Magnus Rosman with AMF
In 2015 from somewhere arrived Magnus Rosman with AMF and their high budgeted take on 3am Eternal. We have no explanation, but it can be found on here – maybe more information when we have it.
01 01 2017 KLF What The Fuck Found VHS
Then on the 1st of January 2017 a very rough and ready video mash up “documentary” was uploaded onto YouTube. It seems to have the title: 01 01 2017 KLF What The Fuck Found VHS.
The faction in The Society who think the whole idea of a KLF action Lego movie would be the ultimate sellout, cite this film as the only true KLF documentary that could ever be made. We on The Kommittee have no idea who made it or where they might be hiding. We would like to know. This is the LINK. Also mirrored here.
The Discovery of America
Maybe the greatest proto-re-enactors were The KLF themselves. In late 1991, on the 007 Stage at Pinewood Studios, under the direction of Bill Butt, The KLF made their widescreen video for America: What Time is Love? For this they used a fake Viking longboat, left over from the Terry Jones film Erik the Viking. As for the crew of this fake Viking longboat The KLF, enlisted the services of a very real Viking re-enactment society. And together they re-enacted Leif Erikson’s “discovery” of America, which happened almost 500 years earlier than Christopher Columbus’s so called ‘discovery’.
There are those that argue Columbus was in fact a re-enactor of Erikson. But we in The Society feel that one can only be a re-enactor if you are aware of your re-enactmant.
Maybe it is time to go and listen to 96 Tears by ? & The Mysterians, to get your proto-re-enactment mind in motion.
THE HOLY GRAIL
There always has to be a Holy Grail.
The to-do-list for any common-or-garden KLF re-enactment society might include the following:
Graffiti the Thames facing wall of the National Theatre with the words “2027 What The Fuck is Going On?
Burn the remaining copies of your ‘vinyl only’ first album in a field in Sweden.
Create a crop circle based on your Pyramid Blaster logo in a field in England.
Become a one hit wonder then perform your novelty hit on 2028’s Christmas Day Top of the Pops with Prince Andrew as your special guest vocalist, while you dress up as members of the KKK.
Remake the film The Rites of Mu with Charlie Sheen doing the narration.
Become the second most streamed artist in the world for 2031.
Bury your 2032 BRIT award for “best band of the year” at the top of Silbury Hill.
Drive your Ice Kream Van over the White Cliffs of Dover, while imagining there is an overhead Spitfire fly past in your honour.
But the Holy Grail of any such to-do-list for your common-or-garden KLF re-enactment society would be to burn one million pounds sterling, in the early hours of the 23rd of August 2034, in a derelict boathouse, on a remote Scottish island. Sadly this last one will remain a Holy Grail due to one or all of the following three reasons:
Inflation has eroded the dreams of finding yourself with one million pounds to do what the fuck you like with.
Paper money no longer exists, as paper money is now made from polymer because it is cleaner, safer and stronger and will not burn in the same rewarding way as paper money used to when it was made from paper.
Paper money no longer exists, as all money is now digital.
Luckily for you, as a member of not just any common-or-garden KLF re-enactment society, but as a member of The KLF Re-Enactment Society, your to-do-list can be a lot more conceptual, creative and challenging than the one above.
Remember…
Lateral Not Literal
THE MIRROR HOLDERS
For now we see through a glass darkly
But then face to face
Now I know in part
But then shall I know even as also I am known
For any KLF re-enactment society to flourish there needs to be Mirror Holders. Especially if they are free of a London-centric media elite mind set.
The KLF Re-Enactment Society are very lucky that there has been a tradition of these Mirror Holders that goes way back several decades to when a fifteen year old school boy from East Grinstead wrote and self-published Justified & Ancient: The Unfolding Story of The KLF.
The mirrors they hold will not only reflect what they see, they will also refract light given off by the times we are crawling through.
The refracted light in turn enlightens the darkened corners.
And sometimes it helps if the mirror is cracked.
