Archive for the ‘2K’ Category
LONDON BARBICAN HALL, SEPTEMBER 17
YOU could be forgiven for betting your entire life savings, your house, its contents and your family members on the “Don’t Hold Your Breath” section of pop’s roulette wheel when it comes to this gig. Bill Drummond and Jimmy Cauty, the twosome who have the fine distinction of being the most enormous scamsters in pop history, claim they will be performing live at The Barbican on September 17. It was supposed to happen on September 2, but was postponed due to the death of Diana. The performance, we’re told, will last precisely 23 minutes and will be recorded for release as a single.
Since their spectacular departure from the music industry following their appearance at 1992’s Brit Awards (where they fake machine-gunned the audience and left a slaughtered sheep in the lobby), rumours of KLF activity reached JFK-style conspiracytheory levels, including one story that they had released a version of “Que Sera Sera” (called “K Sera Sera”) in Israel with the Russian Army Chorale. Which was true. They also claimed that they burned £1 million as an art statement. There was even a BBC documentary on the latter, although the veracity of the torching remains a debatable point. Perhaps most bizarre ere the repeated, but probably faked, sightings of them gigging extensively in Wales under an assumed name in 1994.
Whichever, there’s no doubt that Cauty and Drummond, from their early sample-mania of The Justified Ancients Of Mu Mu album, “1997: What The F***’s Going On?”, to the chart-busting ravey pop they mustered as the KLF and The Timelords, are hugely important figures in the history of not just dance music, but pop itself. This one-off performance will do nothing, I am sure, to counter the popular belief that the pair of them are as mad as bats.
| publishing info | Author | | MARK ROLAND | |
| Source | | NME | |
| Date | | September 27th, 1997 | |
After years in the wilderness JIMMY CAUTY and BILL DRUMMOND, the men behind The KLF who once burned ElmiIlion, returned as 2K with a 23-minute performance at The Barbican. It featured the striking Liverpool dockers repeatedly shouting, ‘F— the millennium’. Why? JOHNNY CIGARETTES hasn’t got a clue. K sera, sera: STEVE GULLICK
“The only reason we did this was to promote our album, but we’re not doing one. We couldn’t fit it into 23 minutes.” 2K
We’re not in Westminster any more,” thinks a middle- aged middle-class man in a suit as he sits interviewing two middle-class, middle- aged men in stripy pyjamas, covered in Dettol they’ve just splashed over each other. Lying in a single bed together. With make-up smeared over their faces and messily painted grey hair. And with large ivory rhino horns crudely taped to their foreheads.
He is a reporter for Channel 4 News. They are 2K, alias King Boy D and Rock Man Rock, alias Bill Drummond and Jimmy Cauty, formerly The KLF, The K Foundation, The Timelords, and The Justified Ancients Of Mu Mu. Last week he was interviewing Conservative MPs’ wives. Last year, they were on an expedition to plant an effigy of Elvis at the North Pole. As they have so poignantly asked, ‘It’s I 997 – What the f— is going on?’ (more…)
| publishing info | Source | | NME | |
| Date | | September 27th, 1997 | |
2K are believed to be behind the slogan, “1997 What The ***k’s Going On”, that was daubed on the wall of London’s National Theatre in the early hours of Thursday morning (September 18).
The National Theatre on the South Bank was daubed with a similar message ten years ago when Drummond and Cauty, then known as The Justified Ancients Of Mu Mu, released the single “1987 (What The ***k’s Going On?)”.
The night before the graffiti appeared, 2K’s Bill Drummond and Jimmy Cauty appeared at London’s Barbican Centre – the first live gig since 1992. They performed new single “***k the Millennium”, which is a reworking of their former hit “What Time is Love?”.
Nick McHugh, from the National Theatre, told NME: “It’s in the hands of the police. We noticed it on Thursday morning at about 1.30. We have absolutely no idea what it means. We originally though it might be disgruntled Diana fans.
“We’re not especially irritated by it. It’s unfortunate they decided to use the National as a target. Someone will have to clean it off today. But it’s caused the minimum of inconvenience.”
