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193-625: The KLF (also known as the Justified Ancients of Mu Mu , the JAMs , the Timelords and other names) are a British electronic band who originated in Liverpool and London in the late 1980s. Scottish musician Bill Drummond (alias King Boy D) and English musician Jimmy Cauty (alias Rockman Rock) began by releasing hip hop -inspired and sample -heavy records as the JAMs. As the Timelords, they recorded

386-634: A "People's Pyramid". In January 2021, the band began uploading their previously deleted catalogue onto streaming services , in compilations . Bill Drummond was an established figure within the British music industry , having co-founded Zoo Records , played guitar in the Liverpool band Big in Japan , and worked as manager of Echo & the Bunnymen and the Teardrop Explodes . Artist and musician Jimmy Cauty

579-504: A 1976 interview conducted by Neal Wilgus: In general, the melodrama is Shea and the satire is me; but some of the satire is definitely him and some of the melodrama is certainly me. "When Atlantis Ruled the Earth" is 99% Shea. The sections about Simon Moon, Robert Putney Drake and Markoff Chaney are 99% me. Everything else is impossible to untangle. According to Ken Campbell , who created a stage adaptation of Illuminatus! with Chris Langham ,

772-464: A Son of Illuminatus later". In Intelligence Agents by Timothy Leary (1996) he was credited with having already authored Son of Illuminatus in the 1980s. Shea never wrote another Illuminatus! -related book, although many of his later novels include references to the themes of that work. Locus called his Saracen novels "deep background for the Illuminatus trilogy". An audacious proposal by

965-462: A band are so good and exciting." The JAMs re-edited and re-released "All You Need Is Love" in May 1987, removing or doctoring the most antagonistic samples; lyrics from the song appeared as promotional graffiti , defacing selected billboards. The re-release rewarded the JAMs with praise (including NME  's "single of the week") and the funds necessary to record their debut album. The album, 1987 (What

1158-596: A big scam.' But I firmly believe it's over". "For the very last spectacularly insane time", the magazine concluded, "The KLF have done what was least expected of them". The final KLF Info sheet discussed the retirement in a typically offbeat fashion, and asked "What happens to 'Footnotes in rock legend'? Do they gather dust with Ashton, Gardner and Dyke , the Vapors , and the Utah Saints , or does their influence live on in unseen ways, permeating future cultures? A passing general of

1351-681: A chapter on the American New Right in Architects of Fear: Conspiracy Theories and Paranoia in American Politics by George Johnson (1983). In more recent years, it was complimented in the bibliography to the New Hackers Dictionary as a book that can help readers "understand the hacker mindset." The Dictionary described it as: An incredible berserko-surrealist rollercoaster of world-girdling conspiracies, intelligent dolphins,

1544-671: A city which also suffered severe aerial bombing during the war. In the 1950s and 1960s, much of the immediate reconstruction that took place in the city centre proved to be deeply unpopular. The historic portions of the city that had survived German bombing suffered extensive destruction during urban renewal. It has been argued that the so-called "Shankland Plan" of the 1960s, named after the town planner Graeme Shankland , led to compromised town planning and vast road-building schemes that devastated and divided inner city neighbourhoods. Concrete brutalist architecture , compromised visions, botched projects and grand designs that were never realised became

1737-450: A comprehensive examination of the KLF's announcement and its context, Select called it "the last grand gesture, the most heroic act of public self destruction in the history of pop. And it's also Bill Drummond and Jimmy Cauty's final extravagant howl of self disgust, defiance and contempt for a music world gone foul and corrupt." Many of the KLF's friends and collaborators gave their reactions in

1930-502: A couple of 12" records under the name The K.L.F., these will be rap free just pure dance music, so don't expect to see them reviewed in the music papers". King Boy D also said that he and Rockman Rock were "pissed off at [them]selves" for letting "people expect us to lead some sort of crusade for sampling." In 1990, he recalled that "We wanted to make [as the KLF] something that was... pure dance music, without any reference points, without any nod to

2123-407: A dreadfully long monster of a book, [...] and I certainly won't have time to read it, but I'm giving it a thorough skimming. The authors are utterly incompetent—no sense of style or structure at all. It starts out as a detective story, switches to science-fiction, then goes off into the supernatural, and is full of the most detailed information of dozens of ghastly boring subjects. And the time sequence

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2316-498: A field near Stonehenge . The K Foundation was an arts foundation established by Drummond and Cauty in 1993 following their 'retirement' from the music industry. From 1993 to 1995 they engaged in art projects and media campaigns, including the high-profile K Foundation art award (for the "worst artist of the year"), and in 1993 released a limited edition single – " K Cera Cera " – in Israel and Palestine "to create awareness of peace in

2509-400: A hip-hop band with former colleague Cauty, and they would be called the Justified Ancients of Mu Mu: It was New Year's Day... 1987. I was at home with my parents, I was going for a walk in the morning, it was, like, bright blue sky, and I thought "I'm going to make a hip-hop record. Who can I make a hip-hop record with?". I wasn't brave enough to go and do it myself, 'cause, although I can play

2702-544: A joint European Capital of Culture for 2008. The celebrations included the erection of La Princesse , a large mechanical spider 20 metres high and weighing 37 tonnes, which represented the "eight legs" of Liverpool: honour, history, music, the Mersey, the ports, governance, sunshine and culture. La Princesse roamed the streets of the city during the festivities, and concluded by entering the Queensway Tunnel . Spearheaded by

2895-521: A later interview: "I'm some kind of antibody in the New Age movement. on the rewrite we deliberately threw in a couple of references to it, but we had worked out the structure on our own, mostly on the basis of the nut mail that Playboy gets". The prevalence of kinky sex in the story reflects the hippie ideal of " free love "; characters are both liberal-minded and promiscuous. The authors are well aware that it also provides an excuse for mere titillation: in

3088-447: A picture of a young girl with six fingers on each hand and saying, "If we were all like her, there'd be a Law of Sixes.") Another character, Simon Moon, identifies what he calls the " 23 synchronicity principle ", which he credits William S. Burroughs as having discovered. Both laws involve finding significance in the appearance of the number, and in its "presen[ce] esoterically because of its conspicuous exoteric absence." One of

3281-515: A pioneer of scientific toponymy in Wales, in "Place Names of North Wales", does not attempt to explain it beyond noting that " lleifiad " is used as a Welsh equivalent of "Liver". A derivative form of a learned borrowing into Welsh ( * llaf ) of Latin lāma (slough, bog, fen) to give " lleifiad " is possible, but unproven. In the Middle Ages , Liverpool existed firstly as farmland within

3474-455: A potentially deadly, secret U.S. government-developed mutated anthrax epidemic has been accidentally unleashed); Atlantis (where Howard, the talking porpoise , and his porpoise aides help Hagbard battle the Illuminati); Chicago (where someone resembling John Dillinger was killed many years ago); and to the island of Fernando Poo (the location of the next great Cold War standoff between

3667-419: A private army has the answer. 'No', he whispers 'but the dust they gather is of the rarest quality. Each speck a universe awaiting creation, Big Bang just a dawn away'." There have been numerous suggestions that in 1992 Drummond was on the verge of a nervous breakdown. Drummond himself said that he was on the edge of the "abyss". The KLF's BRITs statuette for "Best British Group" of 1992 was later found buried in

3860-407: A regenerated Albert Dock which proved to be a catalyst for further regeneration. In the mid-1990s, the city enjoyed growth rates higher than the national average. At the end of the 20th century, Liverpool was concentrating on regeneration, a process that continues today. Ongoing regeneration combined with the hosting of internationally significant events has helped to re-purpose Liverpool as one of

4053-781: A sample-heavy pop-rock production and crowd noise samples. The first "stadium house" single, "What Time Is Love? (Live from Trancentral)", released in October 1990, reached #5 on the UK Singles Chart and hit the top-ten internationally. The follow-up, "3 a.m. Eternal (Live at the S.S.L.)", was an international top-five hit in January 1991, reaching #1 in the UK and #5 on the US Billboard Hot 100. The album The White Room followed in March 1991, reaching #3 in

