partying at 3am but then on another level, it's seeking enlightenment. And that's going to come up again when we talk about the song, the White Room. Looking for, I don't know, peace, enlightenment, whatever it is that you're looking for. And the idea that you have to kind of move away from yourself in order to find it.
- [74:03]
B
So deep.
- [74:05]
A
Yeah. A brand new day is dawning A light that will anoint thee A sign from the subconscious an angel sent to guide me the searching will be over the call will now be gentle in the carriage on the fast train of the last train to Trans Central well, damn.
- [74:24]
B
Lyrics. Actually.
- [74:25]
A
Simple.
- [74:26]
B
Something.
- [74:26]
A
Yeah. I mean, it's a fun song. It's an energetic song, but there's some. Some really deep stuff going on there beneath the surface.
- [74:35]
B
Yeah. Right on.
- [74:36]
A
Yeah.
- [74:37]
B
And so these five tracks have just been this full on assault of stadium house music. And track five, the last of them, closes out side one of the lp. And when we get to side two, the tone shifts considerably. And again, it's two sides of this coin of electronic dance music.
- [75:03]
A
All right, so the next song is called Build a Fire.
- [75:12]
B
Pulled up to rest Let the engine cool a while Own the beans Gathered wood for the fire I hummed this tune to all the girls I'd known Should I care about the chances I'd blow.
- [75:47]
A
Build a fire.
- [75:50]
B
They'Re gonna build a fire. Welcome to Twin Peaks.
- [75:59]
A
Right?
- [76:00]
B
I mean, the whole thing really does sound like the Twin Peaks theme song. Right?
- [76:04]
A
It's sampled from that. Yeah, yeah.
- [76:06]
B
Came out the year before.
- [76:08]
A
Yeah, that's right. That's right. Composed by Angelo Badalamenti, who I absolutely adore.
- [76:13]
B
All right. On this song could totally fit in on the chill out, ambient house album. Like, it really works in that. And it is even talking about a road trip. Just like that album was. Pull up to rest Let the engine cool down a while and then later when daylight breaks I'll be down that road Rahman and me with a lighter load we'll stop for lunch in some taco bar Lee Marvin on the jukebox. Wandering Star. Like, that's pretty good road trip right there.
- [76:45]
A
Well, and actually that describes a lot of what happens in the movie the White Room. I mean, they're literally on a road trip and then at some point they stop at night, they build a fire. They're almost narrating what the movie's about.
- [77:01]
B
And. And musically, this track is like their weird house centric conception of Americana. Like, this hearkens back to the Chill out album, really. You've got the pedal steel slide guitar and harmonica, that picked bass guitar line. Yeah, it just is a radical shift in tone from the stadium house of the first side. And it sets the tone for the second side, but also recycles their old ideas, but presents them in a new and bigger, lusher, denser way.
- [77:42]
A
Okay, so the KLF and fire. This is a theme that's going to come up a couple times, but in 1991, a group of journalists received an invitation that said, the KLF have invited you to join them in a celebration of the rites of Mu this summer solstice, during which the fall of mankind will be reversed, returning him to the garden where the rest of creation awaits. So then it was this whole big production with flying all these journalists to an island called Jura, which I guess is part of Scotland. Yeah.
- [78:24]
B
Yes, it's in the Hebrides, off of Scotland, right?
- [78:28]
A
Yeah, you're right. Hebrides. And so when the journalists arrived, the quote unquote customs official was actually Bill Drummond stamping their passports with the Pyramid Blaster logo. And then June 21, 1991, the solstice, they had a big wicker man, which this was prior to Burning man being a thing out in the desert.
- [78:55]
B
Burning man had started in the mid to late 80s, but.
- [78:58]
A
Yeah, had it.
- [78:59]
B
But it was. It was a wicker man. This is an old British Isles pagan ritual.
- [79:05]
A
Yes, like the movie. Yeah, which, by the way, that movie's fucking fantastic.
- [79:11]
B
Not only does the KLF invite these 30 some music journalists and take them by plane to one island, by ferry to the next island, they then dress the music journalists up in ceremonial robes and then do this huge pagan ritual, but made up pagan ritual in an incomprehensible language and offer no explanations about.
