As 1988 drew to a close, the media projects of Bill and Jimmy (now firmly called "The KLF") became manifold. Although it would be another eighteen months before they had their next hit record (much to the detriment of their own coffers) by that autumn they were swimming in cash, following the worldwide success of "Tardis" (and despite so much royalties having to be given away to various parties). Their projects in late 1988/early 1989 were as follows:
The Pure Trance Series
(1) Announced in October 1988, and following on from some of their "Minimal" mixes from the JAMMs days, a series of ten singles (five originals and five remixes), limited to 2000 copies each, were planned in the run up to Christmas 1988. These were called "Pure Trance", and were Bill and Jimmy's attempt to create instrumental tracks that were "pure music", and not caught up with lyrics or clever political samples. Sleeves and labels were pressed for the first four singles, and they were given titles - "Pure Trance 1 What Time is Love", "Pure Trance 2 3AM Eternal", "Pure Trance 3 Love Trance" and "Pure Trance 4 Turn Up The Strobe". Labels and sleeves for "Pure Trance 5" are considerably more rare, and have varying titles including "E-Train to Trancentral", "Last Train to Trancentral" and "The White Room".
In November 1988, the first "Pure Trance" single was released, a song which ten years later Bill would describe as "our three-note warhorse" - "What Time is Love?" Remixed again and again in subsequent years, the original version was a seven minute instrumental (or fourteen, if you count both sides) with indesipherable vocal woos, bearing more than a slight resemblence to "Judas' Death" from 'Jesus Christ Superstar' and Anne Clark's "Our Darkness". According to the KLF, the single sank without trace - and the "Pure Trance" singles project stalled for another six months until May 1989.
The White Room Movie
(2) For me, one of the most annoying aspects to the KLF's career is, occasionally, when their ideas went wrong, and they obstinately refused to admit it. 1989 was a year with more of those than normal. "The White Room" started off with a Contract - a legally binding document sent to Drummond and Cauty by a mysterious person/organisation called "Eternity". The contract stated that the KLF had to document their travels to a place called "The White Room" in any medium they cared - if they did it successfully, then they would get the keys to the real white room (even though, no one ever said what was inside it). Bill and Jimmy signed this contract, much to the anger and dismay of their lawyer David Franks. It could well have all been all bollocks cooked up by Bill and Jimmy and some of their close confidants - but in legal eyes the contract was still a contract, and Franks spent some time looking for a loophole out (this inspired one of Bill and Jimmy's unused aliases: the Forever Ancients Liberation Loophoole, or the Fall).
As Franks poured over the Contract, the KLF arranged to document their travels to "The White Room". Initially, Jimmy (a reknowned illustrator, who had famously drawn the "Lord of the Rings" poster for Athena as a teenager, and had lived off the profits more or less ever since) planned a comic book, but this was rapidly sidelined in favour of a "road movie". This may seem absurdly ambition, but back in 1988 U2 were big box office with "Rattle and Hum", and the Pet Shop Boys "It Couldn't Happen Here" was a perplexing oddity. In November 1988, following the release (and deletion) of "What Time is Love", the KLF - and a film crew who had just finished working on "Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade" - travelled out to Sierra Nevada in Spain, along with their car Ford Timelord, to film hours and hours of footage of them driving and walking, in the stark winter sunshine (and occasional pouring rain) of Andalucia. After Christmas, more scenes were filmed back in London, including footage of them driving along the Embankment, and a party in the stage area of the Trancentral squat. Upon looking at the rushes, though, Bill and Jimmy were horrified to see how scrappy and dark the raw footage looked, and by Spring 1988, the "White Room" movie (as opposed to the album) was on hiatus.
The Orb
(3) At some point in late 1988, Jimmy Cauty initially teamed up with Alex Patterson, working at the home studio in Trancentral, as "The Orb" (named after the sex-robot-ball in Woody Allen's futuristic comedy "Sleeper"). Long sessions produced juddery, semi-instrumental acid house - very, very different to the later, laguid ambient. More later, when I post all of Jimmy's Orb's output!
Disco 2000
(4) After two singles produced by and under the Justified Ancients of Mu Mu banner, Disco 2000 (Cressida Cauty and Mo - possible June Montana from Brilliant?) released their third and final single, a truly dreadful cover of Stevie Wonder's "Uptight". There was a certain amount of promotion push for the single - a video (complete with Bill and Jimmy in the wings) was produced, and a CD single was made available, in Belgium only, on the Benelux label. The single is of particular interest because of the b-side "Mr Hotty Loves You", a trance instrumental written by the husband and wife team of Jimmy and Cressida. One final Disco 2000 track (under the name Discotec 2000) called "Feel This" also appeared later on in 1989, on a compilation called "Eternity Project One".