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4246-790: A solid network of distribution without stepping on each other's toes. We are distributed by the Cartel." When Rough Trade Distribution collapsed in 1991 it was reported that they owed KLF Communications £500,000. Plugging (the promotion to TV and radio) was handled by longtime associate Scott Piering . Outside the UK, KLF releases were issued under licence by local labels. In the US, the licensees were Wax Trax (the Chill Out album), TVT (early releases including The History of The JAMs a.k.a. The Timelords ), and Arista Records ( The White Room and singles). The KLF Communications physical catalogue remains deleted in

4439-607: A standalone work entitled Masks of the Illuminati and The Illuminati Papers , in which several chapters are attributed to the trilogy's characters. Many of Wilson's other works, fictional and nonfictional, also make reference to the Illuminati or the Illuminatus! books. Several of the characters from Illuminatus! , for example, Markoff Chaney ("The Midget") and Epicene Wildeblood, return in Wilson's Schrödinger's Cat Trilogy , which also carries on some of its themes. The third book of

4632-401: A symbol of the KLF, and Drummond conceded that the "sheep hacking" idea was akin to a suicide. Associates reasoned that the plan was to generate such revulsion towards the KLF that they would be ostracised from the music industry and a comeback would be impossible. The dead sheep purchased but the plan thwarted, Drummond considered chopping his hand off with an axe live on stage. The performance

4825-611: A tattoo). The Golden Apple refers to the golden apple of discord, from the Greek myth of the Judgement of Paris . In the trilogy it is used as the symbol of the Legion of Dynamic Discord, a Discordian group; the golden apple makes a number of appearances, for example, on the cover, on a black flag , and as an emblem on a uniform. Leviathan refers to the Biblical sea monster Leviathan , which

5018-503: A three day event, " Welcome to the Dark Ages ". Ending their self-imposed moratorium, the festival included a debate asking "Why Did The K Foundation Burn A Million Quid?" The JAMs also announced new plans for a People's Pyramid to be built from bricks each containing 23 grams of human ashes. New bricks will be laid at the annual " Toxteth Day Of The Dead". Cauty emphasised to the BBC in 2018 that

5211-430: A typically self-referential joke, a character in the story suggests the scenes exist: "only to sell a bad book filled with shallow characters pushing a nonsense conspiracy". Similarly, the books espouse the use of mind-altering substances to achieve higher states of consciousness, in line with the beliefs of key counterculture figures like Timothy Leary , who is mentioned throughout the three novels. Leary himself called

5404-479: A week we had recorded our first single. Early in 1987, Drummond and Cauty's collaborations began. They assumed alter egos – King Boy D and Rockman Rock respectively – and adopted the name the Justified Ancients of Mu Mu (the JAMs), after the fictional conspiratorial group "The Justified Ancients of Mummu" from The Illuminatus! Trilogy . The JAMs' primary instrument was the digital sampler with which they would plagiarise

5597-407: A word that the majority of the population since early childhood has been trained to ignore (and trained to forget both the training and that they are ignoring it), but which they associate with a vague sense of unease. Upon seeing the word, readers experience a panic reaction. They then subconsciously suppress all memories of having seen the word, but the sense of panic remains. They therefore associate

5790-412: A work of fiction, Illuminatus! contains a lot of references to songs, films, articles, novels and other media. This is partly because the characters themselves are involved in doing research, but it is also a trademark of Wilson's writing. The novel Telemachus Sneezed by the character Atlanta Hope with its catchphrase "What is John Guilt?" is a spoof of Ayn Rand 's Atlas Shrugged , the origin of

5983-513: Is a potential danger to Hagbard's submarine Leif Erickson (from the name of the Icelandic discoverer of America ). It also refers to Thomas Hobbes ' seminal work of political philosophy, Leviathan , as a metaphor for an all-encompassing, authoritarian state – a common metaphor used in libertarian discourse. The trilogy was originally written between 1969 and 1971 while Wilson and Shea were both associate editors for Playboy magazine. As part of

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6176-424: Is all out of order in a very pretentious imitation of Faulkner and Joyce . Worst yet, it has the most raunchy sex scenes, thrown in just to make it sell, I'm sure, and the authors—whom I've never heard of—have the supreme bad taste to introduce real political figures into this mishmash and pretend to be exposing a real conspiracy. You can be sure I won't waste time reading such rubbish. Several protagonists come to

6369-562: Is alluded to often, with many mentions of characters (e.g., Robert Harrison Blake , Henry Armitage , Klarkash-Ton ), monsters (e.g., Tsathoggua , Yog-Sothoth , Cthulhu ), books ( Necronomicon , Unaussprechlichen Kulten ) and places ( Miskatonic University ) from his Cthulhu Mythos . He even appears himself as a character, as does his aunt Annie Gamwell and one of his acquaintances, Hart Crane . Interest in Lovecraft reached new heights in 1975, with two full-length biographies published in

6562-428: Is also home to the UK's oldest surviving classical orchestra ( Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra ) and repertory theatre ( Liverpool Playhouse ). In 1864, Peter Ellis built the world's first iron-framed, curtain-walled office building, Oriel Chambers , which was a prototype of the skyscraper. The UK's first purpose-built department store was Compton House , completed in 1867 for the retailer J.R. Jeffrey. It

6755-615: Is also the home of the earliest black community in the UK , the earliest Chinese community in Europe , and the first mosque in England. The name comes from the Old English lifer , meaning thick or muddy water, and pōl , meaning a pool or creek, and is first recorded around 1190 as Liuerpul . According to the Cambridge Dictionary of English Place-Names , "The original reference

6948-464: Is an exercise in cognitive dissonance , with an absurdist plot built of seemingly plausible, if unprovable, components. Ultimately, readers are left to form their own interpretations as to which, if any, of the numerous contradictory viewpoints presented by the characters are valid or plausible, and which are simply satirical gags and shaggy dog jokes. This style of building up a viable belief system, then tearing it down to replace it with another one,

7141-418: Is beyond dispute, claims are sometimes made that the name Liverpool is of Welsh origin, but these are without foundation. The Welsh name for Liverpool is Lerpwl , from a former English local form Leerpool. This is a reduction of the form "Leverpool" with the loss of the intervocalic [v] (seen in other English names and words e.g. Daventry (Northamptonshire) > Danetry, never-do-well > ne’er-do-well). In

7334-566: Is bombed and he is rescued by the Discordians , led by the enigmatic Hagbard Celine , captain of a golden submarine. Hagbard represents the Discordians in their eternal battle against the Illuminati , the conspiratorial organization that secretly controls the world. He finances his operations by smuggling illicit substances. The plot meanders around the globe to such locations as Las Vegas (where

7527-666: Is foiled when, with the help of a 50-foot-tall incarnation of the goddess Eris , the four members of the AMA are killed: Wilhelm is killed by the monstrous alien being Yog-Sothoth , Wolfgang is shot by John Dillinger, Winifred is drowned by porpoises, and Werner is trapped in a sinking car. The major protagonists, now gathered together on board the submarine, are menaced by the Leviathan , a giant, pyramid-shaped single-cell sea monster that has been growing in size for hundreds of millions of years. The over-the-top nature of this encounter leads some of

7720-571: Is for other people to wonder at it. It's not very beautiful once you know." Liverpool Liverpool is a cathedral city , port city , and metropolitan borough in Merseyside , England. It had a population of 496,770 in 2022. The city is located on the eastern side of the Mersey Estuary , adjacent to the Irish Sea , and is approximately 178 miles (286 km) northwest of London . Liverpool

7913-565: Is named after the city. As early as 1851, the city was described as "the New York of Europe". During the late 19th and early 20th century, Liverpool was attracting immigrants from across Europe. This resulted in the construction of a diverse array of religious buildings in the city for the new ethnic and religious groups, many of which are still in use today. The Deutsche Kirche Liverpool , Greek Orthodox Church of St Nicholas , Gustav Adolf Church and Princes Road Synagogue were all established in

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8106-464: Is often used as a filming location due to its distinctive architecture , and was the fifth most visited UK city by foreign tourists in 2022. It is the only UNESCO City of Music in England and has produced countless musicians , most notably the Beatles , who are widely regarded as the most influential band of all time ; musicians from the city have released more UK No. 1 hit singles than anywhere else in

