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DRIVING BILL DRUMMOND (320kbs-m4a/71mb/31mins)
BBC Radio 4 broadcast: 18th August 2017
Bill Drummond is many things. As well as an artist, a writer and former pop-star - he's the owner of an old curfew tower in Northern Ireland which he runs as an artists' residency. Last year some poets from Belfast's Seamus Heaney Centre for Poetry stayed there and Bill published their collected work in a little black book called The Curfew Tower is Many Things.
Except for a poem the award-winning Belfast poet Stephen Sexton wrote. Apparently that one went missing. So Bill has left two pages blank in the book for Stephen to fill in with poetry as they drive through all of Ireland's 32 counties in 5 days in a white Ford Transit hire-van, giving out copies as they go.
But what exactly is driving Bill Drummond?
Producer Conor Garrett is there to find out. As they cross the Irish border and over each county boundary, Conor is becoming increasingly concerned he may not have a good enough story for his radio programme. It's a problem further complicated by the fact Bill won't talk about his chart-topping '90s pop band who once famously set fire to a very large pile of their own cash. Then, when a narrative arc does eventually develop, Conor can't be sure how authentic it is. And what's all this stuff about eels?
Producer: Conor Garrett.
THE FIRST TIME WITH... SERIES 1 - 7. BILL DRUMMOND (320kbs-m4a/132mb/58mins)
BBC Radio 6 Music broadcast: 6th November 2017
The one-time manager, record label boss, popstar, musical terrorist, author and conceptual artist talks to Matt Everitt about his remarkable career.
Bill discusses all aspects of is extraordinary career to date. From guiding the Teardrop Explodes, to writing the definitive manual on getting a number one single, from creating then destroying Stadium Rave with the KLF to his now infamous burning of a million pounds, and onto his current attempts to deconstruct the way we experience and interact with music - and reinvent it in wholly remarkable and original ways.
This interview first broadcast in August 2010.
The KLF - 3 A.M. Eternal [Now]
Lonnie Donegan - Rock Island Line [Old Gold]
The Beatles - Penny Lane [Apple]
The Beatles - Strawberry Fields Forever [Apple]
Big In Japan - Cindy And The Barbi Dolls [Document]
The Teardrop Explodes - Treason [Universal]
Echo & The Bunnymen - Villiers Terrace [Korova]
The KLF - What Time Is Love? [Now]
Justified Ancients Of Mu Mu - It's Grim Up North [KLF Communications]
The Timelords - Doctorin The Tardis [Telstar]
The KLF - Justified & Ancient (Stand By The JAMs) (Feat. Tammy Wynette) [K.L.F. Communications]
Fairport Convention - Who Knows Where The Time Goes? [Island]
KLF SPECIAL (320kbs-m4a/129mb/56mins)
BBC Radio 6 Music broadcast: 27th August 2017
The KLF are back and to celebrate the publication of their new novel, we look back on their incredibly influential and controversial career.
From burning one million pounds in cash to leaving a dead sheep at the Brit Awards, the KLF / K Foundation / Justified Ancients Of Mu Mu have never failed to shock and intrigue their fans and the music press. In this special programme, we look at how important they were, who they influenced and how they are still relevant today.
With insights from the people who worked with them and knew them, we'll find out just what makes The KLF so incredibly important in music history.
Journalist Jim Reid will tell us exactly what it was like being the only person other than the band and their friend to witness the burning of a million pounds, their long time press agent Mick Houghton will tell talk about being behind some of the most elaborate and significant "stunts" in modern music and Turner Prize winning artist Jeremy Deller will reveal what it was like to collaborate with them on a video project.
We'll also attempt to find out what the future of The KLF might be - with exclusive access to a special event held in Liverpool, to celebrate their return.
BILL DRUMMOND - KLF MEMORIES (320kbs-m4a/170mb/74mins)
BBC Radio 6 Music broadcast: 26th August 2017
Expect the unexpected as Tom Robinson dusts off tracks from the outer reaches of his record collection for the After Hour from 11pm, where, as part of 6 Music's weekend celebrations of the comeback of the elusive KLF, Tom unearths a rare interview from 2004 with JAMMS man Bill Drummond.
