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Download PDF of “The Manual” by The KLF.

The KLF are two cats from the UK, anarchist pranksters who strategically set about to try, and succeeded at, having a number-one hit. (”Doctorin’ the Tardis.” Horrible video here) This was despite the fact that they had very little musical talent, and even bragged about that fact.

They had their hit back in 1988 under the name “The Timelords” (and borrowed / sampled a few other better hits to do it.)

In 1989, they wrote a book (downloadable above) about how to have a number-one hit, which actually tells you, step by step, what they did, and very comically explains why you’re a friggin’ idiot if you even want to have a number one hit.

They had a few more top-ten hits, some acid house stuff, and the catchy club dance hit 3 AM eternal.

Then they set fire to and burned a million pounds cash (about 1.8 million US dollars at the time), most of their earnings, and filmed it burning for a documentary. Five-part video of that starts here.

I love KLF’s attitudes and ideas. I especially love the quote below, from “The Manual.” I agree with what they say here, a lot, and have talked to many drummers over the years who also agree:

“Black American records have always been the most reliable source of dance groove. These records down through the years have inevitably laid so much emphasis on the altar of groove and so very little into fulfilling the other Golden Rules that they very rarely break through into the U.K. Top Ten, let alone making the Number One spot.

“A by-product of this situation is that gangsters of the groove from Bo Diddley on down believe they have been ripped off, not only by the business but by all the artists that have followed on from them.

“This is because the copyright laws that have grown over the past one hundred years have all been developed by whites of European descent and these laws state that fifty per cent of the copyright of any song should be for the lyrics, the other fifty per cent for the top line (sung) melody; groove doesn’t even get a look in.
“If the copyright laws had been in the hands of blacks of African descent, at least eighty per cent would have gone to the creators of the groove, the remainder split between the lyrics and the melody.
“If perchance you are reading this and you are both black and a lawyer, make a name for yourself. Right the wrongs.”

–

When I showed drummer Michael Bérubé this quote, he replied, “Damn straight. One drummin’ nation under a groove– or, as (Flavor Flav of) Public Enemy once said, ‘Y’all can’t copyright no beats’.”

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(Thanks for turning me onto this, James Jose of Australia!)

This entry was posted by Michael W. Dean on Thursday, August 23rd, 2007 at 1:05 am and is filed under Other people's cool stuff, The world is a strange and beautiful place. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.