8299-410: Is said to have been designed by King John near the same time it was granted a royal charter , making it a borough. The original seven streets were laid out in the shape of a double cross: Bank Street (now Water Street ), Castle Street , Chapel Street , Dale Street , Juggler Street (now High Street ), Moor Street (now Tithebarn Street ) and Whiteacre Street (now Old Hall Street ). Liverpool Castle

8492-637: Is the fifth largest city in the United Kingdom and the largest settlement in Merseyside. It is part of the Liverpool City Region , a combined authority with a population of over 1.5 million. Established as a borough in Lancashire in 1207, Liverpool became a significant town in the late 17th century, when the port at nearby Chester began to silt up. The Port of Liverpool became heavily involved in

8685-460: Is the secret revealed, when Malik is hypnotized by Hagbard Celine to recall suppressed memories of his first-grade teacher conditioning his class to ignore the fnords: "If you don't see the fnord it can't eat you, don't see the fnord, don't see the fnord..." Numerology is given great credence by many of the characters, with the Law of Fives in particular being frequently mentioned. Hagbard Celine states

8878-657: Is the world's oldest existing organisation devoted to the promotion of spaceflight . Its journal, the Journal of the British Interplanetary Society , is the longest-running astronautical publication in the world. The Illuminatus! Trilogy The trilogy comprises three parts which contain five books and appendices: The Eye in the Pyramid (first two books), The Golden Apple (third and part of fourth book), Leviathan (part of fourth and all of fifth book, and

9071-465: The New Age Journal described it as: An epic fantasy...a devilishly funny work ... shimmers with illusion and paradox that provides delight after magical delight ... a farcical black tragicomedy that turns out to have been written by you and me ... it strips away illusion. The Fortean Times was also enthusiastic, whilst acknowledging the difficulties many readers would have attempting to follow

9264-514: The Atlantic slave trade , with the first slave ship departing from the town in 1699. The port also imported much of the cotton required by the neighbouring Lancashire textile mills , and became a major departure point for English and Irish emigrants to North America. Liverpool rose to global economic importance at the forefront of the Industrial Revolution in the 19th century and was home to

9457-554: The British Armed Forces , settled in Liverpool and other port cities. In June 1919, they were subject to attack by whites in racial riots; residents in the port included Swedish immigrants , and both groups had to compete with native people from Liverpool for jobs and housing. In this period, race riots also took place in other port cities. The Housing Act 1919 resulted in mass council housing being built across Liverpool during

9650-449: The Cat trilogy, The Homing Pigeons , is actually mentioned as a sequel to Illuminatus! in "Appendix Mem". In 1998, Wilson published an encyclopedia of conspiracy theories called Everything is Under Control , which explains the origins of many of the theories mentioned in Illuminatus! . Wilson and Shea planned to recollaborate on a true sequel, Bride of Illuminatus , taking place in 2026. It

9843-532: The English Civil War , including a brief siege in 1644. In 1699, the same year as its first recorded slave ship , Liverpool Merchant , set sail for Africa, Liverpool was made a parish by Act of Parliament . But arguably, the legislation of 1695 that reformed the Liverpool council was of more significance to its subsequent development. Since Roman times , the nearby city of Chester on the River Dee had been

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10036-661: The European Union selected it as the European Capital of Culture in 2008, which was reported to have generated over £800 million for the local economy within a year. The economy of Liverpool is diversified and encompasses tourism, culture , maritime , hospitality , healthcare , life sciences , advanced manufacturing, creative , and digital sectors. The city is home to the UK's second highest number of art galleries , national museums , listed buildings , and parks and open spaces , with only London having more. It

10229-541: The Eurovision Song Contest 2023 . Liverpool has been a centre of invention and innovation. Railways, transatlantic steamships , municipal trams, and electric trains were all pioneered in Liverpool as modes of mass transit. In 1829 and 1836, the first railway tunnels in the world were constructed under Liverpool ( Wapping Tunnel ). From 1950 to 1951, the world's first scheduled passenger helicopter service ran between Liverpool and Cardiff . The first School for

10422-573: The Great War was marked by social unrest, as society grappled with the massive war losses of young men, as well as trying to re-integrate veterans into civilian life and the economy. Unemployment and poor living standards greeted many ex-servicemen. Union organising and strikes took place in numerous locations, including a police strike in Liverpool among the City Police . Numerous colonial soldiers and sailors from Africa and India, who had served with

10615-401: The Illuminatus! books, Situationism , and tactics often interpreted by media commentators as " Situationist pranks . In a 2000 review of Drummond's book 45 , and an appraisal of the duo's career to date, writer Steven Poole stated that Drummond and Cauty "are the only true conceptual artists of the [1990s]. And for all the eldritch beauty of their art, their most successful creation is

10808-587: The Liverpool Dockers and Gimpo ; a performance at which "Two elderly gentlemen, reeking of Dettol , caused havoc in their motorised wheelchairs . These old reprobates, bearing a grandfatherly resemblance to messrs Cauty and Drummond, claimed to have just been asked along." The song performed at the Barbican – " ***k the Millennium " (a remix of "What Time Is Love?" featuring Acid Brass and incorporating elements of

11001-692: The Macgregor Laird expedition to the Niger River, at that time in progress. This is to a painting by Samuel Austin , Liverpool, from the Mersey . Britain was a major market for cotton imported from the Deep South of the United States, which fed the textile industry in the country. Given the crucial place cotton held in the city's economy, during the American Civil War Liverpool was, in

11194-468: The Paradise Project , a £920 million development based on Paradise Street . This produced one of the most significant changes to Liverpool's city centre since the post-war reconstruction. Renamed as ' Liverpool One ,' the centre opened in May 2008. In 2007, events and celebrations took place in honour of the 800th anniversary of the founding of the borough of Liverpool. Liverpool was designated as

11387-554: The Queensway Tunnel linking Liverpool and Birkenhead . Described as "the eighth wonder of the world" at the time of its construction, it was the longest underwater tunnel in the world for 24 years. In 1897, the Lumière brothers filmed Liverpool, including what is believed to be the world's first tracking shot , taken from the Liverpool Overhead Railway , the world's first elevated electrified railway. The Overhead Railway

11580-561: The River Dee continued to silt up, Liverpool began to grow with increasing rapidity. The first commercial wet dock was built in Liverpool in 1715. Substantial profits from the slave trade and tobacco helped the town to prosper and rapidly grow, although several prominent local men, including William Rathbone , William Roscoe and Edward Rushton , were at the forefront of the local abolitionist movement . The 19th century saw Liverpool rise to global economic importance. Pioneering, world first , technology and civic facilities launched in

11773-483: The Situationist avant-garde of the fifties and sixties." Drummond and Cauty "represent a vital and innovative strand within contemporary culture", he added. Drummond was the set designer on Ken Campbell 's 1976 stage production of The Illuminatus! Trilogy . In the first KLF Communications Info Sheet, Drummond explained that The Justified Ancients of Mu Mu name was "pinched" from Illuminatus! which he had been reading

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11966-469: The West Derby Hundred before growing in to a small town of farmers, fishermen and tradesmen and tactical army base for King John of England . The town was planned with its own castle , although due to outbreaks of disease and its subordinance to the nearby Roman port of Chester , the town's growth and prosperity stagnated until the late 17th and early 18th centuries. Substantial growth took place in

12159-608: The art world , staging an alternative art award for the Worst Artist of the Year, and burning one million pounds sterling (approximately £2.35m as of 2022). The duo have released a small number of new tracks since 1992, as the K Foundation, the One World Orchestra , and in 1997, as 2K . Drummond and Cauty reappeared in 2017 as the Justified Ancients of Mu Mu, releasing the novel 2023 , and rebooting an earlier campaign to build

12352-484: The first intercity railway , the first non-combustible warehouse system (the Royal Albert Dock ), and a pioneering elevated electrical railway ; it was granted city status in 1880 and was moved from Lancashire to the newly created county of Merseyside in 1974 . Like many other British cities, it entered a period of decline in the mid-20th century; however, it has experienced significant and ongoing regeneration since