The cracked mirror can always be relied upon to reveal unseen if unwanted truths.
And sometimes it helps if we whisper to ourselves quietly that quote from Paul’s First Epistle to the Corinthians that has been used as a quote at the top of this section.
Since the dawning of the digital age there has been a number of these Mirror Holders using the online world as their medium of reflection and refraction. The cracked digital platform doing as good a job as a real cracked mirror ever did.
In a remote corner of rural Ireland hides a Facebook page called Searching For The White Room. We are informed that it has continuously explored the backwaters of the various KLF histories since 2012.
In middle Europe there is an unofficial website called www.klf.de
From 1997 this website has chronicled KLF connected events past, present and future, all with a Germanic slant.
In Brighton by the Sea, a holder of particularly cracked mirror, revealed how the actions taken on that remote Scottish island in 1994 was the first domino to fall that led the financial crash in 2008.
And there is a site that states it is “The unofficial press archive for The KLF, also known as The Justified Ancients of Mu Mu, further more known as The JAMs.” The site is called www.whatthefu.uk
And a Welcome To The Dark Ages website driven by the unknown Mirror Holder, holding a mirror up to the darkness.
Then there is Wikipedia.
The multi layered circular referential universe of Wikipedia.
Almost since Wikipedia’s inception back in 2001, there have been numerous KLF related pages. These have been driven by an international editorial team, None of whom have ever knowingly conversed directly or indirectly with The KLF.
There might be Facebook groups that rise up and fall apart.
And Twitter accounts doing what Twitter does.
And films that get released or don’t get released.
And books published in London waiting for sales that might never come.
Then there is Andy Gell, with his self-published library of books detailing events and expressing opinions. Andy Gell is a solid gold Mirror Holder for life. His books can be found at the usual online sources.
But even more important than his books is The 400 Remix Project by The 400 that Andy Gell has curated. You can listen and find out more by clicking on their Band Camp page here.
And then there is the Boudica of Our Dark Ages – Vicky Pea, with what must be one of the most inspiring blogs ever written about those months and weeks and days and hours and moments that led up to and tipped us all from the times of proto-re-enactments into the unfolding Wild West age of Re-Enactments.
Visit Vicky Pea’s KLF Khronicals at Planet Slop and weep.
All of this…
All of this, from the 15 year old Peter Robinson’s opening lines of Justified & Ancient: The Unfolding Story of The KLF back in 1992, to yesterday’s updated edit on The KLF Wikipedia page, by Monkbot.
All of this, be it driven by a yearning for a lost youth, or a need to put the world to rights, or celebrate what can be, and should be, and will be – What is and What Should Never Be, or just to fill in the dark hours during another lockdown in the making, is fuel for not just any klf re-enactment society but Thee KLF Re-Enactment Society… The Society.
This Society.
Your Society.
Be it the minimalist neo-realist classic that is the Ice Kream Van as a shopping trolley or a month long residency at the Camden Roundhouse by The Legendry Texas Timeboys (the hardest working KLF tribute band still on the road), performing their take on Chill Out (Elvis Presley samples included), with or without the Messerschmitt* fly past.
*The Messerschmitt having The Pyramid Blaster icon replacing that of the Luftwaffe cross on its fuselage and wings.
Lateral Not Literal Versus Literal Not Lateral
Earlier in this inaugural address, we hinted at the factionalism that could undermine the unity of purpose of our Society – and our hope that these divisions could be healed in the future.
But we are also aware, it could be those very divisions, and the debates they inspire, that are the flux our Society needs to bind us, thus survive the challenges of the coming decades.
As must be obvious to the majority of members of The Society, we, on The Kommittee, come from a more New Lateral way of approaching our responsibilities.
Our leaning towards the New Lateral approach in KLF Re-Enactment, was spawned by the damage done to lives, and the lives of family members brought on by the more Hard Literal approach, reflected in actions taken in a derelict boat house, on a remote Scottish island, several decades ago.