The Manual - How To Have a Number One The Easy Way
(5) This is probably one of the most famous things the KLF ever did - their book, initially released through their own KLF Communications label (KLF009b) in February 1989, and then reprinted in miniature format ten years later, before finally being pressed up as a spoken word 2-CD set (in German) called "Das Handbuch" in 2003. The text is written by both Bill and Jimmy, in a first person "we" style, and covers the full recording and releasing process for a certain kind of pop music at the end of the 1980s. The jokes are funny, the experiences practical, and the whole thing feels a million miles away from their (to me) rather tiresome "White Room" mystical Mu Mu bollocks. Famously, the KLF offered a prize to any band who took the advice in "The Manual" literally and managed to get a UK number one (the prize being, if I recall, a meal on a Carribean island with Bill and Jimmy). In the end, one band, German duo Edelweiss, came very close, following a lot of the book's advice with their Abba-sampling yodel-fest "Bring Me Edelweiss", although they never actually got to the top spot in Britain. A prize (of sorts) was given anyway - their producer, Jurgen Koeppers, was offerred the opportunity to remix "What Time is Love" for the German/Austrian market in late 1989. This became the rare (in the UK) "Power Mix".
"Shag Times (The Justified Ancients of Mu Mu Circa 1987)" JAMSLP/CD3
(6) A massive promotional push ensued for "The Manual" book (even involving television interviews, with Bill and Jimmy fresh from "The White Room" set in their fake Sparks/Cheech and Chong moustaches). But the corresponding compilation LP, "Shag Times", experienced much less promotion - other than one review in "Q" magazine which stated it was a great "party" album. "Shag Times" was a double LP, the first disk credited to the Justified Ancients of Mu Mu and the second credited to the KLF (and sometimes given a different title: "Towards the Trance"). Disk one included all the JAMMs and Timelords singles up to May 1988, as well as a couple of album tracks. Disk two was a more eclectic mix of remixes, b-sides and Disco 2000 tracks, again compiled from March 1987 to May 1988. The release also contained facsimiles of a selection of music press interviews and reviews on the inner sleeve (or inlay sleeve), and was the first KLF release to be issued as a CD (as opposed to a video CD).
Sadly, as many KLF collectors know to their cost, early UK KLF CDs (JAMSCD3, JAMSCD4 and occasionally JAMSCD5, as well as KLF010CD) suffer from a problem known as "bronzing" or "disk rot". Produced by a company called PDO, and more specifically from a CD pressing plant in Lancashire), discs made between around 1988 and 1990 could sometimes oxidise and react with ink in CD inlay sheets, causing the outer coating to go yellow or bronze, spotting to develop, and eventually the CD to become unusable. In the case of two KLF discs (the very rare "What Time is Love Story" and "Kylie Said to Jason" CDs) there were no other options than to buy the UK discs - although happily, "Chill Out" in its UK one-track format can be bought on the Belgium Benelux label, if you can find, without the PDO disk rot problem. Also, "Shag Times" was reissued at some point in 1992 - although its providence is debatable - as a non-PDO, non-rotting disk (the safer reissue CD can be spotted by "Made in Switzerland" written above the bar code).
On vinyl, a shorter one-disc LP of "Shag Times" was issued on Rough Trade in Germany, and a reasonable bootleg double-vinyl LP appeared in 2001 (along side other KLF releases JAMSLP1, JAMSLP5 and KLF8R 12").
Cover of the Swiss reissue of JAMSCD3.
The tracklisting for "Shag Times" is as follows:
(1) All You Need Is Love (106 bpm)
(2) Don't Take Five (Take What You Want)
(3) Whitney Joins The JAMS
(4) Down Town
(5) Candyman
(6) Burn The Bastards [party & chimes outro; ford timelord's link]
(7) Doctorin' The Tardis
(8) Whitney Joins The JAMS (remix) ["114 bpm"]
(9) I Love Disco 2000 ["90 bpm"]
(10)Down Town (remix) ["118 bpm"]
(11)Burn The Beat (club mix) ["125 bpm"]
(12)Prestwich Prophet's Grin (instrumental remix) ["120 bpm"]
(13)The Porpoise Song (instrumental remix) ["118 bpm"]
(14(Doctorin' The Tardis (minimal) ["120 bpm"]