12545-482: The sea-holly was Liverpool's final choice. The initiative was designed to highlight growing threats to the UK's flower species and also ask the public about which flowers best represented their county. Capitalising on the popularity of 1960s rock groups, such as the Beatles , as well as the city's world-class art galleries, museums and landmarks, tourism and culture have become a significant factor in Liverpool's economy. In 2004, property developer Grosvenor started

12738-484: The " Merseybeat " sound, which became synonymous with the Beatles and fellow Liverpudlian rock bands. Influenced by American rhythm and blues and rock music, they also in turn strongly affected American music. The Beatles became internationally known in the early 1960s and performed around the world together ; they were, and continue to be, the most commercially successful and musically influential band in popular history. Their co-founder, singer, and composer John Lennon

12931-533: The 1800s to serve Liverpool's growing German, Greek, Nordic and Jewish communities, respectively. One of Liverpool's oldest surviving churches, St. Peter's Roman Catholic Church , served the Polish community in its final years as a place of worship. The 20th century saw Liverpool's established rank as a global economic powerhouse challenged. Its strategic location as an international seaport made it particularly vulnerable in two World wars . Economic depressions (both in

13124-557: The 1840s when Irish migrants began arriving by the hundreds of thousands as a result of the Great Famine . While many Irish settled during this time in the city, a large percentage also emigrated to the United States or moved to the industrial centres of Lancashire , Yorkshire and the Midlands . In her poetical illustration "Liverpool" (1832), which celebrates the city's worldwide commerce, Letitia Elizabeth Landon refers specifically to

13317-414: The 1920s and 1930s. In the 1920s and 1930s, as much as 15% of the city's population (around 140,000 people) was relocated from the inner-city to new purpose built, lower density suburban housing estates, based on the belief that this would improve their standard of living, though the overall benefits have been contested. Numerous private homes were also built during this era. During the Great Depression of

13510-496: The 1960s, and several Discordian members wrote for the underground press in various parts of the country. So, we built up this myth about the warfare between the Discordian Society and the Illuminati for quite a while, until one day Bob Shea said to me, "You know, we could write a novel about this!" There was no specific division of labor in the collaborative writing process, although Shea's writing tended towards melodrama , while Wilson's parts tended towards satire . Wilson states in

13703-427: The 1990 remix EP What Time Is Love? (Remodelled & Remixed) , integrated in the new mix. On 23 April 2021, The White Room (Director's Cut) was officially released as the fourth part of the series. The album's edition includes tracks from the unreleased 1989 album, as well as an extended version of "Last Train to Trancentral" from the 1991 album. The documentary Who Killed the KLF? , directed by Chris Atkins ,

13896-411: The 19th century, some Welsh publications used the name " Lle'r Pwll " ("(the) place (of) the pool"), a reinterpretation of Lerpwl , probably in the belief that " Lle'r Pwll " was the original form. Another name, which is widely known even today, is Llynlleifiad , again a 19th-century coining. " Llyn " is pool, but " lleifiad " has no obvious meaning. G. Melville Richards (1910–1973),

14089-814: The Blind , Mechanics' Institute , High School for Girls, council house, and Juvenile Court were all founded in Liverpool. Charities such as the RSPCA , NSPCC , Age Concern , Relate , and Citizen's Advice Bureau all evolved from work in the city. The first lifeboat station, public bath and wash-house, sanitary act, medical officer for health ( William Henry Duncan ), district nurse, slum clearance , purpose-built ambulance, X-ray medical diagnosis, school of tropical medicine ( Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine ), motorised municipal fire-engine, free school meal, cancer research centre, and zoonosis research centre all originated in Liverpool. The first British Nobel Prize

14282-562: The British number-one single " Doctorin' the Tardis ", and documented the process of making a hit record in a book The Manual (How to Have a Number One the Easy Way) . As the KLF, Drummond and Cauty pioneered stadium house (rave music with a pop-rock production and sampled crowd noise) 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

14475-505: The Children's Free Revolutionary Volunteer Guards"). " The Magnificent " is a drum'n'bass version of the theme tune from The Magnificent Seven , with vocal samples from DJ Fleka of Serbian radio station B92 : "Humans against killing... that sounds like a junkie against dope". On 17 September 1997, Drummond and Cauty re-emerged briefly as 2K. 2K made a one-off performance at London's Barbican Arts Centre with Mark Manning , Acid Brass ,

14668-515: The English experimental theater director Ken Campbell to stage Illuminatus! in its entirety at The National Theatre in London was met with surprisingly open arms, particularly given its inordinate length: a cycle of five plays— The Eye of the Pyramid , Swift Kick Inc. , The Man Who Murdered God , Walpurgisnacht Rock and Leviathan —each consisting of five 23-minute acts. Sir Peter Hall , director of

14861-684: The F**k Is Going On?) , was released in June 1987. Included was a song called "The Queen and I", which sampled the ABBA single " Dancing Queen ". After a legal showdown with ABBA and the Mechanical-Copyright Protection Society , the 1987 album was forcibly withdrawn from sale. Drummond and Cauty travelled to Sweden in hope of meeting ABBA and coming to some agreement, taking an NME journalist and photographer with them, along with most of

15054-607: The Illuminati, the Argenteum Astrum , many and various world domination plans, conspiracy theories and pieces of gnostic knowledge. Many of the odder conspiracies in the book are taken from unpublished letters to Playboy magazine, where the authors were working as associate editors while they wrote the novels. Among the oddest was the suggestion that Adam Weishaupt , founder of the Bavarian Illuminati, killed George Washington and took on his identity as President of

15247-545: The JAMs' "KLF Communications" independent record label. Both reflected a shift towards house rhythms. According to NME , the JAMs' choice of samples for the first of these, " Whitney Joins the JAMs " saw them leaving behind their strategy of "collision course" to "move straight onto the art of super selective theft". The song uses samples of the Mission: Impossible and Shaft themes alongside Whitney Houston 's " I Wanna Dance with Somebody ". Drummond has claimed that

15440-536: The KLF and grindcore group Extreme Noise Terror performed a live version of "3 a.m. Eternal" at the BRIT Awards , the British Phonographic Industry 's annual awards show. Drummond and Cauty had planned to throw buckets of blood over the audience, or to disembowel a dead sheep on stage, but were prevented from doing so due to opposition from BBC lawyers and vegetarians Extreme Noise Terror; Sheep were

15633-554: The KLF and that more "musical treasure" would be the result. In the weeks following the BRITs performance, the KLF continued working with Extreme Noise Terror on the album The Black Room , but it was never finished. On 14 May 1992, the KLF announced their immediate retirement from the music industry and the deletion of their back catalogue: We have been following a wild and wounded, glum and glorious, shit but shining path these past five years. The last two of which has [sic] led us up onto

15826-472: The KLF to fans and the media) was sent out by the label. KLF Communications releases were distributed by Rough Trade Distribution (a spinoff of Rough Trade Records ) in the South East of England, and across the wider UK by the Cartel . As Drummond and Cauty explained, "The Cartel is, as the name implies, a group of independent distributors across the country who work in conjunction with each other providing

16019-496: The KLF were later offered the job of producing or remixing a new Whitney Houston album as an inducement from her record label boss ( Clive Davis of Arista Records ) to sign with them. The second single in this sequence – Drummond and Cauty's third and final single of 1987 – was " Down Town ", a dance record built around a gospel choir and " Downtown " by 1960s star Petula Clark , with lyrics that commented on poverty and homelessness. These early works were later collected on

16212-418: The KLF's " ambient house " LP Chill Out ambient video Waiting were released in 1990, as was a dance track, " It's Grim Up North ", under the JAMs' moniker. Throughout 1990, the KLF launched a series of singles with an upbeat pop-house sound which they dubbed " stadium house ". Songs from The White Room soundtrack were re-recorded with rap and more vocals (by guests labelled "Additional Communicators"),

16405-539: The Law of Fives in Appendix Gimmel: "All phenomena are directly or indirectly related to the number five." He gives away the secret when he adds, "given enough ingenuity on the part of the demonstrator. That's the very model of what a scientific law must always be: a statement about how the human mind relates to the cosmos." (Late in the work, Celine demonstrates the meaninglessness of the Law of Fives by showing another character

