The KLF

British electronic music duo

The KLF (also known as the Justified Ancients of Mu Mu, the JAMs, the Timelords and other names) are a British electronic band who originated in Liverpool and London in the late 1980s. Scottish musician Bill Drummond (alias King Boy D) and English musician Jimmy Cauty (alias Rockman Rock) began by releasing hip hop inspired and sample heavy records as the JAMs. As the Timelords, they recorded the British number one single "Doctorin' the Tardis", and documented the process of making a hit record in a book The Manual (How to Have a Number One the Easy Way). As the KLF, Drummond and Cauty pioneered stadium house (rave music with a pop rock production and sampled crowd noise) and, with their 1990 LP Chill Out, the ambient house genre. The KLF released a series of international hits on their own KLF Communications record label and became the biggest selling singles act in the world in 1991.

Bill Drummond was an established figure within the British music industry, having co founded Zoo Records, played guitar in the Liverpool band Big in Japan, and worked as manager of Echo & the Bunnymen and the Teardrop Explodes. Artist and musician Jimmy Cauty was the guitarist in the three piece Brilliant – an act that Drummond had signed to WEA Records and managed. In July 1986, Drummond resigned from his position as an A&R man at record label WEA, citing that he was nearly 33⅓ years old (33⅓ revolutions per minute being the speed at which a vinyl LP revolves), and that it was "time for a revolution in my life. There is a mountain to climb the hard way, and I want to see the world from the top". In the same year he released a solo LP, The Man. Drummond intended to focus on writing books once The Man had been issued but, as he recalled in 1990, "That only lasted three months, until I had an[other] idea for a record and got dragged back into it all".

Early in 1987, Drummond and Cauty's collaborations began. They assumed alter egos – King Boy D and Rockman Rock respectively – and adopted the name the Justified Ancients of Mu Mu (the JAMs), after the fictional conspiratorial group "The Justified Ancients of Mummu" from The Illuminatus! Trilogy. The JAMs' primary instrument was the digital sampler with which they would plagiarise the history of popular music, cutting chunks from existing works and pasting them into new contexts, underpinned by rudimentary beatbox rhythms and overlaid with Drummond's raps, of social commentary, esoteric metaphors and mockery. A later piece in the same magazine called the JAMs "the hottest, most exhilarating band this year  It's hard to understand what it feels like to come across something you believe to be totally new; I have never been so wholeheartedly convinced that a band are so good and exciting." The JAMs re edited and re released "All You Need Is Love" in May 1987, removing or doctoring the most antagonistic samples; lyrics from the song appeared as promotional graffiti, defacing selected billboards. The re release rewarded the JAMs with praise (including NME's "single of the week") and the funds necessary to record their debut album. The album, 1987 (What the F**k Is Going On? ), was released in June 1987. Included was a song called "The Queen and I", which sampled the ABBA single "Dancing Queen". After a legal showdown with ABBA and the Mechanical Copyright Protection Society, the 1987 album was forcibly withdrawn from sale. Drummond and Cauty travelled to Sweden in hope of meeting ABBA and coming to some agreement, taking an NME journalist and photographer with them, along with most of the remaining copies of the LP. They failed to meet ABBA, who they didn't realize already lived in Britain at the time, The song uses samples of the Mission: Impossible and Shaft themes alongside Whitney Houston's "I Wanna Dance with Somebody". Drummond has claimed that the KLF were later offered the job of producing or remixing a new Whitney Houston album as an inducement from her record label boss (Clive Davis of Arista Records) to sign with them. The second single in this sequence – Drummond and Cauty's third and final single of 1987 – was "Down Town", a dance record built around a gospel choir and "Downtown" by 1960s star Petula Clark, with lyrics that commented on poverty and homelessness. These early works were later collected on the compilation album Shag Times. A second album, Who Killed the JAMs?, was released in early 1988. Who Killed the JAMs? earned the duo a five star review from Sounds magazine, who called it "a masterpiece of pathos".

