Up until a month ago, I rarely thought about '90s club legends The KLF. This is because The KLF were never all that big in the States, and thus I only remember them for their biggest single here, “3:00 a.m. Eternal.” If I had been paying closer attention, I would have discovered that the group, led by musicians Jimmy Cauty and Bill Drummond, were singing “ancients of Mu Mu” in the chorus of that song, in reference to a mythical, pre-Atlantis lost continent. I also would have known that Drummond was a multi-hyphenate of the oddest sort: a musician/producer/promoter/performance artist/carpenter who, in tandem with Cauty, infamously took a million pounds sterling from their KLF earnings and deliberately lit it on fire.
Now, the easiest explanation as to why these two men set a bagful of money on fire is that they were fucking insane. But if you’ve read author John Higgs’s incredible history of The KLF, as I just did, you might be more amenable to its founders’ runaway train of thought. After all, you don’t help stage a 12-hour production about the Illuminati, shepherd Echo & The Bunnymen into the British mainstream, become worldwide pop stars in your own right, and then delete your entire back catalog without something, possibly drug-aided, going on up there. Is it not worth following your muse, even if that muse might come off as superficially cuckoo-nanners? Is there not value in the act of creation, and of creative destruction? In fact, what if art is at its core an act of conjuring? Of magic? Also, why did Tammy Wynette decide to lay down a track for these two lunatics when they cold-called her? THAT, my friends, is (kinda) the subject of this week’s Distraction.
Thankfully, there is more. In this summer fuckaround episode of the pod, Roth and I also discuss the challenge of finding good art in the digital age, foods that are worth the pain to cook, and a hint of Widow’s Bay. Just a skosh. We were also treated to what was, by far, the funniest voicemail this podcast has ever received from one of its listeners. The commandeering of a rogue penis was involved. I can’t say more than that, nor do I wish to.
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