16598-519: The Mersey, and the CSS Shenandoah surrendered there (being the final surrender at the end of the war). The city was also the center of Confederate purchasing war materiel, including arms and ammunition, uniforms, and naval supplies to be smuggled by British blockade runners to the South . For periods during the 19th century, the wealth of Liverpool exceeded that of London, and Liverpool's Custom House

16791-718: The National Olympian Association in Liverpool, a forerunner of the British Olympic Association . Its articles of foundation provided the framework for the Olympic Charter . A concept devised by retail entrepreneur David Lewis , the first Christmas grotto opened in Lewis's department store in Liverpool in 1879. Sir Alfred Lewis Jones , a shipowner, introduced bananas to the UK via Liverpool's docks in 1884. The Mersey Railway , opened in 1886, incorporated

16984-501: The People's Pyramid project, inspired by his brother's death, is serious: "It's easy to make it sound like a joke", he said, "but it isn't a joke, it's deadly serious and it's a long-term project." He also confirmed that The Justified Ancients of Mu Mu are a going concern: "It's interesting to be in a band that doesn't make records but only makes pyramids of dead people. On 31 December 2020, the release of series of remastered compilations under

17177-512: The Pops . In collaboration with Extreme Noise Terror at the BRIT Awards in February 1992, they fired machine gun blanks into the audience and dumped a dead sheep at the aftershow party. This performance pre-announced the KLF's departure from the music business and, in May of that year, they deleted their entire back-catalogue . Drummond and Cauty established the K Foundation and sought to subvert

17370-529: The Queen recognised Liverpool as "one of the most distinctive and energetic parts of the United Kingdom", and paid tribute to the city's "major orchestras, world-class museums and galleries". She also acknowledged Liverpool's bid to become the European Capital of Culture . To celebrate the Golden Jubilee of Elizabeth II in 2002, the conservation charity Plantlife organised a competition to choose county flowers ;

17563-654: The Soviet Union, China and the United States). The evil scheme uncovered late in the tale is an attempt to immanentize the eschaton , a secret scheme of the American Medical Association , an evil rock band, to bring about a mass human sacrifice , the purpose of which is the release of enough "life-energy" to give eternal life to a select group of initiates, including Adolf Hitler . The AMA are revealed to be four siblings (last name Saure) who comprise four of

17756-515: The UK's first Underwriters' Association and the first Institute of Accountants . The Western world's first financial derivatives (cotton futures) were traded on the Liverpool Cotton Exchange in the late 1700s. In the arts, Liverpool was home to the first lending library ( The Lyceum ), athenaeum society ( Liverpool Athenaeum ), arts centre ( Bluecoat Chambers ), and public art conservation centre ( National Conservation Centre ). It

17949-481: The UK. A substantial reworking of the aborted soundtrack, the album featured a segued series of "stadium house" songs followed by downtempo tracks.The KLF's chart success continued with the single "Last Train to Trancentral" hitting number two in the UK, and number three on the Eurochart Hot 100 . In December 1991, a re-working of a song from 1987 , " Justified & Ancient " was released, featuring Tammy Wynette . It

18142-414: The United Kingdom and across the world), changing housing patterns and containerisation in the maritime industry contributed to a downtrend in the city's productivity and prosperity. Despite this, the city's influence on global popular culture excelled and by the end of the century, the continuing process of urban renewal paved the way for the redefined modern city of the 21st century. The period after

18335-403: The United Kingdom. Several threads and themes unify the many incarnations of Drummond and Cauty's creative partnership, many of these influenced by The Illuminatus! Trilogy ; combined, these themes, threads and their activities over the years have been said to form a "mythology." Drummond and Cauty made heavy references to Discordianism , popularised by Robert Shea and Robert Anton Wilson in

18528-535: The United States . This is often noted in Illuminati-conspiracy discussion. Proponents of this theory point to Washington's portrait on the United States one-dollar bill , which they suggest closely resembles the face of Weishaupt. The nonsense word fnord , invented by the writers of Principia Discordia , is given a specific and sinister meaning in the trilogy. It is a subliminal message technique,

18721-487: The album which was eventually released to mainstream success. A single from the original album was released: " Kylie Said to Jason ", an electropop record featuring references to Todd Terry , Rolf Harris , Skippy the Bush Kangaroo and BBC comedy programme The Good Life . In reference to that song, Drummond and Cauty noted that they had worn " Pet Shop Boys infatuations brazenly on [their] sleeves." The film project

18914-622: The appendices). The parts were first published as three separate volumes starting in September 1975. In 1984 they were published as an omnibus edition and are now more commonly reprinted in the latter form. In 1986 the trilogy won the Prometheus Hall of Fame Award . The authors further dealt with its themes in fiction and non-fiction works. Illuminatus! has been adapted for the stage and as an audio book, and has influenced several modern writers, artists, musicians, and game-makers. The popularity of

19107-411: The area. More immigrants arrived after World War II, mostly settling in older inner-city areas such as Toxteth , where housing was less expensive. The black population of Liverpool was recorded at 1.90% in 2011. In the 2021 Census , 5.2% described themselves as black African, Caribbean, mixed white and black African, mixed white and Caribbean or 'other black'. In the 1960s, Liverpool was the centre of

19300-464: The biggest selling singles act in the world in 1991. From the outset, the KLF adopted the philosophy espoused by esoteric novels The Illuminatus! Trilogy , making anarchic situationist manifestations, including the defacement of billboard adverts , the posting of cryptic advertisements in New Musical Express ( NME ) and the mainstream press, as well as unusual performances on Top of

19493-512: The book in which the narrative reviews and jokingly deconstructs the work itself. The trilogy's story begins with an investigation by two New York City police detectives (Saul Goodman and Barney Muldoon) into the bombing of Confrontation , a leftist magazine, and the disappearance of its editor, Joe Malik. Discovering the magazine's investigation into the assassinations of John F. Kennedy , Robert F. Kennedy , and Martin Luther King Jr. ,

19686-512: The book. When they got to memo 23, Shea said, "If we imagine a New York cop came across these memos, I think we've got the basis for a fine thriller!" So the next one Wilson wrote was episode one of the thriller. Shea replied with episode two. They were playing a game really. Like, I bet you can't continue this! The answer is, "No I can't, so we'll continue with this!" The unusual end product did not appeal to publishers, and it took several years before anybody agreed to take it on. According to Wilson,

19879-411: The books because the printer decided to trim the number of pages is a joke typical of the trilogy. Dell Publishing first released these individual editions (with covers illustrated by Carlos Victor Ochagavia) in the United States in 1975 , to favorable reviews and some commercial success. It became a cult favorite but did not cross over into large mainstream sales. In Britain , Sphere Books released

20072-462: The central government in London. Liverpool in the 1980s has been labelled as Britain's 'shock city'. Once the second city of the British Empire which rivalled the capital city in global significance, Liverpool had collapsed in to its 'nadir' at the depths of post-colonial , post-industrial Britain. In the late 20th century, Liverpool's economy began to recover. The late 1980s saw the opening of

20265-583: The character John Galt . Ayn Rand is mentioned by name a few times in Illuminatus! , and her novel is alluded to by Hagbard who says, "If Atlas can Shrug and Telemachus can Sneeze, why can't Satan Repent?" Rand is also disparaged in one of the appendices concerning property, ostensibly written by Hagbard, which serves as an explanation of anarchist Pierre-Joseph Proudhon 's views on the subject. There are also references to Thomas Pynchon 's The Crying of Lot 49 and his Gravity's Rainbow , an equally enormous experimental novel concerning liberty and paranoia that

20458-491: The characters to question whether they are merely characters in a book. This metafictional note is swiftly rejected (or ignored) as they turn their attention to the monster again. The threat is neutralized by offering up their onboard computer as something for the creature to communicate with to ease its loneliness. Finally Hagbard manages to defeat the Illuminati Primi and travels to Alpha Centauri in 1999. The titles of

