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artist · the justified ancients of mu mu
release · 1987: what the fuck's going on?
year · 1987
genre · electronic
label · the sound of mu(sic)
catalogue · jams lp 1
date · 01-mar-2004
quality · 190kbps/44,1khz
source · vinyl
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a1 hey hey we are not the monkees 6:06
a2 don't take five (take what you want) 5:05
a3 rockman rock parts 2 and 3 6:58
b1 me ru con 2:23
b2 the queen and i 7:36
b3 all you need is love 4:55
b4 next 7:06
playtime · 00h 40m 09s
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more than any pop band in history, the klf ripped off the music
industry for a bucketful of loot and got away with it -- as
illustrated in their own guidebook to creating number one singles,
the manual. bill drummond and jimi cauty applied the tactics of
punk shock-terrorism to late-'80s acid house and became one of
britain's best-selling artists (recording also as the jams and the
timelords) just before their retirement in 1992. the duo then
deleted their entire back catalog -- a potential loss in the
millions of pounds -- and declared they wouldn't release another
record until peace was declared throughout the world.
the son of a scottish preacher, bill drummond (b. april 29, 1953;
south africa) ran away from home to become a fisherman before
enrolling in a liverpool art school in the late '70s. he became
involved in liverpool's punk scene, and in 1977 formed the
short-lived punk band big in japan with holly johnson (later of
frankie goes to hollywood) and ian broudie (the lightning seeds).
a year later, drummond co-founded the zoo label (with dave balfe),
serving as manager and producer for the teardrop explodes and echo
& the bunnymen through the early '80s. after both bands left zoo
for the majors, drummond followed by joining wea as an a&r man;
there, he signed strawberry switchblade, zodiac mindwarp, the
proclaimers, and brilliant. he quit the business in 1986, though,
and released the solo album the man one year later for creation
records. the album was a satiric goodbye to music, voicing
drummond's hope that he would never be involved in the industry
again.
with his retirement only six months old, drummond decided to make
a hip-hop record. he called an old friend, brilliant's jimi cauty
(b. 1954), to help with production and technology. a week later,
the duo -- christened the justified ancients of mu mu, or the jams
for short -- recorded the sample-heavy pastiche "all you need is
love." the single, released that may, was followed a month later
by the jams' debut album 1987 (what the fuck is going on?), which
continued the sonic piracy with long passages lifted from the
beatles, led zeppelin, and abba. as a matter of course, abba
objected to the sampling, and in september the copyright
protection society demanded that all copies be recalled and
destroyed. instead, drummond and cauty traveled to sweden, hoping
that a personal meeting with abba would resolve the situation.
locked out of the group's stockholm studio, the pair decided to
return to england, stopping only to burn 500 copies of 1987 in a
swedish field. (the incident was photographed and serves as the
cover for the best-of album history of the jams.) cauty and
drummond kept the album in the spotlight though, by advertising in
the face magazine five remaining copies for sale at the price of
ú1000 each. they eventually sold three, gave one away, and kept
the last. in october 1987, the jams released an edited version of
the album called 1987 (the jams 45 edits), with specific
instructions on how to recreate the original 1987 at home.
the duo had other plans in mind, though. voted best british group
by bpi and the brit awards, the klf were scheduled to perform at a
london awards ceremony on february 13, 1992. cauty and drummond
did show up, but horrified the formal audience with a hardcore
thrash version of "3 a.m. eternal" (performed with the justifiably
named extreme noise terror) that also included drummond spraying
the crowd with blanks from an automatic rifle and the
post-performance announcement, "the klf have left the music
industry." topping their already extreme actions, cauty and
drummond delivered the carcass of a dead sheep -- plus eight
gallons of blood -- to the lobby of the hotel after-party. the
industry and press reaction was overwhelmingly negative, but cauty
and drummond had already made their mint. promising that no more
releases were forthcoming until peace reigned around the world,
they officially retired from music on may 5, 1992 -- the date
commemorated the 15th anniversary of drummond's emergence in the
music industry, with big in japan. to convince the public that it
wasn't simply a scam to sell more records, drummond and cauty
deleted the entire back catalog of klf communications.
though the klf did return one year later, it was not to release
music but to provide a commentary on the art world. first, a
series of newspaper adverts commanded the world to "abandon all
art now." cauty and drummond -- thinly veiled as the k foundation
-- then announced that they would be awarding a prize of ú40,000
to the worst work of art that year. winner rachel whiteread (who
had also won england's turner prize) refused the award, prompting
a ceremony in which the k foundation vowed to burn the prize
money. whiteread accepted the award just seconds before the bills
were torched, and donated the money to charity.
in august 1994, the artists formerly known as klf managed to outdo
themselves yet again. after physically nailing ú1,000,000 to a
board -- an act which necessitated the largest cash withdrawal in
u.k. history -- cauty and drummond showed the money around england
as a work of art entitled "nailed to the wall." then, on the
island of jura, in the presence of one journalist and one
cameraman, they burned the entire sum as yet another bizarre
commentary on the art world.
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