- [79:36]
A
It, they had four beautiful models playing the role of the four beautiful handmaidens of Lucifer. Who, where, why and what? And these four models emerge from the waters around Jura. They're wearing these flowing white robes. It's sunset. And this is a scene that's straight out of the Illuminatus trilogy. When the angels appear out of Lake Ingolstadt, an event which triggers the end of the world.
- [80:08]
B
They then burn the Wicker man and have a rave and then send them on their way.
- [80:16]
A
Dude, that sounds like a fucking solstice party, man.
- [80:21]
B
Sounds like a great weekend to me.
- [80:22]
A
Sign me up. Well, you do that on weekends anyway, don't you?
- [80:27]
B
Pretty much, yeah.
- [80:28]
A
Yeah, that's what I thought. It's going to get even weirder as we move on with this episode. You didn't think it could get any weirder, but it will.
- [80:35]
B
This is not the only fire that the KLF will set or stoke, I guess. That brings us to track seven, the title track for the album, the White Room. If you want to know the things we see Then step inside our skins we spin, we turn, watch and wait as the world just creeps on by I guess, you know, my first line is just, that's some fine scatting black steel. And if that's clarinet, that would not be unprecedented. There was that clarinet solo on 3am eternal, you will recall, but it's not credited in the liner notes as such. I can't tell what's going on there.
- [81:53]
A
Okay. As we had mentioned earlier in the episode, with their profits from Doctor and the tardis, they decided that they wanted to make a movie, essentially a road trip movie, called the White Room. They put out a press release. This is called Information Sheet 8. Are you familiar with this at all?
- [82:17]
B
I'm not.
- [82:18]
A
Okay. It claimed that a contract with some very strange terms was sent to the band's solicitor. A contract with an organization or an individual calling themselves Eternity. I have a quotation here From Information Sheet 8. In the first term of the contract, they, Drummond and Cauti were required to make an artistic representation of themselves on a journey to a place called the White Room.
- [82:51]
B
Really?
- [82:52]
A
Now, Drummond and Katzi claim that they signed this contract against the advice of their solicitor. Now, how much of this is real and how much of it is just a publicity stunt? Who can say?
- [83:05]
B
A piss take, as it were.
- [83:07]
A
Right. Well, some people have speculated, particularly with the American discordians, some people were speculating that they were, as you say, taking the piss and sending this to Drummond and Kati, and that they took it seriously.
- [83:26]
B
Okay.
- [83:28]
A
I think it's more likely that this is just, you know, part of Drummond and Kati's own mythology. I don't know that they actually received anything, but in the movie, at least what it was supposed to be, the White Room refers to illumination or enlightenment. And that's ultimately what they're searching for. Of course, in the movie, it's really weird because when they go into the white room, spoiler alert, nobody's watching the movie. They'd be asleep by this point. They find two fake mustaches on pedestals, and they go. And they wear the mustaches. I have absolutely no idea what that is supposed to symbolize.
- [84:14]
B
Oh. I mean, if you watch some of their press from back in the day, they. Bill Drummond in particular, would do interviews with a very clearly fake mustache on.
- [84:25]
A
Ah, okay.
- [84:26]
B
Particularly when he was posing as the business end of the klf. And particularly for the promotion for the manual.
- [84:36]
A
Gotcha. So this whole idea of a contract with Eternity, we're going to return to that subject a little bit later. The only other note I've got on this one, Scott, is that the drums are sampled from a James Brown song.
- [84:51]
B
All right.
- [84:52]
A
Funky Drummer by James Brown.
- [84:53]
B
Oh, hell, yeah. Talk to me, talk to me if you want to know the things we see Then step inside our skins that's all I have to say about that.
- [85:06]
A
Wow. Okay. So then the next song is called no More Tears.
- [85:51]
B
All Through. You know, again, just to drive home how different side two is from side one. This is basically a dub regga song. Black Steel is singing again, somewhat abstractly, although this time in a more rub a dub reggae style. It's a little fast for actual rub it up, but, you know, it sounds good, but it's got that echo and delay effect and that big reverb that are both hallmarks of dub reggae, you know, It's a cool track coming in at a much more leisurely 100 bpm.
- [86:31]
A
The openings of the song starts with a sample from Malcolm McLaren's Buffalo Gals.
- [86:37]
B
Oh, that high. That high. Wailing yes. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
- [86:42]
A
And then King Tubby and the Aggrovators. The name of the song is Straight to the boy 90 head. And I guess there's multiple elements sampled from that. Mostly the lyrics are very repetitive. No more tears as we roll through the years but there's that ending the last lyrics. Sunlight on a winter's day the white room is where they play.