In 1988, Drummond and Cauty released a 'novelty' pop single, "Doctorin' the Tardis" as the Timelords. The Timelords claimed that Ford Timelord was the "Talent" in the band Ford fronted the promotional campaign for the single and was "interviewed" on TV. The car would later be banger raced at Swaffham Raceway in 1991. They later portrayed the song as the result of a deliberate effort to write a number one hit single. In interviews with Snub TV Drummond said that they had intended to make a house record using the Doctor Who theme. After Cauty had laid down a basic track, Drummond observed that their house idea wasn't working and what they actually had was a Glitter beat. "pure, unadulterated agony" and "excruciating" and from Sounds "a record so noxious that a top ten place can be its only destiny". The Timelords released one other product, a 1989 book called The Manual (How to Have a Number One the Easy Way), a step by step guide to achieving a number one hit single with little money or talent. In 1990, he recalled that "We wanted to make [as the KLF] something that was pure dance music, without any reference points, without any nod to the history of rock and roll. It was the type of music that by early '87 was really exciting me [although] we weren't able to get our first KLF records out until late '88." Also in 1989, the KLF embarked upon the creation of a road movie and soundtrack album, both titled The White Room, funded by the profits of "Doctorin' the Tardis". Neither the film nor its soundtrack were formally released, although bootleg copies exist. The soundtrack album contained pop house versions of some of the "pure trance" singles, as well as new songs, most of which would appear (in radically reworked form) on the version of the album which was eventually released to mainstream success. A single from the original album was released: "Kylie Said to Jason", an electropop record featuring references to Todd Terry, Rolf Harris, Skippy the Bush Kangaroo and BBC comedy programme The Good Life. In reference to that song, Drummond and Cauty noted that they had worn "Pet Shop Boys infatuations brazenly on [their] sleeves." The film project was fraught with difficulties and setbacks, including dwindling funds. "Kylie Said to Jason", which Drummond and Cauty were hoping could "rescue them from the jaws of bankruptcy", flopped commercially, failing even to make the UK top 100. In consequence, The White Room film project was put on hold, and the KLF abandoned the musical direction of the soundtrack and single. Meanwhile, "What Time Is Love?" was generating acclaim within the underground clubs of continental Europe; according to KLF Communications, "The KLF were being feted by all the 'right' DJs". Cauty's ambient album Space and the KLF's "ambient house" LP Chill Out ambient video Waiting were released in 1990, as was a dance track, "It's Grim Up North", under the JAMs' moniker. The first "stadium house" single, "What Time Is Love? (Live from Trancentral)", released in October 1990, reached #5 on the UK Singles Chart and hit the top ten internationally. The follow up, "3 a. m. Eternal (Live at the S. S. L.)", was an international top five hit in January 1991, reaching #1 in the UK and #5 on the US Billboard Hot 100. The album The White Room followed in March 1991, reaching #3 in the UK. A substantial reworking of the aborted soundtrack, the album featured a segued series of "stadium house" songs followed by downtempo tracks. The "stadium house" singles trilogy was characterised by Tom Ewing of Freaky Trigger as applying "the possibilities for mass lunacy" to "awe inpsiring, colossal, unprecedented dancefloor bulldozers." He adds: "For novelty scam mongers and pranksters, they knew the public well, particularly that strain in British pop listening which likes an occasional brush with the gigantic. The KLF did to house what Jim Steinman did to rock – they turned it into a thing of tottering grand opera absurdity, pushed the excitement in the music to hysteria, traded content for ever huger gesture. The difference being that the KLF never lost track of what made the music special in the first place. Maybe because there's less inherent 'meaning' in the KLF's music, or maybe just because the 'meaning' in house music is less fragile". After successive name changes and dance records, Drummond and Cauty ultimately became, as the KLF, the biggest selling singles act in the world for 1991, still incorporating the work of other artists but in less gratuitous ways and predominantly without legal problems.

On 12 February 1992, the KLF and grindcore group Extreme Noise Terror performed a live version of "3 a. m. Eternal" at the BRIT Awards, the British Phonographic Industry's annual awards show. Drummond and Cauty had planned to throw buckets of blood over the audience, or to disembowel a dead sheep on stage, but were prevented from doing so due to opposition from BBC lawyers and vegetarians Extreme Noise Terror; Sheep were a symbol of the KLF,

The performance was instead concluded with a limping, kilted, cigar chomping Drummond firing blanks from an automatic weapon over the heads of the crowd. As the band left the stage, the KLF's promoter and narrator Scott Piering proclaimed over the PA system that "The KLF have now left the music business". In a comprehensive examination of the KLF's announcement and its context, Select called it "the last grand gesture, the most heroic act of public self destruction in the history of pop. And it's also Bill Drummond and Jimmy Cauty's final extravagant howl of self disgust, defiance and contempt for a music world gone foul and corrupt." There have been numerous suggestions that in 1992 Drummond was on the verge of a nervous breakdown. The KLF's BRITs statuette for "Best British Group" of 1992 was later found buried in a field near Stonehenge.

