Talk:The KLF

Needs a tidy

The article has got into a bit of a state, full of fancruft and rubbish. Anybody fancy helping me clean it up? --John (talk) 13:15, 12 July 2018 (UTC)

I've made a start by removing the worst trivia and unreferenced fancruft. Now we need somebody to go through and summarise most of the quotes. Strange to think this was once a FA. --John (talk) 21:56, 12 July 2018 (UTC)

@John: It's a real shame this got neglected and delisted. Myself and others put a lot of work into this.

I got a new time consuming job in 08 and pretty much disappeared from here, and one of the other participants was adamant that we do the work once and once only (and I kind of agree with him), so we left it to the community to look after, which they didn't. Also the copyright police removed images and media...

The last "WikiProject-approved" revision was this. Wikipedia:WikiProject The KLF has a screenshot of the happy day when The KLF were on the front page (giving Bill Drummond quite a surprise, which he wrote about in one of his later books).

I would be so happy to see the FA star sitting proudly here again. How bad a state is in the article in/how far off is it? (I daren't look). --kingboyk (talk) 08:32, 2 February 2020 (UTC)

And John has gone from the site :/ --kingboyk (talk) 08:32, 2 February 2020 (UTC)

I haven't read from top to bottom, but I've been referring to parts of the article to help flesh out 2023: a trilogy by The Justified Ancients of Mu Mu and, honestly, the bits I've read are not quite as bad as I thought. 1) Yes, there probably has been drive-by dumpings of cruft. 2) I was surprised at a lack of citations in places. This IS bad. 3) Some links are dead and the referencing style is not necessarily state of the art, but meh. That can be tidied up. 3) Structure had been messed up a little (hopefully I have fixed this). 4) Again, I haven't read from top to bottom but perhaps the article is no longer as neutral as it ought to be (or we failed last time round). We always tried to be neutral, taking pride in including negative reviews and commentary where they existed. The reviewer's line in Disco 2000 (band) (for example) that they made "possibly one of the worst records in the history of the world" gave me a little chuckle today :) 5) Inevitably, an article on this duo will contain some extraordinary statements which might otherwise raise eyebrows, but not many acts have gone from minor footnotes in the music industry to (some would say) hilariously bad rappers to chart topping pop stars on their own independent record label and then on to a disruptive art foundation, before losing the plot and burning a million quid. And the story doesn't even end there.... 6) Possibly could use some updates, but then maybe not as the 2017 reunion is covered and B&J's solo activities should be covered in their respective articles

I can't promise that I will do it (aforementioned job; not wanting to repeat my efforts etc), but maybe... maybe, it could be brought up to modern FA standards. (OK, it definitely can, but whether it will is another matter :)). I'm open to pings if I'm on Wikipedia if somebody wants to try and wants a bit of help/peer review. --kingboyk (talk) 02:58, 25 February 2020 (UTC)

I've added some info about the 2017+ reunion. I may add more in time, when I get to the sources, but I hope not to find much or anything terribly interesting as I feel the section is long enough already.

I've done some copyediting and decrufting. I haven't yet done a section by section comparison between "then and now" (i.e. comparing side by side the WikiProject approved version from 2006 to the current version to find any regressions in the article).

I'm cleaning up references as I go; in the case of those where a copy of the source is or was available at the Library of Mu I've knocked up a template and have been building up a list of citations for easy copy and pasting (i.e. format once, store in that WikiProject page, then can paste into another KLF article when encounter or want to reuse the same reference).

If anybody wants to help out, perhaps the most pressing issue is the list about the number 23 in the Illuminatus! section. The number 23 is undeniably very significant in the duo's work and history, so we need some good prose covering with citations some of the key examples. We don't need a nasty ole' list. The section on pyramids seems well written and suitably concise but perhaps could do with another citation or two? --kingboyk (talk) 03:56, 2 March 2020 (UTC)

The 2017 section was way too long (by comparison, we had one sentence on the far more significant money burning). I've done what we always do in these situations, spun out a new article - Welcome to the Dark Ages, leaving a concise but informative summary here. This suits both readers who want an overview about the duo's work (here) and those who want to read about Welcome to the Dark Ages and the Day of the Dead in detail. --kingboyk (talk) 04:38, 5 March 2020 (UTC)

For reference: Diff to date since I resumed work on this article. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Kingboyk (talk • contribs) 04:48, 5 March 2020 (UTC)

Themes

This subsection was based on my personal notes but I am leaving it here in case I am unable to get to it/I pass away/on the offchance it will inspire other editors to do some work here:

The themes section contains information which is vital to the reader's understanding of the KLF, but clearly needs a copyedit (if not a rewrite). It could be mistaken for trivia - maybe this is what John was referring to as cruft? - but in fact the band's "mythology" is crucial and central to understanding their career and work, and an entire book has been written about this since we got the article to FA. (Sidenote: I removed a sentence about Discordianism and Situationism but have put it back as a source covers it, and I understand the Higgs book covers it in even more detail).