- [87:12]
B
Again with the white room again.
- [87:15]
A
Yes. So that's all I got on that one.
- [87:20]
B
That's plenty. All right, so that brings us to the album Closer. Track nine. Justified and Ancient. They justified and they're ancient and they know what time is love they justify and they're ancient did they come from above? Rockman, he's just made of bricks and King Boy lost is screw the jams don't need no monster plan to do whatever ever they can do. All right? So I, as I said, had the Kingle for 3am Eternal. And I loved the videos when I saw them. I did not own the actual album back in the day. So when I'm given this album the deep dive listen and taking my notes, I'm excited when I get to track nine, Justified and Ancient, because I know it from the big single and video version and I hear it on the album. And this ain't that I'm expecting the KLF and Tamiynet, one of the weirdest pairings ever in pop music and just so goddamn good. And then I get this and it's nice enough. It wouldn't be out of place on Massive Attack's first album with that drum machine beat and the soft synth chords and the style of vocals, but it was just so not what I was expecting.
- [89:16]
A
Yeah, this is Black Steel on the vocals rather than Tammy Wynette.
- [89:19]
B
That's right, yeah.
- [89:21]
A
According to Higgs, the biographer that I've been quoting, if the jams were an attack on an industry obsessed with authentic songs and authentic groups, then Justified and Ancient can be seen as the conclusion to the project. Again, there's a lot of references to the Illuminatus trilogy, specifically that line we don't want to upset the apple carts, which some people speculate was a reference to the Golden Apple of Discord. Right. The mythology of Eris in the Golden Apple.
- [89:58]
B
Whereas the version I was used to from the single and the video had this sort of over the top energy and this kitsch factor. Here they're playing it straight and Black Steel singing this sort of serious, almost crooning style. Singing Rockman, he's just made of bricks and King Boy lost his screws. Their jams don't need no master plan to do whatever ever they can. On the one hand, it's just hilarious to hear those words delivered in that style. But then also their jams don't need no master plan to do whatever they can. Like truer words never spoken about the klf. They are kind of flying by the seat of their pants and just seeing what they can get away with and yet making really, really tight good tracks along the way.
- [90:55]
A
It's a really strange way to end the album, though.
- [90:58]
B
Oh, yeah. Sort of a mellow note and so unlike what they knew was going to make this album popular because it was stuff that had been popular before, but they were leveling up. It is a strange note, that said, on some releases Once the album had really hit and the remix had been done, the album was released with a bonus CD signal. For reasons we will talk about shortly, you can't stream a lot of this on a lot of services. So I reached out to a friend of mine and asked, knowing that he would have this album if he had it on CD and if I could borrow it so I could listen to it in my car. The only CD player I currently have hooked up. And Skunk, thank you for coming through, hooked me up not only with the White Room, but with the bonus CD single of Justified, an agent featuring Tammy Wynette.
- [91:59]
A
Your friend is named Skunk?
- [92:02]
B
I mean, it's not his legal name, but he is known as Skunk. Yes.
- [92:06]
A
How discordian.
- [92:08]
B
He's got that streak as well as the white streak down the top of his head that.
- [92:12]
A
Gotcha. Yeah. So it was re recorded and re released as Justified in Ancient. Stand by the Jams.
- [92:24]
B
Oh, good.
- [92:25]
A
Yeah, let's listen to that one. They're justified and they're ancient and they like to roam the land Just roll.
- [92:36]
B
It from the top.
- [92:37]
A
They're justified and they're ancient I hope you understand to the bridge, to the bridge, to the bridge they call me up in Tennessee they said, Tammy, stand by the J hand but if you don't like what they're going to do, you better not stop them Coming through.
- [93:12]
B
Oh, man, this version is so much better. Where. Where to even begin? There's the obvious and we'll get to her, but there's this African almost gospel choir singing the moomuland. There's the spoken, semi wrapped vocal interjections from Ricardo De Force that bring the beat back and all that. The men's chant of Justified.
- [93:41]
A
Ancients of Muhumu. Yeah.
- [93:43]
B
So good.
- [93:44]
A
You wouldn't think that it would work. You wouldn't think that having Tammy Wynette, of all people. I mean, I love the Stand by the jams because obviously her big hit, stand by your man.