The Beatles - Strawberry Fields Forever [Parlophone]
Big In Japan - Nothing Special
Echo & The Bunnymen - The Killing Moon [Telstar]
X‐Ray Spex - Oh Bondage Up Yours [Virgin]
Bill Drummond - Julian Cope Is Dead
The KLF - Last Train to Trancentral (Live From The Lost Continent) [KLF Communications]
The KLF - Justified & Ancient (Stand By The JAMs) (feat. Tammy Wynette) [K.L.F. Communications]
Ian Broudie - Song For No-One
Elvis Presley - Crying In The Chapel [RCA]
The KLF - 3 A.M. Somewhere Out Of Beaumont
The KLF - Madrugada Eterna (Club Mix)
BBC Radio 6 Music broadcast: 23rd November 2016
A few weeks ago we were lucky to have a Memory Tape from one of our favourite artists, Hannah Peel. Her beautiful selection of music was built around her experiences with dementia, a central theme of her latest album Awake But Always Dreaming which is out now on My Own Pleasure. In fact tomorrow Hannah is hosting a very special performance at Shoreditch Church in London, showcasing the album and raising money for Alzheimer's charities. Inspired by her Memory Tapes experience, Hannah reached out to other people to pull together their own lists, the results of which you can find on her website. Therefore we're very lucky to share with you the Memory Tape of artist, musician, writer and producer Bill Drummond.
“Recorded Music was a major force in my life.
It pushed and shoved and shaped me.
This pushing, shoving and shaping started with Elvis at the picture house as a child in Newton Stewart.
But it was not until I was turning 13 in a town called Corby, did it begin to have its full impact.
It is still the Recorded Music that I heard at that age that has had the longest and deepest impact on my life.
It has nothing to do with any sort of objective judgement of this Recorded Music.
It had everything to do with my mind being that of a 13 year old in 1966.
As I turned 50 in and the year was 2003, I became aware that Recorded Music not only had little hold over my emotions, it was also losing its power to affect society, its cultural significance was passing on. It was not only weighed down by its own history, it was being superseded by other ways of communicating in a far more one to one way. Like all other forms of music in previous centuries, Recorded Music was becoming part of a history of a fading century. Recorded Music, whatever the genre it embraced, was the music of the 20th Century, be that music Jazz, Rock, Reggae, Soul etc etc. All of these diverse genres, whatever their history and the genius of individual artists, the music of the 20th Century existed primarily to be consumed in the recorded form, thus existed to be bought, sold and used to hold listener attention between the advertising breaks on commercial radio.
Putting aside the somewhat cynical overview of that last couple of sentences, for me Recorded Music was the greatest art form of the 20th Century. Recorded Music towered above Film and the Paper Back Novel, and far outstripping anything that could be hung in a gallery or collected by a wealthy art collector. Recorded Music was a democratic art form.
For me to attempt to pick my ten favourite pieces of Recorded Music would not only be difficult, it would almost be a lie, as actively listening to Recorded Music no longer plays an active part of my life. That said I still like to hear Recorded Music by accident. As in when walking down a street and I hear some Turkish pop music coming out of a passing shop or car, or maybe when…
Anyway, I know that it was at that age of turning 13 in 1966, and my teenage hormones were kicking in, that recorded music had its biggest and most lasting impact. Thus what I have decided to do is track down, via Google and find out what the Top Twenty was on my 13th birthday in 1966. Once that is done, choose ten records from that chart. As yet I have not checked to see if there were ten records in that weeks Top Twenty, that had a powerful impact on me, but I am very certain there were and are. Not that I think they will have been the greatest records of all time but…
I also know that my own memory is beginning to waver and slide. That I cannot remember what film I saw on television last week, that I too have begun that journey into dementia and all it holds.
So bear with me while I type into Google "UK Top Twenty 29 April 1966"
Two Minutes later.
And this is what I have picked from the Top Twenty on my 13th Birthday and their chart position of that week.
1: You Don't Have To Say You Love Me – Dusty Springfield
2: Pretty Flamingo – Manfred Mann
3: Somebody Help Me – Spencer Davis Group
4: Bang Bang – Cher
9: I Put A Spell On You – Alan Price Set
11: Substitute – The Who
12: Homeward Bound – Simon & Garfunkel
13: Sloop John B – The Beach Boys
14: The Sun Ain't Going To Shine Anymore – The Walker Brothers
20: Dedicated Follower Of Fashion – The Kinks
I recommend that if you are caring for or sharing with or just chatting to someone who's memory is beginning to fail them and they are not particularly engaging with what is culturally happening at the moment, track down the Top Twenty on their 13th birthday and get them to choose ten of the tracks and play them back together on You Tube or whatever.
And then discuss."
The Kinks - Dedicated Follower Of Fashion [Castle]
Simon & Garfunkel - Homeward Bound [Columbia]
Alan Price Set - I Put A Spell On You [Old Gold]
The Spencer Davis Group - Somebody Help Me [Polygram TV]
Dusty Springfield - You Don't Have To Say You Love Me [Philips]