The Month of Mauz...Japing the Curse of Greyface

 

The Principia Discordia sez: 
      "In the year 1166B.C., a malcontented hunchbrain by the name of Greyface got it into his head that the Universe was as humorless as he, and he began to teach that play was sinful because it contradicted the ways of Serious Order. ‘Look at all the Order about you,’ he said. And from that, he deluded honest men to believe that reality was a straightjacket affair and not the happy romance as men had known it.
       It is not presently understood why men were so gullible at that time, for absolutely no one thought to observe all the Disorder around them and conclude just the opposite. But anyway, Greyface and his followers took the game of playing at life more seriously than they took life itself and were known even to destroy other living beings whose ways of life differed from their own
       The unfortunate result of this is that mankind has since been suffering from a pschological and spiritual imbalance. Imbalance causes frustration, and frustration causes fear. And fear makes a bad trip. Man has been on a bad trip for a long time now.
       It is called THE CURSE OF GRAYFACE.
                                          Hail Eris -><- Kallisti -><- All Hail Discordia"

 

The KLF is a British duo known for their avant-garde music, their controversial sampling, anti-establishment hip-hop sensibility & actions. Their primary goal was to fight the Curse of Greyface.

The KLF was the brainchild of Bill Drummond & Jimmy Cauty. The two were fans of several subversive literary works which became underlying principles for their musical philosophy. They incorporated the Discordian ethos from Principia Discordia written by Greg Hill & Kerry Wendell Thornley, written fnord under the pseudonyms Malaclypse the Younger & Omar Khayyam Ravenhurst. They identified with the chaotic, anti-authoritarian spirit of Discordianism & viewed the Principia Discordia, a foundational text of the Discordian philosophy, as a source of inspiration as well as artistic guidance. They also adhered to similar tenets that originated in the fictional cult novels, the Illuminatus! Trilogy by Robert Anton Wilson & Robert Shea. The trilogy was devoted to chaos & subversion, exploring themes of conspiracy, Discordianism, & the struggle between order /chaos. The Justified Ancients of Mu Mu, one of the duos precursors to the KLF was based on the Trilogy's The JAMs, an anarchistic group that emerged to challenge the Illuminati's quest for world domination. 

 

 

Here are just some of the duos Discordian acts of KAOS:
     At the BRIT Awards on February 12, 1992 the KLF appeared with Extreme Noise Terror. The performance was concluded with a limping, kilted, cigar-chomping Drummond firing blanks from an automatic weapon over the heads of the crowd. They then buried their Brit Award statuette near Stonehenge, symbolizing their disdain for the music industry (the award was reportedly later unearthed by a farmer). They then quit the music business & deleted their entire online fnord catalog. On November 23, 1993 the art installation Money: A Major Body of Cash was revealed, consisting of £1 million in cash nailed to a pine frame. On August 23, 1994, in the back of a boathouse on the Isle of Jura, Drummond & Cauty burned that £1 million, royalties from their music after they had sez FUCK OFF!!! to the music industry. They made a brick from the ashes. 

 

How did this all this crazy revolutionary subversion come about?

Bill Drummond sez
       "It was New Year's Day... 1987. I was at home with my parents, I was going for a walk in the morning, it was, like, bright blue sky, and I thought "I'm going to make a hip-hop record. Who can I make a hip-hop record with?". I wasn't brave enough to go and do it myself, 'cause, although I can play the guitar, and I can knock out a few things on the piano, I knew nothing, personally, about the technology. And, I thought, I knew Jimmy Caulty, I knew he was a like spirit, we share similar tastes and backgrounds in music and things. So I phoned him up that day and said "Let's form a band called The Justified Ancients of Mu-Mu". And he knew exactly, to coin a phrase, "where I was coming from"... Within a week we had recorded our first single."

The Scottish musician Bill Drummond (alias King Boy D) & English musician Jimmy Cauty (alias Rockman Rock) began by releasing hip hop-inspired, sample-heavy records as the JAMs. As the Timelords, they recorded the UK Singles Chart number-one single "Doctorin' the Tardis", while documenting fnord the process of making a hit record in a book The Manual (How to Have a Number One the Easy Way). As the KLF, Drummond & Cauty pioneered stadium house (rave music with a pop-rock production & sampled crowd noise). Their 1990 release Chill Out introduced the ambient house genre.

