| Bill Drummond |
Article Index for Bill |
Website Links For Bill |
Information AboutBill Drummond |
William Ernest Drummond (born April 29 , 1953 , Butterworth , South Africa ) is a Scottish musician, music industry figure, writer and artist. He is best known as co-founder of The KLF , the avant-garde "pop group" of the late eighties, the K Foundation , its nineties "avant-art" media-manipulating successor, and for Burning A Million Pounds in 1994. He has also written several books, produced a variety of different Conceptual Art projects, and helped to set-up The Foundry, an arts centre in Shoreditch , London . BACKGROUND Bill Drummond was born to Scottish parents in Butterworth, South Africa, where his father was a . His family moved back to Scotland when he was 18 months old, and he grew up in the town of Newton Stewart .McKerron, I., "Duo Burn £1M In Midnight Madness", '' Daily Express '', 1 October 1994 ( link ). CAREER 1970s: ''Illuminatus'', Big in Japan, and Zoo As an art student in '' ( London ), The Arts p26. Drummond's musical career began in 1977 with '' (1FA Edition, London ), 30 October 1999 , p8. After the band's demise, Drummond and another member David Balfe started Zoo Records , their first release being Big in Japan's posthumous EP, '' From Y To Z And Never Again ''. They went on to act as both producers and label managers, releasing the debut singles by Echo & The Bunnymen and The Teardrop Explodes , both of whom Drummond would later manage somewhat idiosyncratically. This included sending Echo & The Bunnymen on a tour of "bizarre and apparently random sites, including the Northern Isles . "It's not random," said Drummond, speaking as the Bunnymen's manager. "If you look at a map of the world, the whole tour's in the shape of a rabbit's ears."" The production team of Drummond and Balfe was christened The Chameleons, who also recorded the single "Touch" together with a female singer as Lori And The Chameleons ."Tate tat and arty", '' New Musical Express '', 20 November 1993 , ''passim'' ( link ) 1980s: A&R man & solo recording artist '']] Drummond later took a job in the mainstream music business as an - for whom he envisioned massive worldwide success - only for them to completely flop. "At that point I thought 'What am I doing this for?' and I got out."Bill Drummond interviewed by Richard Skinner on ''Saturday Sequence'', BBC Radio 1 , December 1990 ( MP3 )) Drummond was "obviously very sharp," said WEA chairman Rob Dickens , "and he knew the business. But he was too radical to be happy inside a corporate structure. He was better off working as an outsider."Sharkey, A., "Trash Art & Kreation", '' The Guardian Weekend '', 21 May 1994 ( link ) Later in the year, Drummond issued a solo album, '' The Man '', a country/folk music recording, backed by Australia n rock group The Triffids . The album was perhaps most notable for the sardonic " Julian Cope Is Dead", where he outlined his fantasy of shooting the Teardrop Explodes frontman in the head to ensure the band's early demise and subsequent legendary status. The song could be seen as a reply to the Cope song "Bill Drummond Said". As a B-side, Drummond wrote and recorded "The Managers Speech" in which he lamented the state of the music industry and offered his services to help fix it. ''The Man'' received positive reviews - including 4 stars from '''' Magazine who called the album a "touching if idiosyncratic biographical statement".Wilkinson, R., "''The Man'' review", '' Sounds '', 8 November 1986 ( link ). Drummond intended to focus on writing books once ''The Man'' had been issued but, as he recalled in 1990, "That only lasted three months, until I had an[other] idea for a record and got dragged back into it all". 1987-1992: The Justified Ancients of Mu Mu, The Timelords and The KLF See Also: The KLF While out walking on 2005 ]. Transcript taken from the KLF FAQ . Drummond and Cauty (who Drummond had signed to Food / WEA as a member of Brilliant) released their first single, The Justified Ancients Of Mu Mu 's " All You Need Is Love ", in March 1987. This was followed by an album - '' 1987 (What The Fuck Is Going On?) '' - in June of the same year, and a high-profile copyright dispute with ABBA and the Mechanical-Copyright Protection Society ."Thank You For The Music", '' New Musical Express '', 17 October 1987 . A second and final album by The Justified Ancients of Mu Mu (The JAMs) - '' Who Killed The JAMs? '' was released in February 1988. Later in 1988, Drummond and Cauty released a 'novelty' pop single, " Doctorin' The Tardis " as The Timelords. The song reached number one in the UK Singles Chart on 12 June , and charted highly in Australia and New Zealand . On the back of this success, the duo self-published a book, '' The Manual (How To Have A Number One The Easy Way) ''. In March 1988, the duo regrouped as '', March 1996 ( link ). The KLF's commercial success peaked in 1991, with '' The White Room '' album and the accompanying "Stadium House" singles, remixes of 1988's "What Time Is Love?", 1989's " 3 A.m. Eternal ", 1990's " Last Train To Trancentral "; and " Justified And Ancient ", a new song based on a sample from ''1987 (What the Fuck Is Going On?)''