The KLF AKA The Justified Ancients of Mu Mu AKA TimeLords
[related: Extreme Noise Terror, Jura, Toxteth Day of the Dead, Stone Circle of Callanish] [disambiguation: Time Lords]
The KLF (AKA The Justified Ancients of Mu Mu AKA TimeLords) was a British electronic musical ensemble active in the late 20th century. Composed of Rockman Rock (né Jimmy Cauty) and King Boy D (né Bill Drummond), the band somehow parlayed a particularly confrontational brand of anarchism and shameless Intellectual Property theft (IPT) into mainstream pop success. From the outset, both KLF members were staunch followers of Discordianism, a belief system based on chaos and chance founded by futurist and Playboy magazine editor Robert Anton Wilson [1]. Under the moniker The Justified Ancients of Mu Mu [2], Cauty and Drummond began releasing blatantly sampled and barely altered music using an Akai MP3-3000 purchased at a car boot sale [3]. In the late '80's, the group operated briefly as TimeLords, releasing the novelty pop single "Doctrin' the Tardis", an artless mash-up of the Doctor Who theme with sections of an obscure saccharine tune called "Blockbuster!". After the single peaked at #1 on the UK and Australian singles charts, the band published an educational pamphlet entitled "The Manual (How to Have a Number One the Easy Way)", a step-by-step tutorial on the artless and easily replicable sampling techniques and guerilla promotional tactics surrounding the single. "Doctrin'" violated virtually every known IPT statute, but the band managed to avoid prosecution by crediting "Ford TimeLord", Cauty's 1968 Ford Galaxie police vehicle, as "talent" for the song.
The KLF's Discordian bent climaxed in the mid-1990's with two notorious acts of Erisian idolatry. Despite a slew of name changes and music almost entirely dependent on IPT, the KLF was, as of 1991, the biggest-selling singles act in the world. Accordingly, they were invited to headline the 1992 BRIT Awards. They spent the run-up to the event terrorizing the show's producers, threatening to disembowel live pigs and sever their own limbs with chainsaws on stage. A petition was circulated amongst the BRIT Awards staff, legal team, and various vegetarian groups, attempting to bar the group from performing [4]. However, on February 12, 1992, the KLF staged an unrecognizable live version of its #1 single "3 a.m. Eternal" accompanied by the power electronics group Extreme Noise Terror as the evening's final act. The set ended with Drummond, on crutches and chomping a cigar, firing 23 rounds of blanks into the crowd from a military-grade machine gun. Immediately following their performance the public address system announced: "The KLF have now left the music business". Though contractually booked to attend the show's swanky post-ceremony afterparty, the KLF instead placed on their reserved table a recklessly slaughtered sheep emblazoned with the message: "I died for you - bon appetit". Despite the widespread impression that their retirement was simply a promotional prank, their full catalog was swiftly removed (and remains absent) from all distribution networks.
Further, on August 23rd, 1994, without proper cause or context, the duo ceremoniously burned one million pounds sterling. The amount immolated roughly corresponded to the income generated from the "3 a.m. Eternal" single. The location of the burning was a remote field near the village of Jura [5], on the island of the same name, located off the west coast of the Scottish Highlands. Ashes from the incinerated currency were later buried at the center of a stone circle known by Jurans as the "Standing Stones of Callanish".
The date of this strange ritual was not incidental. Throughout their work, KLF exhibited a deep connection to the number 23 - a central concept in the Discordian religion oft referred to as the "Principle of 23". To whit, the title of their 1987 debut album, "1987 (What The F*** Is Going On?)" contains 23 tracks. Although the KLF have not spoken publicly since their retirement, the latest BBS buzz is that the group is planning to reunite exactly 23 years from the date of their BRIT Awards performance. Reportedly, their return is to be memorialized with the construction of a pyramid consisting of 23 23-gram bricks of human ash on the Toxteth Day of the Dead.
- The KLF - Justified & Ancient - Official Music Video
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- ↑ King Boy D was first introduced to Discordianism while stagehanding for an amateur theatrical adaptation of Wilson's epic masterpiece The Illuminati Trilogy.
- ↑ A name taken from Wilson's book.
- ↑ British for "garage sale".
- ↑ Ratings though.
- ↑ Mostly bald and infertile, Jura's topography consists of over 90% blanket bog and is inhabited by a handful of grizzled shepherding clans. An independent municipality long resistant to outside influence, the island's arcane rules (mainly dating back 8-9 centuries) make prosecution of crimes against the British parliament exceedingly difficult.