I am not suggesting that the Themes section should necessarily become any longer, just tighter, less "listy", more coherent and better referenced (of the which the latter is the least of the problems; the section and subsections are quite well referenced but could use some supplementary modern references reflecting recent research). I'm particularly concerned that we don't tell a coherent story about Illuminatus, the number 23, pranks and whether or not the KLF were pranksters; of the gravest concern is the stuff about 23 which is basically a list.

Some sources which have come to pass since the article was first fleshed out (this list is of course not exhaustive):

• The KLF: Chaos, Magic and the Band who Burned a Million Pounds by John Higgs (ISBN 9781780226552)
• ref name="Contradictions": Graham, Ben (1 February 2017). "Embrace The Contradictions: The Strange World Of... The KLF". The Quietus. Retrieved 10 March 2020. - refers to the Higgs book and calls it "one of the most important texts of the last few years" so may be an 'executive summary' of that book and the KLF's story so far, as told here and elsewhere
• No reference name yet: Drummond, Bill (18 November 2014). "Bill Drummond: the five lessons I learned from Ken Campbell". The Guardian. Retrieved 10 March 2020.
• ref name="the-ice-kream-van-kometh":Pilley, Max (24 August 2017). "The Ice Kream Van Kometh: The Justified Ancients Of Mu Mu Return". Drowned in Sound. Retrieved 26 February 2020.
• ref name=gua2017:Ellis-Petersen, Hannah. "The return of the KLF: pop's greatest provocateurs take on a post-truth world". The Guardian. Retrieved 23 August 2017.

I'll do what I can, as time permits, with the web sources in the near to mid term (I've made use of some of them already; I'll try to remember to strike entries out if I feel I've exhausted their usage!). The book may have to be holiday reading.

When referencing new material we should be careful not to introduce circular references, i.e. try to weed out assertions which were probably inspired by this article. Higgs' work about the "magic" behind the band is likely to be 'safe', as reportedly he wrote an entire book about their themes, and area we haven't covered terribly well, and of course it's better to reference a book in addition to (or in some cases instead of) the sources of the day rather than just the sources of the day. That said, we shouldn't go overboard with citing one book. It may well be that in this article we just use it for a couple of citations about Discordianism and the number 23. Time will tell. --kingboyk (talk) 00:50, 12 March 2020 (UTC) Struck "Bill Drummond: the five lessons I learned from Ken Campbell"; used in other articles but found no use it for here. --kingboyk (talk) 05:57, 12 March 2020 (UTC) Higgs book also mentions the Echo & The Bunnymen Ley Lines tour which is in the Quietus article. --kingboyk (talk) 06:57, 12 March 2020 (UTC)

Opinions of contemporaries

I'm wondering if we need this subsection. The Pet Shop Boys quotes could be moved to where we mention the PSB remix. The Balfe quote could go into Career Retrospectives or the Bill Drummond article. Chumbawumba are not PSB-level famous nor do they have the relevance of association that Balfe does, so that text could be removed. An alternative would be to find more opinions of notable contemporaries and beef it up. --kingboyk (talk) 21:17, 16 March 2020 (UTC)

Text written on the dead sheep

What did the writing on the dead sheep from the infamous incident actually say? "I died for you – bon appetit" or "I died for ewe – bon apetit"? Sources contradict themselves on it, an original photo appears not to be available, and further Wikipedia articles are affected; Brit Awards even contradicts itself, while referring to the same source, which supports variant 2. --Florian Blaschke (talk) 18:00, 20 February 2020 (UTC)

I died for ewe is what The Independent states. This is the source used in the Brit Awards article. The lead correlated with the source, the passage in the body (with “you”) did not. Leaving out what it actually stated (if sources differ) is probably the appropriate action. Craw Allen (talk) 14:35, 23 February 2020 (UTC)

@Florian Blaschke and Craw Allen:The difficulty with relying on recent throwaway news articles (in this case, 2019) is that very often they've used Wikipedia for research. Bear in mind this article was Featured over 10 years ago. Not infrequently have I seen words I wrote about The KLF used elsewhere. I removed a 'reference' from this article only recently which was very evidently a circular reference i.e. it was based on this article.

This article used to say "I died for ewe", referencing the contemporary report "Welcome To The Sheep Seats" from the New Musical Express, 29 February 1992. The unofficial mirror of the text at the Library of Mu, however, says "I died for you". An old text file I have of the NME article also says "for you" but I have no idea where it came from.

Alas, I threw my NMEs out some year ago. I hoped I had a scan somewhere but can't find it. Extraordinarily, I do appear to have a photo of the dead sheep. The writing isn't clear due to the angle at which the photo was taken, but I think it says "you" not "ewe".

Until I looked at that photo, I could have sworn it was for ewe, as that would seem to be part of the joke. What I suspect has happened here is that Danny Baker's joke in the NME article ("Ewe would not believe it, ladies and gentlemen!") has been misattributed over time to The KLF.