The K Foundation was an arts foundation established by Drummond and Cauty in 1993 following their 'retirement' from the music industry. From 1993 to 1995 they engaged in art projects and media campaigns, including the high profile K Foundation art award (for the "worst artist of the year"), and in 1993 released a limited edition single – "K Cera Cera" – in Israel and Palestine "to create awareness of peace in the world". They burnt what was left of their KLF earnings – a million pounds sterling in cash (equivalent to £2.35m as of 2022) – and filmed the performance. Cauty and Drummond announced a 23 year moratorium on all K Foundation activities in November 1995. Also in 1995, Drummond and Cauty contributed a song to The Help Album as The One World Orchestra ("featuring The Massed Pipes and Drums of the Children's Free Revolutionary Volunteer Guards"). "The Magnificent" is a drum'n'bass version of the theme tune from The Magnificent Seven, with vocal samples from DJ Fleka of Serbian radio station B92: "Humans against killing that sounds like a junkie against dope". On 17 September 1997, Drummond and Cauty re emerged briefly as 2K. 2K made a one off performance at London's Barbican Arts Centre with Mark Manning, Acid Brass, the Liverpool Dockers and Gimpo; a performance at which "Two elderly gentlemen, reeking of Dettol, caused havoc in their motorised wheelchairs. These old reprobates, bearing a grandfatherly resemblance to messrs Cauty and Drummond, claimed to have just been asked along." The song performed at the Barbican – "***k the Millennium" (a remix of "What Time Is Love?" featuring Acid Brass and incorporating elements of the hymn "Eternal Father, Strong to Save") – was also released as a single. These activities were accompanied by the usual full page press adverts, this time asking readers "***k The Millennium: Yes/No?" with a telephone number provided for voting. At the same time, Drummond and Cauty were also K2 Plant Hire, with plans to build a "People's Pyramid" from used house bricks; this plan never reached fruition. K2 Plant Hire Ltd had been registered at Companies House since 1995; Cauty and Drummond are directors. The Directors' Report for the period ending 31 March 1996 listed the company's activities as "a music company," and the accompanying accounts noted a transaction with "KLF Communications Residual Royalties", a Cauty Drummond partnership.

From their very earliest releases as The Justified Ancients of Mu Mu until their retirement in 1992, the music of Bill Drummond and Jimmy Cauty was independently released in their home country (the UK). Their debut releases – the single "All You Need Is Love" and the album 1987 – were released under the label name "The Sound Of Mu(sic)". By the end of 1987 Drummond and Cauty had renamed their label to "KLF Communications" and, in October 1987, the first of many "information sheets" (self written missives from the KLF to fans and the media) was sent out by the label. (a spinoff of Rough Trade Records) in the South East of England, and across the wider UK by the Cartel. As Drummond and Cauty explained, "The Cartel is, as the name implies, a group of independent distributors across the country who work in conjunction with each other providing a solid network of distribution without stepping on each other's toes. We are distributed by the Cartel." When Rough Trade Distribution collapsed in 1991 it was reported that they owed KLF Communications £500,000. Plugging (the promotion to TV and radio) was handled by longtime associate Scott Piering. ), TVT (early releases including The History of The JAMs a. k. a. The Timelords), and Arista Records (The White Room and singlesrefn|group=n|Bill Drummond explained the licensing situation – and inducements made by Arista – in an interview by Ernie Longmire, X Magazine, July 1991. This deep and perplexing mythology, he suggested, results in all their subsequent activities (as a partnership or otherwise) being absorbed into their mystique:

Drummond and Cauty have also been compared to Stewart Home and the Neoists. Home himself said that the duo's work "has much more in common with the Neoist, Plagiarist and Art Strike movements of the nineteen eighties than with the Situationist avant garde of the fifties and sixties." Drummond and Cauty "represent a vital and innovative strand within contemporary culture", he added.