- [93:58]
B
All right, so do you know how this came to be?
- [94:01]
A
I don't.
- [94:02]
B
Oh, God, it's so funny. Okay, okay. So they had written Justified and Ancient and they had recorded the version that was the album closer, right? And it was smooth and it was well produced and they recognized it as a good song, but they also recognized that something was missing. Jimmy says, you know what this track needs is Tammy Wynette.
- [94:30]
A
Now, I do know that after Jimmy Suggested Tammy Wynette, 20 minutes later, Bill Drummond had Tammy on the phone. She was backstage at a concert hall in Tennessee and he played it over the phone for her, and then she said she was in. So they called me up in Tennessee. They said, tammy, stand by the jams.
- [94:54]
B
Oh, good.
- [94:55]
A
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
- [94:56]
B
They talked to her, pitched it. She was in. She came in, and they were recording. And Jimmy comes in and sees this scene of Tammy Wynette singing the vocals to this. And he's like, oh, oh, something's. Something's wrong. This is not who I was talking about.
- [95:17]
A
Oh, really?
- [95:19]
B
It actually meant Dolly Parton the whole time.
- [95:22]
A
Oh, okay.
- [95:23]
B
It was not at all unusual for big house tracks at the time to feature an RB or soul diva doing the vocals, whether sampled or brought in to do a new vocal hook. But to have a country star come in and do it was cuckoo bananas. And Tammy Wynette, best known for these sort of heartbreak country songs from 1970s radio. But to have her, that was a real weird one.
- [95:56]
A
Somehow it worked. And it ended up hitting number 11 on the Billboard Hot 100 here in America. And it was Tammy wynette's first top 40 hit in the mainstream non country music charts since 1969.
- [96:11]
B
Amazing. And all right. So, you know, it's not just that it's Tammy Wynette singing on a stadium house track. It's also some of the specific things that she's singing to see in the video. These words coming out of Tammy Wynette's mouth. They're justified and they're ancient and they like to roam the land. They're justified and they're ancient. I hope you understand. And it's like. I mean, I guess. I guess I do, but, like, do you. Do you, Tammy? Do you understand what the hell you're talking about? And then later, the one that absolutely slays me is when Tammy Wynette sings, they're justified and they're ancient and they drive an ice cream van. Yeah.
- [97:02]
A
There's no way that Tammy Wynette understood the esoteric nature of the lyrics she was singing.
- [97:08]
B
Tammy Wynette was around in the 70s. You don't know what she was reading back then, but, yeah, I'm guessing no.
- [97:13]
A
Well, and then the video.
- [97:15]
B
Oh, man.
- [97:16]
A
I know, right? So you've got the four handmaidens of Lucifer dancing around her, Bill and Jimmy wearing these red robes where you can't see their faces, and they each have a single horn coming out where their forehead is, which reminded me of. Do you remember Conan the Destroyer? Do you remember Dagoth, I think it was. Was the God's name.
- [97:42]
B
No.
- [97:42]
A
Well, anyway, that's what it Reminded me of. It's like, so weird. And then of course, they have like all these subliminal messages on the screen. And when. When they're on screen with their horns, it says horned men.
- [97:55]
B
I guess I don't recall that, but all right.
- [97:57]
A
Yeah.
- [98:00]
B
So that concludes the album and the bonus disc. But the KLF story doesn't end quite there, although that is the beginning of the end. In the 18 months following the first single release from this album, The KLF sold 2.5 million singles and became the biggest singles act of 1991. They also then won a Brit Award for Best British Band. Although tied for that award with Simply Red.
- [98:37]
A
You couldn't get more different than ALF and Simply Red, right? Yeah.
- [98:43]
B
But the awards show at which they performed was another particularly interesting, very KLF moment.
- [98:52]
A
Right? Yeah. So they performed 3am Eternal with a grindcore punk group called Extreme Noise Terror.
- [99:01]
B
Right.
- [99:02]
A
Acoustic assaults on the audience's ears.
