| "Down Town" | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
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| Single by The Justified Ancients of Mu Mu | ||||
| Released | 30 November 1987 | |||
| Genre | House | |||
| Length | 7:23("118bpm" version) | |||
| Label | KLF Communications (UK) | |||
| Songwriter(s) | Jimmy Cauty, Bill Drummond, Tony Hatch | |||
| Producer(s) | Bill Drummond, Jimmy Cauty | |||
| Drummond & Cauty singles chronology | ||||
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"Down Town" was a 1987 release by The Justified Ancients of Mu Mu (better known as The KLF). The song is gospel music driven by house music rhythms, incorporating a sample of Petula Clark's 1964 single "Downtown".
In 1987, Bill Drummond and Jimmy Cauty formed The Justified Ancients of Mu Mu (The JAMs), and busily released provocatively sample-heavy electronic music with beatbox rhythms and Drummond's socially aware raps. Their debut single "All You Need Is Love" and album 1987 (What the Fuck Is Going On?) were both investigated by the Mechanical Copyright Protection Society, [1] who ordered The JAMs to recall and destroy all unsold copies of 1987. A new single, "Whitney Joins The JAMs", followed, along with a satirically edited version of the album, 1987 (The JAMs 45 Edits) , and the debut release from spinoff project Disco 2000, "I Gotta CD". By the time of the release of "Whitney Joins The JAMs", the duo's independent record label had been renamed KLF Communications, and in the coming year The Justified Ancients of Mu Mu would mutate into The KLF. In the meantime, "Down Town" was The JAMs' and KLF Communications' final release of 1987, a 7" and 12" single release of 30 November. [2] It did not enter the UK Singles Chart, but made inroads into the UK independent chart. [3]
In an interview with NME , Drummond and Cauty maintained that the record was originally intended to be sample-free, but, quoting the Book of Proverbs 26:11, Drummond admitted that "as a dog returneth to his vomit so a fool returneth to his folly". [4] In addition to Petula Clark's "Downtown", "Down Town" used elements of the distinctive bassline to Harold Faltermeyer's 1984 # 1 single "Axel F". Indeed, the labels of the record claimed that: "All sounds on this recording have been captured by The KLF. In the name of Mu, we hereby liberate these sounds from all copyright restrictions, without prejudice". [5] Although The JAMs sought permission from Tony Hatch, who wrote Clark's "Downtown", Drummond admitted in KLF Communications newsletter: "We were surprised to read in the papers that Pet Clarke [sic] had given her permission for us to sample her classic 'Downtown' on our record of the same name. When we attempted to contact her, at her Swiss home, to do just this thing, we didn't get further than her refusing to accept our transfer charge." [6]
The inclusion of Petula Clark's "Downtown" was claimed by Drummond to be a striking coincidence:
One day I was in the studio and I just started humming the chorus of 'Downtown' over the intro. I thought 'That's funny I wonder what key it's in?' I dug out the record that night and found that it was in the same key. I took it into the studio the next day and found out that it was absolutely the same number of beats per minute (bpm)—118. Most pop songs are between 80 and 160 bpm so that's 80 times 12, so it was a one in 960 chance that it would be the right bpm and the right key, so we couldn't resist it. [7]
"Down Town" was not included on either of The JAMs' albums, instead featuring on their 1988 compilation and remix album, Shag Times , along with an instrumental remix credited to The KLF.
"Down Town" is, like most of Drummond and Cauty's work of 1987, a social critique of Great Britain realised as house music. Its central theme is social exclusion, poverty and homelessness, in which snatches of Clark's "Downtown"—an awestruck ode to hedonistic city nightlife—are juxtaposed with raps by Drummond, wailing sirens and original choral gospel vocals full of Christmas optimism, provided by the London Community Gospel Choir. [8] These disparate elements are held together by a beatbox rhythm, a bassline borrowed from "Axel F", and an accompaniment of piano and Hammond organ.