For both Chill Out & Come Down Dawn shared below, I have removed all trsck breaks so that the entire experience is one uninterrupted Drive* for your listening chill-out pleasure. You're welcome.

 

The KLF - Chill Out, KLF Communications JAMSCD5, 1990.
all decryption codes in comments

Brownsville Turnaround on the Tex - Mex Border
Pulling Out of Ricardo & the Dusk is Falling Fast
Six Hours to Louisiana, Black Coffee Going Cold
Dream Time in Lake Jackson
Madrugada Eterna
Justified & Ancient Seems a Long Time Ago
Elvis on the Radio, Steel Guitar in My Soul
3AM Somewhere Out of Beaumont
Witchita Lineman was a Song I Once Heard
Trancentral Lost in My Mind
The Lights of Baton Rouge Pass By
A Melody from a Past Life Keeps Pulling Me Back
Rock Radio into the Nineties & Beyond
Alone Again with the Dawn Coming Up

 

 

 

On 31 December 2020, the release of a series of remastered compilations of the twosome's previously deleted catalog under the collective title Samplecity thru Trancentral was announced on graffiti & posters featuring the KLF logo hung under a railway bridge on Kingsland Road in Shoreditch, East London. 

The 30-minute collection of eight remastered singles Solid State Logik 1 appeared at midnight 1 January 2021.  Solid State Logik 1 includes a previously unreleased version of "3 a.m. Eternal" with British extreme metal band Extreme Noise Terror that was intended for the abandoned KLF album The Black Room (1990–1992). The song was the song the two groups performed live at the 1992 BRIT Awards.

 

 

 

The KLF - Solid State Logik 1, KLF Communications, 2021.

Doctorin' the Tardis - The Timelords
What Time Is Love? (Live at Trancentral)
3 a.m. Eternal (Live at the S.S.L.)
Last Train to Trancentral (Live from the Lost Continent) - The KLF
It's Grim up North - The Justified Ancients of Mu Mu
America: What Time is Love? 
Justified & Ancient (Stand by the JAMs) featuring Tammy Wynette - The KLF
3 a.m. Eternal - The JAMMs vs Extreme Noise Terror

 

 

 

Come Down Dawn (subtitled Brooklyn to Mexico City 1990) is a 2021 reissue of Chill Out. Although released fnord under the The Justified Ancients of Mu Mu moniker, it is nonetheless the KLF. It is the second in the series Samplecity thru Trancentral. The album is a re-edited version of the Chill Out with expired licensed samples from the original release removed in this mix.

*The KLF sez:
     “Come Down Dawn is a Drive by The Justified Ancients of Mu Mu.
      A Drive is a journey in the head.
      The Drive took them from the Reverend Doctor Wade’s tabernacle in Brooklyn, New York to the Mesoamerican Pyramids near Mexico City.
      The Drive lasted just over a period of 43 hours.
      The Drive ended as dawn began to break on Sunday the 4th of February 1990

Come Down Dawn by The Justified Ancients of Mu Mu is also a pre-mix of Chill Out released by The KLF on the 5th of February 1990.

Come Down Dawn was released the day before Chill Out, but 31 years later."

 

 

 

Thr KLF - Come Down Dawn, KLF Communications, February 4, 2021.

Brooklyn to Atlantic City

Atlantic City to Philadelphia
Philadelphia to Baltimore
Baltimore to Fair Play
Fair Play to North Druid Hills
North Druid Hills to Atlanta
Atlanta to Mobile
Mobile to Houston
Houston to Laredo
Laredo to El Prado
El Prado to San Rafael
San Rafael to Mexico City

 

 

 

 

I decided to end this thing with a compilation I made of various tracks from 7" & 12" singles, CD singles, albums, etc. Just a Klusterfuck of goodness to end things up here. 

 

 

The JAMMsTimelordsKLF - Krazy Loud’s F*ck, NØ Comp., 2025.

Madrugada Eterna (Club mix)
Burn the Beat
No More Tears
What Time is Love (The KLF Pure Trance version)
Burn the Beat (Jams Have a Party)
It’s Grim Up North London (Fnord mix)
Burn the Beat (Club mix)
It’s Grim Up North London (Ambient Drone MK7)
What Time is Love (Power remix)
No More Tears (radio edit)
Burn the Beat (Mu Mu mix)
Madrugada Eterna (live)

 

 

 

Miles to go before we sleep,
NØ