- [99:06]
B
Oh, yeah, it's an audio assault, man. Like, this is like screamed Cookie Monster style punk vocals and absolutely noise guitar. And the vocalist was not either of the boys from the klf. It was the lead singer of Extreme Noise Terror delivering the vocals. So it's almost unrecognizable as 3am Eternal. And there were some compromises that had to be made with these two bands collaborating. The KLF had wanted to take a dead sheep on stage and throw it and sheep's blood onto the crowd. But as Extreme Noise Terror was an extreme vegetarian band, they really objected to that. So instead, I believe it was Jimmy pulled out an assault rifle and fired many, many rounds of blanks into the assembled crowd of British music. Lumina. You will recall that the album track ends with the KLF have left the building. Right?
- [100:15]
A
Yes.
- [100:16]
B
Curtain comes down at the Brit Awards and the announcer says to the house, the KLF has left the music business.
- [100:26]
A
They intended that part as a joke. They weren't actually serious about it. But it turned out that this would actually be their last performance.
- [100:36]
B
Yeah, this turned out to be the beginning of the end.
- [100:39]
A
So they left the Brit Awards before they won the Best Band award. So a motorcycle courier brought them their award, which they buried in a field near Stonehenge. A farmer found it, it was returned to the band, and they decided to go back and bury it deeper.
- [101:00]
B
Brilliant.
- [101:01]
A
And then they proceeded to delete their entire record catalog.
- [101:07]
B
Once they made that decision, they did release a statement, and it's a pretty good one, a little long, but bear with me. We have been following a wild and wounded, glum and Glorious but shining path these last five years, the last two of which have led us up the commercial high ground. We are at a point where the path is about to take a sharp turn from these sunny uplands down into a netherworld of we know not what. For the foreseeable future, there will be no further record releases from the justified Ancients of Mumu, the Time Lords, the klf, and any other past, present and future name attached to our activities. As of now, all our past releases are deleted. If we meet further along, be prepared, our disguise may be complete. And with that, the KLF was over.
- [102:01]
A
Interesting.
- [102:03]
B
Yeah. They informed the record companies to take their records out of print and that there would be no subsequent pressings or sales of their records.
- [102:13]
A
This really only applied in the UK because other countries, such as the us, they had licensed their music out to record labels for distribution, so they didn't really have the ability to do that. But, yeah, and that's probably why, Scott, you had so much trouble finding this on streaming.
- [102:30]
B
Yeah. Only In, I believe, 2021 did they make some of their catalog available for streaming. But they weren't in it for the money, because as we all know, streaming produces tiny, tiny fractions of pennies per listen. And the band had already proven shortly after their retirement that they were definitely not in it for the money.
- [102:56]
A
They took their profits from the record industry and they created something called the K Foundation. So one of the things that they did is they took a million pounds sterling and they nailed it to a board and hung it in an art gallery, which they were trying to sell for half a million pounds. Now, this is kind of an interesting commentary, I think, on the value of money. Somebody who was smart, who had half a million pounds lying around, might buy it and immediately double their money. Right. Take the nail out and now you've got the cash. But if it remains as art, as it's being presented, in theory, it might go up in value. In theory, it might be, you know, eventually worth more than that. I understand they didn't have any takers, though. So then that leads to the next part, which I'll let you take.
- [103:59]
B
Well, as referenced a couple times throughout this episode, in 1994, the KLF burned £1 million in 50 pound notes. Stacks of 50 pound notes, yeah.
- [104:18]
A
So they were originally planning to do some kind of bonfire of some sort, but somehow Jimmy and Bill ended up back on the Scottish island of Jura, which is where the Wicker man had taken place a few years prior, and they found a, I guess a shed Somewhere. And they literally burned the million palm notes in the shed.
- [104:42]
B
Right? They made a video of it directed by someone named Gimpo. And the video is entitled Watch the KLF Burn A Million Quid. And it was distributed by the K Foundation. And once again, they went to, I believe, a remote island and in a small stone bunker started a fire and burned million pounds, throwing stacks of 50 pound notes on it and making it rain into that fire, flipping bills into it. And there was some debate as to whether they actually did it, but there are enough people who said either they were there or they helped clean it up. And yeah, they actually did it.
- [105:27]
A
Yeah, they actually did screen the film in a few places. The advertisements read, jimmy Cottey and Bill Drummond urgently need to know why did the K Foundation burn a million quid? Was it a crime? Was it a burnt offering? Was it madness? Was it an investment? Was it rock and roll? Was it an obscenity? Was it art? Was it a political statement? Was it bollocks? It really ended up pissing a lot of people off.
