in praise of KLF - the white room

it was definitely very different even to other pop dance acts around at the time (as i remember, snap, c+c music factory, etc were all pretty big in 90-91...).

-- pipecock, Wednesday, 3 October 2007 14:49 (1 minute ago) Bookmark Link

the beats weren't that different tho, most of the time. and they had a rapper + exciting sounds (sirens or whatever) that should've appealed to kids easily. i loved the Timelords record and was 10 when it hit #1. i think their enthusiasm for big videos, TOTP, crazy costumes and filling the stage with a variety of different characters also really boosted their appeal to us in the 'i wanna be like them' sense.

despite this i never did buy The White Room - probably because i'd read it didn't feature the single mixes. It would've been my 3rd or 4th album if i had bothered tho.

plus, Jimmy and Bill are like "Best Friends"

"i think their enthusiasm for big videos, TOTP, crazy costumes and filling the stage with a variety of different characters also really boosted their appeal to us in the 'i wanna be like them' sense."

the mention of TOTP makes me assume youre from england, which i guess makes it more obvious how they would be popular there as they were on the pop charts. in the US, im not sure they had such a large scale impact, i know at least locally their tune got play on the pop stations but usually at night on their "dance mix" type shows. i actually dont recall ever seeing a video for them at the time, either. but i know that i was not the only kid in my class who was feeling them....

"Does anyone have the ambient tracks from the aborted white room movie that formed this?

-- Catsupppppppppppppp dude 茄蕃, Wednesday, 3 October 2007 06:44 (9 hours ago) "

i can leonardo if you want

yes pipecock. i would find it v strange and impressive for young kids in the US to have heard of them at the time let alone be into them having assumed they had no real chart success there).

most Brits my age and a few years older probably appreciate them with the pop hits as the starting point and indeed their artistic apex, funny as that may sound. those older (e.g. college students at the time) may have been more likely to have got into them for the leftfield/ambient stuff? i think now, esp. in the US, it seems more likely that downloading teenagers would also be more likely to start with 'Chill Out' rather than the hit singles too, at least probably valuing the ambient stuff above the 'silliness'. But maybe not.

Yea, that'd be cool brah

Meanwhile, I should torrent the video stuff rather than watching dodgy youtubes

their videos were played on MTV in the US.

prompting a certain US student not really into dance music at the time to ask "is this what raves are like???" -- playing sitars with bandsaws, etc.

I enjoy getting big air in my truck while blasting last train to trancecentral. unfortunately, and this is probably totally hypocritical of me to say so, a lot of the material on this record hasn't aged that well. I think I just didn't listen to it on repeat enough times when I was 14

i'd rather listen to Ex:El but that is me

I loved both!

I have both the UK and US versions (on CD) and the UK is much better, esp. "Last Train to Trancentral."

Also, the video for "3 a.m. Eternal" was the first time I had ever seen a cell phone. I was seven or eight.

http://devonrecordclub.wordpress.com/2012/04/26/the-klf-the-white-room-round-25-nicks-choice/

This album is good, but I always felt it never reached the giddy mania of a lot of their singles by replacing them with more impressionist versions. Might need to have another listen. I love the KLF's philosophy and aesthetic. I miss bands like this - so early on in the history of dance music and yet able to create a complete packaged vision as opposed to just releasing dance-pop records.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rnywi_7hgr8

not nearly enough trainset footage in last train to trancentral video.

i know someone who bought nick colers akai which came with a chunk of klf sample discs

"Build a Fire" was pretty classic, but I agree with the above in that I don't think it held up well (kinda the point, no?)

by replacing them with more impressionist versions.

time travel?

Take me to the church of the KLF.

I found a KLF cassette today in a thrift store for 50 cents. xmas miracle imo

That is exceptionally fortuitous.

I've actually got so used to the versions on this album, I no longer notice they're not the originals. And this album is just instant happy.

Was hoping to see The White Room projected at this KLF-inspired exhibition, but was in the wrong part of the country.

i was really disappointed by the 3AM mix 12" i bought at the time.

Has anyone read the book that came out recently? (About them, not by them.) Has ILX discussed that already and I missed it?

I've studiously avoided the documentaries and videos and films and things because... well, I don't want to destroy the illusion that it was all terrifically *fun*. Also, just not wanting to separate fact from myth because the myth was so fantastic. I *want* to believe it. But, also, at the same time, I'm kinda curious.

Read the book and it added to the myth for me, go for it.

^ otm

Book was fantastic. Highly recommended.

OK, I was hoping that the Bill Drummond obsession would die with my hangover, but I am now resolved to read this book. Thanks for the recommendations!

bound for mu mu land atm

In the end, we are *all* bound for Mu-Mu land.

It is strange, though, to come to things I once loved unreservedly, with new eyes. Watching those wonderful KLF videos of yore, which at the time were so amazingly over the top and just incredible and strange, and now this twinge of discomfort and "did they really just do that?"