20651-523: The city and form an important part of the economy. In June 2014, Prime Minister David Cameron launched the International Festival for Business in Liverpool, the world's largest business event in 2014, and the largest in the UK since the Festival of Britain in 1951. The Labour Party has chosen Liverpool numerous times since the mid 2010s for their annual Labour Party Conference . Liverpool hosted

20844-494: The city to serve the accelerating population which was fuelled by an influx of ethnic and religious communities from all around the world. By the start of the 19th century, a large volume of trade was passing through Liverpool, and the construction of major buildings reflected this wealth. In 1830, Liverpool and Manchester became the first cities to have an intercity rail link, through the Liverpool and Manchester Railway . The population continued to rise rapidly, especially during

21037-473: The city's docks became largely obsolete, and dock workers were made unemployed. By the early 1980s, unemployment rates in Liverpool were among the highest in the UK, standing at 17% by January 1982 although, this was about half the level of unemployment that had affected the city during the Great Depression some 50 years previously. During this period, Liverpool became a hub of fierce left-wing opposition to

21230-484: The city. By the 2020s, urban regeneration throughout the city continues. Liverpool Waters , a mixed-use development in the city's disused northern docklands, has been identified as one of the largest megaprojects in the UK's history. Everton's new stadium at Bramley-Moore Dock was regarded as the largest single-site private sector development in the United Kingdom at the time of construction. Major events, business and political conferences regularly take place in

21423-454: The climax that the entire story is a computer-generated synthesis of random conspiracies: "I can fool the rest of you, but I can't fool the reader. FUCKUP has been working all morning, correlating all the data on this caper and its historical roots, and I programmed him to put it in the form of a novel for easy reading. Considering what a lousy job he does at poetry, I suppose it will be a high-camp novel, intentionally or unintentionally." For

21616-479: The collective title Samplecity thru Trancentral was announced on a graffiti and posters hung under a railway bridge on Kingsland Road in Shoreditch , East London . The 30-minute collection of eight remastered singles Solid State Logik 1 appeared at midnight 1 January 2021, on streaming platforms , while high-definition videos were published for the first time on the band's official YouTube channel, marking

21809-496: The commercial high ground – we are at a point where the path is about to take a sharp turn from these sunny uplands down into a netherworld of we know not what. For the foreseeable future there will be no further record releases from The Justified Ancients of Mu Mu, The Timelords, The KLF and any other past, present and future name attached to our activities. As of now all our past releases are deleted .... If we meet further along be prepared ... our disguise may be complete. In

22002-557: The compilation album Shag Times . A second album, Who Killed the JAMs? , was released in early 1988. Who Killed the JAMs? earned the duo a five-star review from Sounds magazine, who called it "a masterpiece of pathos". In 1988, Drummond and Cauty released a ' novelty ' pop single, " Doctorin' the Tardis " as the Timelords. The song is predominantly a mash-up of the Doctor Who theme music , " Block Buster! " by Sweet and Gary Glitter 's " Rock and Roll (Part Two) ". Credited on

22195-499: The conspiracy, so the pop myth of the KLF can never be blown apart by anything they do, no matter how dumb or embarrassing. The myth will suck it up, like a black hole. Drummond and Cauty have also been compared to Stewart Home and the Neoists . Home himself said that the duo's work "has much more in common with the Neoist, Plagiarist and Art Strike movements of the nineteen-eighties than with

22388-467: The convoluted plot threads: Be prepared for streams of consciousness in which not only identity but time and space no longer confine the narrative, which zips up and down time-lines and flashes into other minds with consummate ease [...] A damned good read. Has to be read to be believed (and even then I'm not sure—it really is preposterous in parts). Illuminatus! even garnered some attention outside literary criticism, having several pages devoted to it in

22581-412: The creation of a road movie and soundtrack album , both titled The White Room , funded by the profits of "Doctorin' the Tardis". Neither the film nor its soundtrack were formally released, although bootleg copies exist. The soundtrack album contained pop-house versions of some of the "pure trance" singles, as well as new songs, most of which would appear (in radically reworked form) on the version of

22774-426: The division of Illuminatus! into three parts was a commercial decision of the publisher, not the authors, who had conceived it as a single continuous volume. Shea and Wilson were required to cut 500 pages to reduce printing costs on what was seen as a risky venture, although Wilson states that most of the ideas contained therein made it into his later works. The idea that the top secrets of the Illuminati were cut from

22967-586: The earlier The Sound of Mu(sic) ). The duo's first release as the KLF was in March 1988, with the single " Burn the Bastards"/"Burn the Beat " (KLF 002). Although the Justified Ancients of Mu Mu name was not retired, most future Drummond and Cauty releases went under the name "The KLF". The name change accompanied a change in Drummond and Cauty's musical direction. As 'King Boy D', Drummond said in January 1988, "We might put out

23160-562: The early 1930s, unemployment peaked at around 30% in the city. Liverpool was the site of Britain's first provincial airport , operating from 1930. During the Second World War , the critical strategic importance of Liverpool was recognised by both Hitler and Churchill . The city was heavily bombed by the Germans, suffering a blitz second only to London's. The pivotal Battle of the Atlantic

23353-482: The entrance to one of the post-ceremony parties. Piering's PA announcement was largely not taken seriously at the time; even he and other close associates of the band thought the announcement was a joke. NME' s detailed piece on the events at the BRIT Awards and the after-party, which included an interview with Drummond the day after, assured readers that the "tensions and contradictions" would continue to "push and spark"

23546-751: The fall of Atlantis, who really killed JFK, sex, drugs, rock'n'roll, and the Cosmic Giggle Factor. [...] The perfect right-brain companion to Hofstadter 's Gödel, Escher, Bach . It was also included in the "Slack Syllabus" in The Official Slacker Handbook by Sarah Dunn (1994), a satirical guide aimed at Generation X . Wilson and Robert Shea went on to become prolific authors. While Shea concentrated mainly on historical novels, Wilson produced over 30 works, mixing fictional novels with nonfiction. Although both authors' later work often elaborated on concepts first discussed in Illuminatus! ,

23739-408: The first activity of Cauty and Drummond as the KLF since 1992. On 23 March 2021, the collection was followed by its part 2 featuring 12" versions of the singles. On 4 February 2021, a re-edited version of Chill Out was released, retitled Come Down Dawn , with previously unlicensed samples from the original release removed, and added "What Time Is Love? (Virtual Reality Mix)," originally from

23932-527: The first incarnations of later international chart successes. The KLF described the new tracks as "Pure Trance". In 1989, the KLF appeared at the Helter Skelter rave in Oxfordshire . "They wooed the crowd", wrote Scotland on Sunday some years later, "by pelting them with... £1,000 worth of Scottish pound notes , each of which bore the message 'Children we love you ' ". Also in 1989, the KLF embarked upon

24125-401: The first part "To Gregory Hill and Kerry Thornley ", the founders of the religion. The key Discordian practice known as "Operation Mindfuck" is exemplified in the character of Markoff Chaney (a play on the mathematical random process called Markov chain ). He is an anti-social dwarf who engages in subtle practical joking in a deliberate attempt to cause social confusion. One such joke involves

24318-446: The first place. Maybe because there's less inherent 'meaning' in the KLF's music, or maybe just because the 'meaning' in house music is less fragile". After successive name changes and dance records, Drummond and Cauty ultimately became, as the KLF, the biggest-selling singles act in the world for 1991, still incorporating the work of other artists but in less gratuitous ways and predominantly without legal problems. On 12 February 1992,

24511-557: The first two volumes, despite the Church of the SubGenius not being featured in the novel (although Wilson had become a member). The Church was founded by Illuminatus! fans, and the image of "Bob" is widely considered to be a representation of Wilson himself. The Illuminatus! Trilogy covers a wide range of subjects throughout the book. These include discussions about mythology, current events, conspiracy theories and counterculture. Although

24704-521: The five mysterious Illuminati Primi. The identity of the fifth remains unknown for much of the trilogy. The first European " Woodstock " festival, held at Ingolstadt , Bavaria (place of origin of the real historical Illuminati, also known as Bavarian Illuminati ), is the chosen location for the sacrifice of the unwary victims, via the reawakening of hibernating Nazi battalions from the bottom of nearby (fictitious) Lake Totenkopf (a literal translation of contemporary American English "dead head"). The plot