- [105:59]
B
Oh, for sure. Think of all the good you could do with a million pounds. And instead they burnt it to make a statement about the commodification of art by the music industry or whatever they were doing, which they did not explain at the time. And, you know, later interviews, much more recent interviews with Jimmy and Bill. They still don't even really know what they were doing. There's a great one from Jimmy in How soon is now from 2012. A lot of people probably thought that maybe we did have a proper vision, but we didn't really. We were just making it up from day to day. And even more recently, a documentary about the KLF was made called who Killed the klf? That documentary is not available anywhere. It has been essentially erased from the face of the planet.
- [107:00]
A
Erased from the face of the planet. Much like the million pounds.
- [107:03]
B
Yeah, much like. But you can see the trailer for it and in that trailer there is a great quote. We wanted the money, but we wanted to burn it more.
- [107:18]
A
I kind of have a theory based on the Illuminatus trilogy and the whole Robert Anton Wilson thing with the million pounds. Money isn't real. Money is a construct. The little pieces of paper that you carry in your wallet, the only reason they have any value is because humans give them that value.
- [107:42]
B
Right? They're worth as much as the paper they're printed on and no more unless we say so.
- [107:48]
A
Exactly. Value being a construct and money actually kind of being an illusion. I think that that's what they were trying to do, I mean, it just literally poof, you know, up in smoke, quite literally, it no longer exists. They negated the power of money. Some people say it's a discordian ritual, rejecting materialism and societal norms. Interestingly, though, the date that they chose to do this, August 23, 1994, that was the date that they burned the money. We talked about the number 23 being significant in the Illuminatus Trilogy. August 23rd, but also 1994. If you add those digits up, 1 +9 +9 +4, you get 23.
- [108:33]
B
That was going to be my guess.
- [108:35]
A
Okay. But anyway, so they got this idea, Jimmy and Bill, that they were going to write a contract, that they were going to not speak about this incident because everybody kept asking them why, why? Why? They were so sick of hearing about why. So they wrote a contract. They canceled the screenings. Here's part of the contract. For the sake of our souls. We, the trustees of the Kay foundation, agree unconditionally, totally and without hesitation to a binding contract with the rest of the world. The contract is as follows. Bill Drummond and Jimmy Cauty agree to never speak, write or use any other form of media to mention the burning of £1,000,000 of their own money, which occurred on the island of Jura on 23rd August, 1994, for a period of 23 years after the date of this signature. Somehow, in their typical larger than lifestyle, they got the idea that they needed to write this contract on Gimpo's van. And they were going to push the van off the cliff as the means of executing the contract.
- [109:57]
B
Right.
- [109:58]
A
Gimpo caught wind of this and he was out of there. He got in his van and he took off. Probably the smartest thing that anybody in this story so far has done. So they rented a Nissan Bluebird and they wrote the contract, apparently on the windshield. And there's actually video somewhere of them then pushing this rental car off a cliff.
- [110:25]
B
Amazing.
- [110:26]
A
And that was that.
- [110:27]
B
Yeah, well, that's a hell of a ride, right?
- [110:32]
A
I mean, you can't make this shit up. They did it seems like everything that they did and it was all very deliberate and they were both very adamant that they were an equal partnership, that it wasn't one person's decision to burn the money or one person's decision to push the car off the cliff. They were both equal partners. They both agreed to it. The more I learn about them, you know, on one level it's like, oh, yeah, their music's pretty cool, but all of these layers of this Illuminata stuff. And. And it's just, well, you know, I love weird shit like this, so.
- [111:11]
B
For sure, yeah.
- [111:13]
A
Okay, so, Scott, I picked this topic, so you have to pick the topic for the next episode. What are we doing?
- [111:21]
B
All right, for our next episode, we are going to keep it Scottish and we're going to go with primal screams. Scream a delica.
- [111:32]
A
Oh, yeah, Cool. I'm looking forward to that. And that'll be our first episode of 2025.
- [111:38]
B
That's great. That will do it, I guess. I am looking forward to meeting back up with you, Lori, and with all of you dear listeners in the new year.
- [111:50]
A
Yeah, Happy New Year. Happy holidays, everybody.
- [111:54]
B
See you as well.
- [111:55]
A
And it's goodbye for me and from me.
- [112:08]
B
Ladies and gentlemen, the KLM have now left the building.