McHugh, woh said he had heared of The KLF but not 2K, said that there were no security cameras on that side of the building. He added that the theatre had had no complaints and noone had come in asking what the message meant.
| publishing info | Source | | NME | |
| Date | | September 27th, 1997 | |
| Williams Fairey Band – Acid Brass |
10 Track Album (43:06)
° BFFP150CD ® & © 1997 Mute ™ 5″CD
° ABFFP150CD ® & © 1997 Mute ™ 5″CD |
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01. |
05 |
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10 |
- |
Can U Dance? |
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02. |
04 |
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03 |
- |
Jibaro |
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03. |
05 |
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05 |
- |
Voodoo Ray |
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04. |
05 |
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57 |
- |
Pacific 202 |
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05. |
04 |
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02 |
- |
Strings Of Life |
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06. |
03 |
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55 |
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The Groove That Won’t Stop |
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07. |
03 |
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29 |
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Let’s Get Brutal |
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08. |
02 |
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51 |
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Cubik |
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09. |
03 |
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52 |
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Day In The Life/can U Party? (Medley) |
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10. |
04 |
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35 |
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What Time is Love ? |
Bisher glaubte man über Blasmusik und Techno alles Nötige zu wissen: Erstere gehört ins Bierzelt, das große Bleepen und Blummern in die Disco. Zwei Welten, zwei Generationen, zwei Kulturen, lautete die logische Schlußfolgerung. Alles ein Irrtum, behauptet nun der englische Künstler Jeremy Deller. Weil Blasmusik und Techno “zwei essentiell proletarische Kulturen” seien, konstruierte Deller eine abenteuerliche Verbindung: Auf der CD “Acid Brass” spielt die altehrwürdige Williams Fairey Brass Band zehn Acid-House-Techno-Klassiker. Das Resultat ist erstklassiger Crossover. Die Blaskapelle spielt die oft brachialen Electrobeat-Melodien von 808 State, A Guy Called Gerald und The KLF mit Wucht und Feingefühl – und wird damit für gute Laune in Bierzelten und Discos sorgen.
| publishing info | Author | | Dallach | |
| Source | | Spiegel "issue 48/1997, page 235" | |
| Date | | November 24th, 1997 | |
They were revered by clubbers, worshipped by pop fans and idolised by indie kids.
They had number one records, won Brit awards and made Top Of The Pops watchable at a time when no one did. For two whole years a couple of middle-aged men made consistently brilliant records. And then…nothing. Until now. The return of The KLF! The full inside story of the musical comeback of the year. By Mark Frith.
If any year needed a KLF-style kick up the arse it’s this one. OK, so you probably won’t find a better year for major album releases and all of them – Radiohead, Oasis, The Verve, Prodigy – are fantastically accomplished products. But that’s only half of what music is about.
The other half is about musical events. No, we don’t mean festivals on airport runways. We’re on about people putting on extravaganzas, doing something that means they’re the talk of a nation for months after. Costumes, casts of thousands, you know the deal. The sort of thing that your first memory of music is based on, the things you’ll always remember. So, like I say, it’s a good job The KLF are back, isn’t it?
These days The KLF go under the name of 2K but the deal is pretty much the same. The two people behind it haven’t changed: Bill Drummond and Jimmy Cauty. And with consistently-brilliant creative minds like those at work, you can’t go far wrong. (more…)
Ancient and justified?
In addition to these inkings, KLF pranksters Jimmy Cauty and Bill Drummond have reformed, but only for 23 minutes. Now calling themselves 2K, the pop terrorists with an increasingly obscure agenda, have remixed their old hit What Time Is Love? into a time-specific return, due out in October.
With this cartoon specially scribbled for Q, Jimmy Cauty outlines the KLF’s exciting new image (see below, right).
| publishing info | Source | | Q Magazine | |
| Date | | November 1997 | |
William Fairey Brass band, in collaboration with artist Jeremy Deller, performing the KLF’s WHat Time is Love? as part of the Acid Brass project. Rather old shakey footage, put through a Fairlight many years ago! Just found it on a video under my bed..
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LONDON BARBICAN HALL, SEPTEMBER 17