We are aware that there are some in The Society who thought we should have taken a more Hard Literal approach to our Re-Enactment of the album formerly known as Chill Out, rather than the New Lateral approach we chose to take in Chapter Three of Samplecity Thru Trancentral, a chapter currently known as Come Down Dawn.
Our Three Score Years and Ten have been almost spent.
Our time on The Kommittee will not last, will come to an end.
There will be young and hungry members that will rise up to take our place. They will want to stir the pot and shake things up.
We are all aware, there are those on the Hard Literal wing of The KLF Re-Enactment Society, who will stop at nothing until there is a West End musical that is a total Hard Literal type Re-Enactment of all of the Top of the Pops performances given by The Timelords, The Justified Ancients of Mu Mu and The KLF, presented by the real Dave Lee Travis and featuring the real Gary Glitter. Even the one where The KLF flew to Tokyo for the expresses purpose of standing on a hill with Mount Fuji in the background with a live camera link through to the Top of the Pops studio, so they, The KLF did not have to actually perform Justified & Ancient on Tops of the Pops but instead could introduce the video of it starring Tammy and Ricky (Ricardo Da Force).
And the acid trip The KLF had afterwards.
Lost and lonely in the streets of Tokyo at 3am.
And the death of Freddy.
And the death of Ricky.
And the death of Tammy.
And the death of Top of the Pops.
And the jailing of Dave Lee Travis.
And the jailing of Garry Glitter.
And Jonathan King asking to manage The KLF.
And the jailing of Jonathan King.
All on stage in a Shaftsbury Avenue theatre with coaches coming in from Cardiff and Liverpool and Leeds.
Andrew Lloyd Webber will weep.
New Lateral Versus Hard Literal
Hard Literal Versus New Lateral
Our very own Yin and Yang.
But…
But…
But…
You see that is where the Hard Literal can get things wrong, All that attention to detail and they miss the fact it was the video for America: What Time is Love? and not Justified & Ancient that The KLF introduced on Top of the Pops while standing on a hill with Mount Fuji in the background. The Justified & Ancient Top of the Pops was the one where they appeared live in the BBC studio dressed up as The Ice Kream Kones (The IKK), with a live link to Tammy Wynette from a gig she was doing somewhere in the Deep South. If you are going to lean to the Literal at least get your facts right. And why not invite Sparks as special guests to perform Number One Song In Heaven.
And in an attempt to bring this first annual address to The KLF Re-Enactment Society to an almost close, we will return to the musical analogies that we have laboured with earlier…
So…
Like that moment when Siouxsie, from the Bromley Contingent, said “I’ve always wanted to meet you” and Bill Grundy responded “Did you really? We’ll meet afterwards, shall we?” being the moment the tectonic plates of a generation irrevocably shifted.
Or…
If dance music is more your thing – that moment down at Heaven on a Monday night in April ’88 and Oakenfold has just dropped the needle into Frankie Knuckles take on Baby Wants To Ride and you ask yourself “What time Is love?” being the very moment you knew that music could never sound the same again.
Was…
The same in every Lateral way possible as when Philip K Blake rode his fake Ford Timelord recklessly up and down Bold Street late in the evening of the 22nd of August 2017 being the moment KLF re-enactment truly lost its “proto” prefix.
Now I lay me down to sleep
I pray the Lord my soul to keep
And if I die before I wake
I pray the Lord my soul to take
And now…
We, The Kommittee of The KLF Re-Enactment Society would like to acknowledge with gratitude the following for their ongoing input into the archiving of the pre-history of The Society:
Andy Gell; Mark Silver; James E; Darren Tyler; Andy Lee; Jethro R Binks; Matthew Dixon; Clarkson Clarkson; John Barrett; Better For Birds; Taras Young; Eric Floyd; Mark Rolfe; Israel Sánchez Fuster; Lee Holden; Ghislain Rozet; Erik Jorgenson; Matt Wells; Mr. Hopkinson; Peter Robinson; Nick Gilmour; rh morgan; Paul Jeff; Jim McCauley; Dominic Parker; Tom Edwards; Andrew McCombe; Gary Aster; Ian Redfern; Stuart Betts; Darren Tyler; Stephen Rennicks; Bill Perry; Simon Stokes; Fredrik Wik Clarke; Snafu Principle; Stephen Clarke 1980; Chris Payne; Dominic Wade; Blazblog Overseer; Bill Butt; Jai Nelson, Thomas Touzimsky, Andrew Moss, Jim McCauley…
And counting.