You can never really look at the art of the past with today's eyes and see it the same way (Lex and I joking over Boxing Day lunch: can you ~imagine~ the controversy on Twitter, had the Windowlicker been released today? Hahahahahah... oh god.) and is it even really appropriate to talk about "cultural appropriation" with regards to an artist whose entire raison d'etre was "appropriation" in every way, shape and form. But a lot of stuff that was "let's put culture in a blender" at that point does read kinda differently now and it feels dishonest to pretend it's just not there. Cressida jumping up and down wearing a Native American head-dress between someone dressed as a Viking and someone in Xhosa warrior gear seemed all "rave is beyond time and space and culture itself!!!" at the time and now is a a bit "hmmm." But still. Nostalgia wins.

or maybe "rave is plugged into a set of global historical practices"? don't think twice it's alright

From my distant memories (I was a. in my late teens/early 20s when this music came out and b. in another country) it was part of a whole ecstasy-fuelled ethos of "in rave there is no black nor white, in rave there is no east nor west, in rave there is no man nor woman, Jew nor gentile etc." which was written into the music from inception (listening to Can You Feel It specifically right now, as this being what House Music was about) and much of the imagery which reads now as "appropriation" was written within the spirit of that moment and that philosophy.

It's also interesting that my copy of the White Room (I have the American reissue of course, because this is the only legal way to own it - haha, I feel like I'm disregarding artistic intention by owning it "legally" in and of itself) all of the samples are credited, and more specifically, all of the vocalists are credited. I do not remember what the original records were like (had some on cassette, some on 12", all long gone) - if this was the KLF legally covering their arses after their prior experiences with copyright liberation. Or if it was a deliberate statement against artists like e.g. C&C Music Factory? who would sample one woman on the record, then have another (younger, thinner, more commercial) woman "interpreting" the vocals in videos and performances? It just seems such an "of its time" moment.

When "thinking too hard about stuff" becomes part of the pleasure of listening to it.

I hadn't heard there was a book on the KLF until this thread was revived. I've just finished reading it and it was tremendous - it ties together a lot of stuff I'm interested in outside the KLF in a satisfying and surprising way and the author's 'magical thinking' explanation for burning the million quid is hilariously provocative and entirely in the mythmaking spirit of the KLF.

The white room album felt compromised at the time, but on retrieval it's actually a "Keep for all time" great record.

The 'original' was on Spotify last year until 'someone' 'noticed'..

recent(ish) book is so so good

I wish I could find out for myself! I ordered it off the Guardian over a week ago, but of course it hasn't turned up. :-/

So so good

This is an amazing book. And is bringing together so many different threads of things I had been interested in. In so many ways.

But I really don't know if this is a good book for me to be reading right now.

I just really hope they get their souls back.

If you have Amazon Prime and a Kindle in the US, you can "borrow" this book for free - not sure about the UK.

Oh, what a chiz of an ending! Why oh why did I keep reading on past the warning of "if you are satisfied with magical thinking, stop here and proceed on to the epilogue"?

After setting up this entire rollicking tale, encompassing everything from Discordianism and the JFK assassination to the fall of communism and the birth of rave, with bits of Dada and situationsim and psychogeography and the Liverpool punk scene, plus digressions and discourses on the nature of Art and Magic and the Collective Subconscious and the social construct that is money, liberally watched over by Celtic giant rabbit spirits, and basically whipping this huge stringy mess into the most amazing and contrived of fantastic synchronicities, he then goes and... Well, I won't spoiler it for those who haven't read it. But I feel like a child who has had the most wonderful confection displayed in front of their greedy eyes, only to have it whipped away at the last minute and replaced with the chopped spinach of a Moral Lesson.

Bah.

I feel like I should read the Illuminatus! trilogy again (though after reading the Cosmic Trigger trilogy, kinda disillusioned with Robert Anton Wilson). And also read more of Drummond's own books, though I still get the feeling that he doesn't really understand what he did/what happened to him any more than anyone else. It's a very good thing that the book dispells the image of Drummond and Cauty as master manipulators and paints them more as a couple of incredibly lucky people who almost stumbled into their own brilliant ideas.

Is this the book being talked about?
http://www.amazon.ca/KLF-Chaos-Magic-Music-Money-ebook/dp/B00ABFHOS0/

Yes! Ignore my carping above; it's awesome, read it.

I just got one, I recognise the preface which is how far I've got so far, Looking forward to more..

Then again, how are you placed to write the alt:fic version?

I don't understand. Are you suggesting I write KLF fan fiction?

Would it work?

I used to have the same thoughts (well, similar) about the automaton machines that made up the lineup of the Art of Noise. Then they went out of their way to be some blokes and a really great pianist.

No. That would be a very bad idea.

OK, I used them as background characters in the back story of one character in one fiction once, but... NO. NO THIS WOULD BE A BAD IDEA.

put the films in yr digital archive instead!

I feel like I found some sort of hidden treasure in the used bins today when I saw Shag Times. Picked it up without hesitation. Love it when I find early KLF in the wild

Double LP version fwiw.

good find.

some of the extra remixes/tracks are a bit superfluous but its a good collection of their various singles.

Richard King, via Twitter...

"Interviews with Bill Drummond & Jimmy Cauty that I couldn't fit into 'How Soon Is Now?' The K Foundation Tapes: http://www.how-soon.com/index.php/blog/entry/the_k_foundation_tapes";

was doing some reading on this album and saw that 3 AM Eternal hit #5 on the Billboard chart in 1991. What kind of radio stations played it?

it was #1 in the uk!

I remember it being on the radio all the time, because I used to listen to it while driving, and there was no tape deck. But I can't remember what kind of stations were playing it.

In addition to 3AM Eternal, Unbelievable by EMF, Right Here Right Now by Jesus Jones, Silent Morning by Noel, True Faith by New Order and other Freestyle/dance tracks made a dent in the charts in the late 80s/early 90s.

The videos for "3AM Eternal" and "Justified and Ancient" got some MTV rotation.

I just found this album for $1.50 and am listening to it for the first time. It's really good. Very much enjoying.

3am was on the top 40 station a LOT here.