I found a scan of the NME article online but infuriatingly, it doesn't include the page we would be interested in :(

Very long shot as he's rarely around, but pinging @Drstuey:: I don't suppose you still have the NME in your possession do you, and if so could you clear up whether "for you" is correct on your archive site or if it is a transcription error and should be "for ewe"?

In the meantime, unless and until somebody comes up with an original copy of the NME or another report from somebody who was actually there, or other reliable sources such as a book, I would recommend trusting the Library of Mu's transcription of the 1992 NME article and go with "for you". Whether or not this recommendation is taken up, I'd politefully request that the big banner is removed from the article. It's really quite a big template relative to the trivial level of the inconsistency :) --kingboyk (talk) 00:48, 24 February 2020 (UTC)

Ah, WP:CITOGENESIS. Annoying. I've implemented Craw Allen's suggestion. --Florian Blaschke (talk) 13:34, 24 February 2020 (UTC)

@Florian Blaschke: I've found a reliable source for "I died for you – bon appetit": Peter Robinson (journalist) - well known as a KLF expert (before Wikipedia), and writing in The Guardian, a reputable newspaper. --kingboyk (talk) 03:53, 25 February 2020 (UTC)

@Florian Blaschke: In case you want to use in other articles (I've taken care of the matter in this article): I settled on an even better source, which includes a photo of the sheep and (for a refreshing change the author talks to "their former partners in crime" rather than just copying Wikipedia :)): Harrison, Andrew (27 April 2017). "Return of the KLF: 'They were agents of chaos. Now the world they anticipated is here'". The Guardian. Retrieved 1 March 2020. --kingboyk (talk) 04:01, 2 March 2020 (UTC)

@Kingboyk: Excellent, thank you so much! :) --Florian Blaschke (talk) 04:15, 2 March 2020 (UTC)

Web article containing a list of sources re the reunion festival

More likely of use for The KLF article than for 2023: A Trilogy article about the book which already has an adequate summary of events but needs work on the plot, cover, critical reception etc: https://www.seanclark.me.uk/welcome-to-the-dark-ages --kingboyk (talk) 20:15, 26 February 2020 (UTC)

I think we have enough prose on the 2017 festival now - unless I've missed anything important, and assuming there is no desire to spin off a separate article about it - but we can probably work a few more references in. I don't want to make the section substantially longer, as that would give it undue weight. --kingboyk (talk) 03:22, 27 February 2020 (UTC)

Article content spun off to Welcome to the Dark Ages and message about this list of sources posted to Talk:Welcome to the Dark Ages. --kingboyk (talk) 04:34, 5 March 2020 (UTC)

Source

Another source to look at when have time, possibly more about Bill Drummond and/or Welcome to the Dark Ages than for this article but leaving here anyway https://www.heraldscotland.com/arts_ents/17728052.the-return-of-the-klfs-bill-drummond/ --kingboyk (talk) 06:06, 2 March 2020 (UTC)

klf.de a reliable source?

http://klf.de/ have been online since 1997, are clearly experts, and have for many years hosted the the canonical discography originally by Ernie Longmire. Is it time to consider them a reliable source?

To make the counter argument, their About Us page doesn't express a clear editorial policy and says "What you can find on this website is a collection of facts and half-truths, lies and myths about the various activities of Bill Drummond and Jimmy Cauty. It is, however, beyond our capabilities to debunk every rumour spread over the years and present you the one truth regarding every aspect of their work." No doubt this is in keeping with the spirit of the subject, but... --kingboyk (talk) 22:34, 26 February 2020 (UTC)

Bill Drummond on Wikipedia (highlighting the dangers of the 'circular reference')

Cross-post from WikiProject talk: Wikipedia talk:WikiProject The KLF#Bill Drummond on the subject of Wikipedia Bill Drummond on the subject of Wikipedia (highlighting the dangers of the 'circular reference') --kingboyk (talk) 21:26, 14 March 2020 (UTC)

Jimmy Cauty on the Wikipedia article

"the KLF Wikipedia entry is impressive by any standards" - J Cauty (2016? Article is undated but html source shows the images were uploaded in March 2016; at the bottom it says "The Aftermath Dislocation Principle UK Riot Tour starts 23 April" and the L-13 site says "the original ADP Riot Tour started on 23rd April 2016").

Given the context (he was asked what he's proud of and he said "I don’t look back with pride – plenty of time for that during the last 22 seconds of my life" and then mentioned the article), I don't know if he means the article is impressive, or the achievements therein. Either way, we now have the full set as Bill has written about both the KLF article in the book 17 and - reportedly, as I don't have a copy - about the Bill Drummond article in the book 100. --kingboyk (talk) 05:55, 18 March 2020 (UTC)

The KLF Re-enactment Society / klfrs.com

Is klfrs.com an "official" site? Trivialist (talk) 03:35, 5 February 2021 (UTC)

Move discussion in progress

There is a move discussion in progress on Talk:KLF (disambiguation) which affects this page. Please participate on that page and not in this talk page section. Thank you. —RMCD bot 23:33, 15 October 2023 (UTC)