. In 1992, The KLF were awarded the "Best British group" 2006 . and, in 2003, '' The Observer '' named it the fifth greatest "publicity stunt" in the history of popular music.Thompson, B. "The 10 greatest publicity stunts", '' The Observer '', 27 September 2003 ( link ) On '' Magazine wrote, for example, that 1992 was "the year of Bill's 'breakdown', when The KLF, perched on the peak of greater-than-ever success, quit the music business, ... machine gunned the tuxedo'd twats in the front row of that year's BRIT Awards ceremony."Martin, G., "The Chronicled Mutineers", '' Vox '', December 1996 ([http://www.libraryofmu.org/display-resource.php?id=430 link ) Drummond himself said that he was on the edge of the "abyss".Drummond, Bill and Mark Manning, ''Bad Wisdom'' (ISBN 0-14-026118-4) 1993-1997: K Foundation, burning one million pounds, and other activities with Jimmy Cauty See Also: K Foundation Fuck the Millennium ''.]] Despite The KLF's retirement from the music business, Drummond's involvement with Jimmy Cauty was far from over. In 1993, the pair regrouped as the .See K Foundation Art Award#Media And Art-world Reaction for some of the reports. Infamy followed when, on '' ( Glasgow ), 25 July 2004 , p27. On (editor), ''Disco 2000'', Sceptre, ISBN 0-340-70771-2, 1998. 1993 onwards: How to be an artist In the years after the final activities of the K Foundation, Drummond has sought a career as an artist and writer. In 1995, Drummond bought ''A Smell of Sulphur in the Wind'' by Richard Long , his favourite contemporary artist, for $20,000. Five years later, he attempted to sell the work by placing a series of placards around the country. When this failed to work, in 2001, he cut the photograph and text work into 20,000 pieces, to sell for $1 each.http://www.q-arts.co.uk/parsetemplate.asp?id=109Drummond, Bill, ''Job 5'', Penkiln Burn In 2002, Bill Drummond was involved - along with is responsible for all the things I love, the speckles on a Brown Trout ; the sound of Angus Young 's guitar, the nape of my girlfriend's neck, the song of the Blackcap when he returns in Spring. I never blame God for all the shit, for the baby Rwandan slaughtered in a casual Genocide , the ever-present wars, drudgery and misery that fills most of our lives.""Artwork that uses Obscene Language is stolen from Merseyside church", '' The Independent '' ( London ) ISSN 0951-9467 , 1 October 2002 , News p5. Other projects have included MyDeath.net, where people can plan their own funeral.Heaney, Mick, "Bill Drummond once burnt Pounds 1m for art's sake. Now he is taking a soupopera to Belfast", '' Sunday Times '' ( London ), 18 April 2004 , p18. Drummond is also co-founder of The Foundry, an arts centre in 2005 1993 onwards: Music Bill Drummond's involvement in the music industry has been minimal since his final collobaration with Jimmy Cauty as 2K in 1997. In 1998, the (" Vindaloo ") and Ian Broudie (" Three Lions "), two men he had met on the same day when working on ''Illuminatus!'' in 1976, and former protege Ian McCulloch (" Top Of The World "). "That night after I heard the three English World Cup football records", Drummond continued, "I fell asleep and had a dream. Ian Broudie, Ian McCulloch, Keith Allen and myself were sitting around that table in the Liverpool School of Language, Music, Dream and Pun. 'Why didn't you make your record, Bill? You know you were supposed to make it. It was agreed a long time ago. We made our records, why didn't you make yours?'". In 2000, Drummond released '' 45 '', a book consisting of a "series of loosely related Vignettes forming the rambling diary of one year."Maunsell, J.B., '' The Times '' ( London ), 26 February 2000 , p22. ''45'' also explored Drummond's KLF legacy, and was well received by the press.For reviews see 45 (book)#Reviews . REVIEWS, ACCOLADES AND CRITICISM In 1993, '' Select '' magazine named Drummond the "coolest person in pop": "What has this giant of coolness not achieved?", they asked: Also in 1993, an ''NME'' piece about the -lovely as ' Kylie Said To Jason ', or the madly wonderful ' Last Train To Trancentral ', or the Tammy Wynette version of ' Justified And Ancient '). There's been mysticism... But most of all there's been a belief that, both in music and life, there's something more." Charles Shaar Murray wrote in '' The Independent '' that " {Link without Title} Drummond is many things, and one of those things is a Magician . Many of his schemes... involve symbolically-weighted acts conducted away from the public gaze and documented only by Drummond himself and his participating comrades. Nevertheless, they are intended to have an effect on a worldful of people unaware that the act in question has taken place. That is magical thinking. Art is magic, and so is pop. Bill Drummond is a cultural magician..." Murray, C.S. , '' The Independent '' ( London ), 26 February 2000 , p10. '''s '' The Sun '' called him a "madcap Scots genius".Blackstock, R., "Are you top of the pop class on no1s?", '' The Sun '' ( London ), 13 January 2005 , Features section p50. ARTISTIC OUTPUT Discography (solo)
Bibliography
Art projects NOTES & REFERENCES EXTERNAL LINKS
Websites set up by Bill Drummond
|
|
|