If you know any names or missing information or have pictorial evidence of any of the above re-enactments or overlooked proto-re-enactments, please forward them to history@klfrs.com.
And one day all of this growing list of names will be added to The KLF Re-Enactment Society’s Wall of Fame.
Yours Sincerely,
The Kommittee
@ The KLF Re-Enactment Society
As you are probably aware, as members of The KLF Re-Enactment Society ourselves, our first major work, is what we hope to be a lateral telling of the story of the recorded output of The Justified Ancients of Mu Mu, The Timelords, The KLF etc etc. This story is entitled Samplecity Thru Trancentral. This story is being told in various chapters, over several months, using the medium of streaming.
We will also be starting work on our other major re-enactment – The Brixton Tapestry. This as its name implies will be a re-enactment of the legend of Justified Ancients of Mu Mu using the medium of tapestry.
No member of a serious re-enactment society likes to think of what they are doing as a hobby but…
We on The Kommittee have to fit our re-enactment responsibilities, as time allows, around our day jobs as pyramid builders at K2 Plant Hire Ltd. And on that topic we hope to see some you at the next Toxteth Day of the Dead – Great Pandemic willing.
In the meantime we encourage you to take the moments, episodes, epochs in the story of The KLF in whatever way your imagination guides you and with whatever medium you choose. And then forward to us, The Kommittee, whatever documentation you have, so we can present it and celebrate it as best we can to the world on this The Society’s website.
And you can rest assured it will remain free of Like buttons and ratings out of ten.
Good Luck.
On uploading the The First Annual Address to The KLF Re-Enactment Society (KLFRS), on the 15th of February 2021, we on the Kommittee received numerous communications from around the globe, informing us of other substantial proto-re-enactments, Re-Enactments and Mirror Holdings. This has prompted us to add this Post The Postscript section to The Address. It is here that we will add information concerning these substantial proto-re-enactments, Re-Enactments and Mirror Holdings over the coming days, weeks and months.
This information will be uploaded and added to as we receive the information, thus not in historical order
Snafu Principle
One of the first we on The Kommittee received was an email from someone or something calling itself Snafu Principle. It read as follows:
To The KLF Re-enactment Society,
The catalogue of KLF re-enactments will never be complete, and even determining the criteria for inclusion is a fools errand.
But on August 23rd 2017 at the stroke of midnight, just as The Ice Kream Van emerged in Bold St and the tail lights of Ford Timelord disappeared ahead of it, a mysterious recording emerged from Snafu Principle, purporting to be the work of Rockman Rock and Kingboy D
"2017 WTF is Going On" reconstructed and updated 1987, replacing the original censored samples with their 2017 equivalents - with Ed Sheeran playing the part of Sam Fox, and Donald Trump as Petula Clark. No new music.
In those heady Liverpool days almost anything seemed possible, and perhaps it was. Rumours and counter-rumours flew, and Snafu Principle would perhaps have finally received the adulation they deserved had Badger Kull not stolen the stage. Despondent, but not dejected, Snafu Principle would subsequently attempt to re-invent ambient house through re-releasing "Spaced" using entirely new sources, but by then it was too late. The damage was done, the contradictions were embraced and the black coffee was going cold.
The ambiguities remain, but no history of KLF re-enactments would be complete without mention of this episode.
Snafu Principle.
X.
Click here and listen.