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Kopyright Liberation Front
AKA The Justified Aincients of Mu Mu, The Timelords, The Jamms, The K Foundation, 2K and The One World Orchestra.
During the 80's & 90's Bill Drumond and Jimmy Courtney terrorised the Music Industry. They systematically pillaged samples from ABBA to Whitney Houston, gathered lawsuits like other musicians got award nominations, burned £1million in a bizarre ritual infront of dozens of gathered reporters and caused chaos wherever they went.
Here we will try and surmise the history and events that were shaped by the duo over a decade.
This may take some time to complete, so please bookmark and come back soon, I expect to be making additions at least twice weekly until I am happy that it is complete. If you think I should prioritise any area above others, drop me a line in the comments box and I'll see what I can do.
The KLF on Youtube
KLF - The Manual
HOW TO HAVE A NUMBER ONE THE EASY WAY
The Justified Ancients of Mu Mu Reveal Their Zenarchistic Method of Making The Unthinkable Happen, also known as 'How To Have a Number One Hit Record For £10,000'The Manual is a tongue-in-cheek step by step guide to achieving a No.1 single with next to no money, and a case study of the duo's 1988 UK novelty pop No. 1 "Doctorin' the Tardis", released under the name "The Timelords" which was a glorious mix of the Doctor Who theme tune & a Gary Glitter song. The rapid rise of this to Number one in the British charts meant an almost compulsory appearance on Top of The Pops, which the grouped managed to pull off and maintain their anonymity by sending a US Ford Galaxy Police Car to the studio to perform for them in what must be one of the most surreal performances ever seen on Top of The Pops. (see below for video)
The advice dispensed by The Manual includes: "Firstly, you must be skint and on the dole. Anybody with a proper job or tied up with full time education will not have the time to devote to see it through" and "If you are already a musician stop playing your instrument. Even better, sell the junk."
The Manual was re-released - with a new foreword by Drummond - in 1998. It was also released as an audiobook in Germany in 2003, with Drummond voicing the foreward, a motivational piece about reaching out for one's dreams today - "tomorrow is always too late".
The Austrian Eurotrash band Edelweiss, who read the book, borrowed ABBA's "S.O.S.," and sold five million copies worldwide with "Bring Me Edelweiss".
ISBNs
* ISBN 1872013007 (KLF Publications)
* ISBN 0863596169 (1988)
* ISBN 1899858652 (1998)
KLF- The Manual on Ebay
HOW TO HAVE A NUMBER ONE THE EASY WAY
Original copies are often available on ebay as are ebook copies of this essential reading for any musician. Original copies of the book are very collectible and sought after, commanding high prices as is the case with much of KLF's rare material.
Apologies if motorbike manuals appear in these results, I have attempted to filter out references to the Kawasaki KLF 250 owners manual that sometimes show here.
Fetching RSS feed... please stand byThe Timelords - Doctorin' The Tardis
Live performance on BBC's Top of the Pops
The Timelords (The KLF) - Doctorin' The TARDIS (TOTP)
Drummond, Cauty and paper mache Daleks oh my...
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KLF Burn £1million
The money was royalties received since the retirement of the KLF and the formation of the K foundation. The K foundation was originally aimed at providing support for struggling artists though this changed somewhat with the revelation explained by Drummond - "We realised that struggling artists are meant to struggle, that's the whole point."
Next came the idea of using the money to create Art and the duo presented to the art world "Money: A Major Body Of Cash" £1million nailed to a board with a pine frame. This was also used to publicise the K Foundations alternative to the Turner Prize, (more about this later).
The established art world shunned this work of art and no major gallery was prepared to exhibit it, whether this was due to the adverse publicity or the security risk is unknown.
After the rejection by the art establishment to display the work and rejections by insurers to provide cover for a touring exhibition it was left to the duo to come up with a suitable way of spending or disposing of the money.
It's alledged the idea of burning it was first suggested in a cafe and quickly gathered pace with various scenarios being suggested. Finally they settled on flying to scotland and taking a boat to the isle of Jura to burn it with a small documentary crew.
Later a film of the burning was toured to debate the burning and a book was released.