During one verse, Drummond raps: "Downtown, down and out, dying in the dead of night, with your Special Brew and your special view of a world that could be right". Joined by the gospel choir's refrain of "Glory!", Drummond continues "[Glory!] What glory? [Glory!] In a wine bar world? [Glory!] in a tenement block? [Glory!] OK, let's hear it!". In each chorus, the gospel choir sing of Jesus' birth. This juxtaposition of Christmas with urban homeless alcoholism was revisited by Drummond and Cauty's later arts project, the K Foundation, whose final act to date involved distributing thousands of cans of strong lager to London's homeless on Christmas Eve in 1995. [9] [10]
"Down Town" was, after "All You Need Is Love", the second of The JAMs' three 1987 singles to become NME "single of the week". The British music paper called it "One massive hell-hating holler of a song", and concluded: "[The JAMs] may not be the hippest, sanest or sweetest band to stalk the Earth this year but they're certainly the most imaginative ... [T]hey've fired a musical trail so shocking they couldn't have kept you more on your toes if they'd stuffed a handgrenade up your ass and sent you out to tap dance in a pair of stilettos". [8]
The following week, NME journalist James Brown noted the accomplished dance music production of recent KLF Communications releases:
When I broadcasted ["Down Town"] throughout the NME offices last week everyone present from punk, to yuppie, to club basher, to Alexander O'Neal fan gathered round to ask what it was. The same reactions had greeted "Whitney Joins The JAMs" but none of the writers had gone off and ordered a copy immediately. Likewise the accessibility of [Disco 2000's] "I Gotta CD" can't go ignored. And although [The JAMs] only produced it, the surprising dance-awareness .. has come as a surprise to both the KLF and myself. If they were prepared to destroy their abstract political ideas the KLF could quite rapidly become something akin to Kingboy, Rockman, and Waterman. [11]
However, Record Mirror did not approve of The JAMs' comparatively sample-free offering, calling "Down Town" "a creature tamed" and wondering "without outlaw credentials what's left?" [12]
7" single (UK)
12" single (UK)
12" single (UK) (one-sided white label, 500 pressed)
James Francis Cauty, also known as Rockman Rock, is an English artist and musician, best known as one-half of the duo The KLF, co-founder of The Orb and as the man who burnt £1 million.
The K Foundation was an art foundation set up by Jimmy Cauty and Bill Drummond, formerly of The KLF, in 1993, following their 'retirement' from the music industry. The Foundation served as an artistic outlet for the duo's post-retirement KLF income. Between 1993 and 1995, they spent this money in a number of ways, including on a series of Situationist-inspired press adverts and extravagant subversions in the art world, focusing in particular on the Turner Prize. Most notoriously, when their plans to use banknotes as part of a work of art fell through, they burned a million pounds in cash.
Chill Out is the third studio album by British electronic music group The KLF, released on 5 February 1990. It is an ambient-styled concept album featuring an extensive selection of samples, portraying a mythical night-time journey throughout the U.S. Gulf Coast states, beginning in Texas and ending in Louisiana. Chill Out was conceived as a continuous piece of music, with original KLF music interwoven with samples from songs by Elvis Presley, Fleetwood Mac, Acker Bilk, Van Halen, 808 State and field recordings of Tuvan throat singers.
"It's Grim Up North" is a song by The Justified Ancients of Mu Mu. The song was originally released as a limited edition "Club Mix" in December 1990 with Pete Wylie on vocals. A re-recorded version with Bill Drummond on vocals was released commercially in October 1991. These recordings were the first releases by Drummond and his creative partner Jimmy Cauty under the JAMs moniker since the 1988 compilation album Shag Times, and the last under that name; in the meantime they had operated as the Timelords and the KLF. The 1991 single release reached No. 10 on the UK Singles Chart and entered the top 10 in Denmark and Finland.
This discography lists the key British and notable international releases of The KLF and the other pseudonyms of Bill Drummond and Jimmy Cauty. It also details the other releases on their independent record label, KLF Communications, by KLF-spinoff Disco 2000 and Space. In the United Kingdom—their home country—Drummond and Cauty released six albums and a wide array of 12 " singles on KLF Communications. In other territories their material was typically issued under licence by local labels.
Disco 2000 was a British pop band, a side project of The KLF. Vocals were handled by Cress, then-wife of KLF co-founder Jimmy Cauty, and "Mo". Between 1987 and 1989, Disco 2000 released three singles on the KLF Communications label, none of which entered the top 75 of the UK Singles Chart.
1987 is the debut studio album by British electronic band The Justified Ancients of Mu Mu, later known as the KLF. 1987 was produced using extensive unauthorised samples that plagiarised a wide range of musical works, continuing a theme begun in the JAMs' debut single "All You Need Is Love". These samples provided a deliberately provocative backdrop for beatbox rhythms and cryptic, political raps.