24897-445: The forging and placing of signs that are signed by "The Mgt." (leading people to believe they are from "The Management" instead of "The Midget") that contain absurdities like "Slippery when wet. Maintain 50mph." There are several parts in the book where it reviews and jokingly deconstructs itself. The fictional journalist Epicene Wildeblood at one point is required to critique a book uncannily similar to The Illuminatus! Trilogy : It's

25090-503: The formation of the Liverpool City Region Combined Authority in a form of devolution . With a devolved budget granted by central government , the authority now oversees and invests in foremost strategic affairs throughout the Liverpool City Region , including major regeneration projects. The authority, along with Liverpool City Council itself, has embarked on long-term plans to grow the population and economy of

25283-402: The guitar, and I can knock out a few things on the piano, I knew nothing, personally, about the technology. And, I thought, I knew [Jimmy], I knew he was a like spirit, we share similar tastes and backgrounds in music and things. So I phoned him up that day and said "Let's form a band called The Justified Ancients of Mu-Mu". And he knew exactly, to coin a phrase, "where I was coming from"... Within

25476-433: The hard way, and I want to see the world from the top". In the same year he released a solo LP, The Man . 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". Recalling that moment in a later interview, Drummond said that the plan came to him in an instant: he would form

25669-479: The height of the late 1960s, and are infused with the popular counterculture ideas of that time. For instance, the New Age slogan " flower power " is referenced via its German form, Ewige Blumenkraft (literally "eternal flower power"), described by Shea and Wilson as a slogan of the Illuminati, the enemies of the hippie ideal. The book's attitude to New Age philosophies and beliefs are ambiguous. Wilson explained in

25862-461: The history of popular music, cutting chunks from existing works and pasting them into new contexts, underpinned by rudimentary beatbox rhythms and overlaid with Drummond's raps , of social commentary, esoteric metaphors and mockery. The JAMs' debut single " All You Need Is Love " dealt with the media coverage given to AIDS , sampling heavily from the Beatles ' " All You Need Is Love " and Samantha Fox 's " Touch Me (I Want Your Body) ". Although it

26055-432: The history of rock and roll. It was the type of music that by early '87 was really exciting me ... [although] we weren't able to get our first KLF records out until late '88." The 12" records subsequently released in 1988 and 1989 by the KLF were indeed rap free and house-oriented; remixes of some of the JAMs tracks, and new singles, the largely instrumental acid house anthems " What Time Is Love? " and " 3 a.m. Eternal ",

26248-544: The hymn " Eternal Father, Strong to Save ") – was also released as a single. These activities were accompanied by the usual full page press adverts, this time asking readers "***k The Millennium: Yes/No?" with a telephone number provided for voting. At the same time, Drummond and Cauty were also K2 Plant Hire , with plans to build a "People's Pyramid" from used house bricks; this plan never reached fruition. K2 Plant Hire Ltd had been registered at Companies House since 1995; Cauty and Drummond are directors. The Directors' Report for

26441-463: The idea of reading between the lines , especially since the word fnord was actually said to appear between regular lines of text. The word makes its first appearance in The Illuminatus! Trilogy without any explanation during an acid trip by Dr. Ignotum Per Ignotius and Joe Malik: "The only good fnord is a dead fnord". Several other unexplained appearances follow. Only much later in the story

26634-459: The idea of starting over is exciting. Starting over on what? Well, they have such great ideas, like buying submarines". Even Kenny Gates, who as a director of the KLF's distributors APT stood to lose financially from the move, called it "Conceptually and philosophically... absolutely brilliant". Mark Stent reported the doubts of many when he said that "I [have] had so many people who I know, heads of record companies, A&R men saying, 'Come on, It's

26827-482: The individual editions (with different cover art by Tony Roberts) in 1976 . The individual editions sold steadily until 1984 , when the trilogy was republished in a single omnibus volume for the first time. This collected edition lost the "what has gone before" introduction to The Golden Apple and the "Prologue" to Leviathan . Some of the material in that foreword, such as the self-destruct mynah birds (taught to say "Here, kitty-kitty-kitty!"), appears nowhere else in

27020-415: The lowest common denominator. According to the British music press, the result was "rancid", "pure, unadulterated agony" and "excruciating" and from Sounds "a record so noxious that a top ten place can be its only destiny". A single of the Timelords' remixes of the song was released: "Gary Joins the JAMs" featured original vocal contributions from Glitter, who also appeared on Top of the Pops to promote

27213-433: The magazine. Movie director Bill Butt said that "Like everything, they're dealing with it in a very realistic way, a fresh, unbitter way, which is very often not the case. A lot of bands disappear with such a terrible loss of dignity". Scott Piering said that "They've got a huge buzz off this, that's for sure, because it's something that's finally thrilling. It's scary to have thrown away a fortune which I know they have. Just

27406-631: The many conspiracy theories in the book are imaginary, these are mixed in with enough truth to make them seem plausible. For example, the title of the first book, The Eye in the Pyramid , refers to the Eye of Providence , a mystical symbol which derives from the ancient Egyptian Eye of Horus and is erroneously claimed to be the symbol of the Bavarian Illuminati . Some of America's founding fathers are alleged by conspiracy theorists to have been members of this sect. The books are loaded with references to

27599-558: The mid-late 18th century when the town became the most heavily involved European port in the Atlantic slave trade . King John 's letters patent of 1207 announced the foundation of the borough of Liverpool (then spelt as Liuerpul ). There is no evidence that the place had previously been a centre of any trade. The creation of the borough was probably due to King John deciding it would be a convenient place to embark men and supplies for his Irish campaigns , in particular John's Irish campaign of 1209 . The original street plan of Liverpool

27792-421: The most visited, tourist orientated, cities in the United Kingdom. City leaders are focussing on long-term strategies to grow the city's population and economy, while national government explores the continuous potential for devolution in the city. In 2002, Queen Elizabeth II and Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh visited Liverpool to mark the Golden Jubilee . On speaking to an audience at Liverpool Town Hall ,

27985-606: The multi-billion- pound Liverpool ONE development, regeneration continued throughout the 2010s. Some of the most significant redevelopment projects included new buildings in the Commercial District , King's Dock , Mann Island , around Lime Street , the Baltic Triangle , RopeWalks , and Edge Lane . Changes to Liverpool's governance took place in 2014. The local authority of Liverpool City Council decided to pool its power and resources with surrounding boroughs through

28178-466: The music of Bill Drummond and Jimmy Cauty was independently released in their home country (the UK). Their debut releases – the single " All You Need Is Love " and the album 1987 – were released under the label name "The Sound Of Mu(sic)". By the end of 1987 Drummond and Cauty had renamed their label to "KLF Communications" and, in October 1987, the first of many "information sheets" (self written missives from

28371-415: The myth they have built around themselves." This deep and perplexing mythology, he suggested, results in all their subsequent activities (as a partnership or otherwise) being absorbed into their mystique: A myth like the KLF's is peculiarly omnivorous. Just as there can never be any evidence to disprove a conspiracy theory because the fabrication of such evidence – don't you see? – is itself part of

28564-621: The novel was also an attempt to build a myth around Discordianism : It started with the Discordian Society, which is based on worship of Eris, the Greek goddess of confusion and chaos [...] We felt the Society needed some opposition, because the whole idea of it is based on conflict and dialectics. So, we created an opposition within the Discordian Society, which we called the Bavarian Illuminati [...] There were several Discordian newsletters written in

28757-401: The pair never collaborated again. The trilogy inspired a number of direct adaptations, including a stage play and a comic book series, and numerous indirect adaptations that borrowed from its themes. Wilson subsequently wrote a number of prequels , sequels and spin-offs based upon the Illuminatus! concept, including an incomplete pentalogy called The Historical Illuminatus Chronicles ,

28950-412: The period ending 31 March 1996 listed the company's activities as "a music company," and the accompanying accounts noted a transaction with "KLF Communications Residual Royalties", a Cauty-Drummond partnership. On 23 August 2017, in Liverpool, 23 years after they burnt a million pounds, Drummond and Cauty returned as the Justified Ancients of Mu Mu. The duo launched a novel, 2023: A Trilogy , and staged

