I am kicking myself about errors I made in yesterday’s blog post. You probably spotted them.
In my developing knowledge of “all things K”, I made a slip about the incinerated money. It was not US $20,000, but a considerably larger quantity in pounds sterling. I am also informed it was not attention seeking, but a work of art. GANTOB notes her acts of “Destruktion” were in part a tribute. There is so much to learn.
GANTOB has advised, again, that I start at the beginning, which I have been attempting over recent days with help from YouTube and a John Higgs book.
GANTOB has mentioned two of her favourite tracks from the 1987 album, when they were not yet The KLF, but rather The Justified Ancients of Mu Mu (JAMs). These are Me Ru Con and Next. I have not heard either track. Instead, I have been working through the album racily titled Shag Times (Circa 1987). I enjoyed Don’t take Five (Take What You Want). I loved the Dave Brubeck original, playing both sides of the 7″ to destruction in my undergraduate days in the early 1960s, the near-stumble of the extra beat in Blue Rondo a la Turk forcing things on.
I see the jazz influences in the JAMs track. The call and response, apparently improvised, between the “Red Clydeside rappers“. Or at least that is how I heard it on JAMs tracks while immersing myself in the topic over recent days. I liked the idea of two tough guys from the west of Scotland, no prior recording experience, battling it out over a microphone. I could see the parallels from my previous ministrations to congregations of dockers in Leith in the late 1960s and 1970s.
But my reading on the topic, including my growing mystification on reading the individual biographies of The JAMs/ KLF, has highlighted my second error in yesterday’s blog. It was only Bill Drummond (AKA King Boy D) rapping. Jimmy Cauty is not Scottish. So, it’s “Clydeside rapping” rather than “Clydeside rappers”.
I took this up with GANTOB. We agreed that the rules of Kreative Tyranny mean that we should not go back and “korrekt”. We should keep learning fool. But, accepting the contradictions, we also agreed that understanding The KLF’s output retrospectively, from the perspective of somebody who missed them completely until late 2023, could be the focus for some future blogs.
THE BENEFAKTOR
Friday 29 September 2023
GANTOB blog 