Who Killed The JAMs? is the second studio album by The Justified Ancients of Mu Mu, and the final one under the JAMs moniker before renaming themselves The KLF. Similar in style to the preceding 1987 , the album is a fusion of hip hop, drum machines and samples of a diversity of musical works, although in general the samples are more covertly integrated here than they are in 1987.
"Last Train to Trancentral" is a song released, in different mixes, as a series of singles by British electronic band The KLF, including "Last Train to Trancentral ". A commercially successful single of April 1991, it reached number two on the UK Singles Chart, number one on the UK Dance Singles Chart and achieved international top ten placings. It is a central song within The KLF's work, and is distinctive for an uplifting string-synthesiser break.
"Justified & Ancient" is a song by British band The KLF. It was featured on their 1991 album, The White Room, but its origins date back to the duo's debut album, 1987 .
Shag Times is a UK compilation and remix double album released in 1989 by The Justified Ancients of Mu Mu. The album also introduced Bill Drummond and Jimmy Cauty's new incarnation – and one which would become considerably more famous – The KLF.
"Doctorin' the Tardis" is a 1988 electronic novelty pop single by the Timelords. The song is predominantly a mash-up of the Doctor Who theme music and Gary Glitter's "Rock and Roll " with sections from "Blockbuster!" by Sweet. The single was not well received by critics but was a commercial success, hitting number one on the UK and New Zealand singles charts, and reaching the top 10 in Australia, Finland, Ireland and Norway.
"All You Need Is Love" is a song by the Justified Ancients of Mu Mu, independently released as their debut single on 9 March 1987. A politically topical song concerning the British media's AIDS furore, the track was initially given a 12" white label release because of its sampling of other records.
"Whitney Joins The JAMs" is a song and 1987 single by The Justified Ancients of Mu Mu. The song, released on The JAMs' independent label KLF Communications, is built around plagiarised samples of Whitney Houston in which—thanks to studio technology—she "joins The JAMs".
The KLF are a British electronic band formed in London in 1987. Bill Drummond and Jimmy Cauty began by releasing hip hop-inspired and sample-heavy records as the JAMs. As the Timelords, they recorded the British number-one single "Doctorin' the Tardis", and documented the process of making a hit record in a book The Manual . As the KLF, Drummond and Cauty pioneered stadium house and, with their 1990 LP Chill Out, the ambient house genre. The KLF released a series of international hits on their own KLF Communications record label and became the biggest selling singles act in the world in 1991.
"Fuck the Millennium", sometimes spelled "***k the Millennium", is a protest song by the band 2K—Bill Drummond and Jimmy Cauty—better known as the Justified Ancients of Mu Mu or the KLF. The song was inspired musically by Jeremy Deller's "Acid Brass" project, where a traditional brass band plays acid house classics; these include the KLF's "What Time Is Love?". They were also inspired topically by the then-forthcoming end of the second millennium and the plans to celebrate it.
"Burn the Bastards" is a 1988 song by Bill Drummond and Jimmy Cauty as The Justified Ancients of Mu Mu, from their second, and final before changing names, album Who Killed The JAMs?. The "bastards" of the title are copies of The JAMs first album, 1987 , which Drummond and Cauty burnt on a bonfire in a Swedish field after a copyright dispute with the Swedish pop group ABBA. The song was released as a single, along with a separate single of remixes titled "Burn the Beat". Both singles were credited to The KLF, marking a change of name and with it a change of musical genre, from The JAMs' sample-fuelled political hip-hop to The KLF's upbeat and uptempo house music.
2023: A Trilogy is a book by Jimmy Cauty and Bill Drummond writing as The Justified Ancients of Mu Mu. The book was published in 2017, 23 years after the duo had burnt one million British pounds they earned in the music industry as The KLF.
Welcome to the Dark Ages was a three-day event organised by The Justified Ancients of Mu Mu, held in Liverpool in August 2017. The event heralded a revival of the creative partnership between Jimmy Cauty and Bill Drummond, under the name with which they first recorded and released music together in 1987. The duo had last worked together in 1997, when, as 2K, they staged an art performance and released a single - "Fuck the Millennium" - and, as K2 Plant Hire Ltd, hatched a plan to build a "People's Pyramid" to celebrate the new millennium.
