Thursday 25 March 2010

The Black Room by The KLF


The performance of the KLF and Extreme Noise Terror at the BRIT Awards in 1992 should have been a great deal messier.
A dead sheep and 8 gallons of blood had been purchased from an abattoir in Northanpton earlier that day and the dismemberment of the animal was due to form the central act of the show.
The animal parts were to be thrown into the crowd of music business executives who occupied the front row of the show and the blood was going to be following.
In the end the protestations of Extreme Noise Terror, strict vegans who vandalised butchers shops, meant that the KLF agreed to not use the sheep or blood during the show.
Instead Bill Drummond opened fire on the crowd with a machine gun loaded with blanks...
Later that night the sheep was dumped on the forecourt of the hotel where the official BRIT’s aftershow party was taking place. There was a sign hung around it’s neck that read:
‘I died for ewe-bon appetit.’
At the end of their performance a voice boomed out over the crowd:
‘The KLF have left the music business.’
No one believed it. The KLF were a hugely successful act. Following their incarnation as the Timelords and their Number One hit ‘Doctorin’ The Tardis’ the KLF had followed up with another six Top Ten singles and another Number One with ‘3 am Eternal’.
Their first album ‘The White Room’ was designed to form the soundtrack for a film that was never actually made. It was a blend of ‘Stadium House’, downtempo tracks and electropop confections and the follow up album ‘The Black Room’ was conceived as a complementary piece that would merge dance beats with industrial metal.
Extreme Noise Terror and the KLF had recorded some tracks and work was supposed to continue on the album after the BRITs.
Before the performance Jonathan King, one of the organisers of the BRITs, had warned the group from anything too controversial.
In the aftermath Piers Morgan described the act as ‘sick’ and the group as ‘pop’s biggest wallies.’
Jonathan King then made a statement backing the group and their actions.
A spokesman for the band described this as ‘the real low point.’
Shortly after the KLF announced their official retirement from the music business.
Never ones for half measures, they deleted the group’s entire back catalogue and all plans for ‘The Black Room’ were shelved.
You can’t help feeling that if Jonathan King had just agreed with Piers Morgan we would have got one more album out of them...

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