29143-568: The process: "When they did the remix of 'So Hard', they didn't do a remix at all, they re-wrote the record ... I had to go and sing the vocals again, they did it in a different way. I was impressed that Bill Drummond had written all the chords out and played it on an acoustic guitar, very thorough." The "stadium house" singles trilogy was characterised by Tom Ewing of Freaky Trigger as applying "the possibilities for mass lunacy" to "awe-inpsiring, colossal, unprecedented dancefloor bulldozers." He adds: "For novelty scam-mongers and pranksters, they knew

29336-410: The public well, particularly that strain in British pop listening which likes an occasional brush with the gigantic. The KLF did to house what Jim Steinman did to rock – they turned it into a thing of tottering grand opera absurdity, pushed the excitement in the music to hysteria, traded content for ever-huger gesture. The difference being that the KLF never lost track of what made the music special in

29529-412: The realization that they are merely fictional characters, or at least begin to question the reality of their situation. George Dorn wonders early on if he "was in some crazy surrealist movie, wandering from telepathic sheriffs to homosexual assassins, to nympho lady Masons, to psychotic pirates, according to a script written in advance by two acid-heads and a Martian humorist". Hagbard Celine claims towards

29722-519: The reasons Moon finds 23 significant is because "All the great anarchists died on the 23rd day of some month or other." He also identifies a "23/17 phenomenon." They are both tied to the Law of Fives, he explains, because 2 + 3 = 5, and 1 + 7 = 8 = 2³. Robert Anton Wilson claimed in a 1988 interview that "23 is a part of the cosmic code. It's connected with so many synchronicities and weird coincidences that it must mean something, I just haven't figured out yet what it means!". The books were written at

29915-434: The record was "Ford Timelord", Cauty's 1968 Ford Galaxie American police car, and "Lord Rock" (Cauty) and "Time Boy" (Drummond). The Timelords claimed that Ford Timelord was the "Talent" in the band and had given them instructions on how to make the record; Ford fronted the promotional campaign for the single and was "interviewed" on TV. The car would later be banger raced at Swaffham Raceway in 1991. They later portrayed

30108-543: The region's principal port on the Irish Sea . However, as the Dee began to silt up , maritime trade from Chester became increasingly difficult and shifted towards Liverpool on the neighbouring River Mersey . The first of the Liverpool docks was constructed in 1715, and the system of docks gradually grew into a large interconnected system. As trade from the West Indies , including sugar, surpassed that of Ireland and Europe, and as

30301-545: The remaining copies of the LP. They failed to meet ABBA, who they didn't realize already lived in Britain at the time, so they disposed of the copies by burning most of them in a field and throwing the rest overboard on the North Sea ferry trip home. In a December 1987 interview, Cauty maintained that they "felt that what [they]'d done was artistically justified." Two new singles followed on

30494-401: The role, they dealt with correspondence from the general public on the subject of civil liberties , much of which involved paranoid rants about imagined conspiracies. The pair began to write a novel with the premise that "all these nuts are right, and every single conspiracy they complain about really exists". In a 1980 interview given to the science fiction magazine Starship , Wilson suggested

30687-516: The same year as The Illuminatus! Trilogy . The books have received laudatory reviews and comments from Playboy , Publishers Weekly , the American Library Association 's Booklist magazine, Philadelphia Daily News , Berkeley Barb , Rolling Stone and Limit . The Village Voice called it "The ultimate conspiracy book ... the biggest sci-fi-cult novel to come along since Dune ... hilariously raunchy!" John White of

30880-492: The song as the result of a deliberate effort to write a number one hit single. In interviews with Snub TV and BBC Radio 1 , Drummond said that they had intended to make a house record using the Doctor Who theme. After Cauty had laid down a basic track, Drummond observed that their house idea wasn't working and what they actually had was a Glitter beat . Sensing the opportunity to make a commercial pop record they went instead for

31073-438: The song with the Timelords. "Doctorin' the Tardis" sold over one million copies. The Timelords released one other product, a 1989 book called The Manual (How to Have a Number One the Easy Way) , a step-by-step guide to achieving a number one hit single with little money or talent. By the time the JAMs' single "Whitney Joins the JAMs" was released in September 1987, their record label had been renamed "KLF Communications" (from

31266-440: The subject of condemnation. Historian Raphael Samuel labelled Graeme Shankland "the butcher of Liverpool". A significant West Indian black community has existed in the city since the first two decades of the 20th century. Like most British cities and industrialised towns, Liverpool became home to a significant number of Commonwealth immigrants, beginning after World War I with colonial soldiers and sailors who had served in

31459-429: The three volumes or parts (the front covers were titled Illuminatus! Part I The Eye in the Pyramid , Illuminatus! Part II The Golden Apple and Illuminatus! Part III Leviathan ) refer to recurring symbols of elements of the plot. The Eye in the Pyramid refers to the Eye of Providence , which in the novel represents particularly the Bavarian Illuminati , and makes a number of appearances (for example, as an altar and

31652-439: The trilogy "more important than Ulysses or Finnegans Wake , " two novels by author James Joyce —who appears as a character in The Illuminatus! Trilogy and is a favorite author of Robert Anton Wilson . This quote is blurbed on the covers or front page of its various printings. Every view of reality that is introduced in the story is later derided in some way, whether that view is traditional or iconoclastic. The trilogy

31845-455: The trilogy, likely a result of the 500 pages of cuts demanded by Dell. The omnibus edition gave a new lease on life to flagging sales, and became the most commonly available form of the trilogy from then on. The trilogy was translated and published in German, again both as separate volumes (the three covers of which formed a triptych ) and an omnibus. The face of J. R. "Bob" Dobbs was split across

32038-415: The two follow a trail of memos that suggest the involvement of powerful secret societies . They slowly become drawn into a web of conspiracy theories. Meanwhile, the magazine's reporter, George Dorn—having been turned loose without support deep in right-wing Mad Dog, Texas —is arrested for drug possession. He is jailed and physically threatened, at one point hallucinating about his own execution. The prison

32231-463: The unease with the news story they are reading. Fnords are scattered liberally in the text of newspapers and magazines, causing fear and anxiety in those following current events. There are no fnords in the advertisements , thus encouraging a consumerist society. Fnord magazine equated the fnords with a generalized effort to control and brainwash the populace. To "see the fnords" would imply an attempt to wrestle back individual autonomy, similar to

32424-552: The word " fnord " and the 23 enigma can both be attributed to the trilogy. The plot meanders between the thoughts, hallucinations and inner voices, real and imagined, of its many characters—ranging from a squirrel to a New York City detective to an artificial intelligence—as well as through time (past, present, and future), and sometimes in mid-sentence. Much of the back story is explained via dialogue between characters, who recount unreliable , often mutually contradictory, versions of their supposed histories. There are even parts in

32617-672: The words of historian Sven Beckert , "the most pro-Confederate place in the world outside the Confederacy itself." Liverpool merchants helped to bring out cotton from ports blockaded by the Union Navy , built ships of war for the Confederacy , and supplied the South with military equipment and credit. During the war, the Confederate Navy ship, the CSS Alabama , was built at Birkenhead on

32810-457: The world". They burnt what was left of their KLF earnings – a million pounds sterling in cash (equivalent to £2.35m as of 2022) – and filmed the performance. Cauty and Drummond announced a 23-year moratorium on all K Foundation activities in November 1995. Also in 1995, Drummond and Cauty contributed a song to The Help Album as The One World Orchestra ("featuring The Massed Pipes and Drums of

33003-419: The world's first tunnel under a tidal estuary and the world's first deep-level underground stations ( Liverpool James Street railway station ). In 1889, borough engineer John Alexander Brodie invented the football goal net. He was also a pioneer in the use of pre-fabricated housing and oversaw the construction of the UK's first ring road ( A5058 ) and intercity highway ( East Lancashire Road ), as well as

33196-444: The world. It has also produced many academics , actors , artists , comedians , filmmakers , poets , scientists , sportspeople , and writers . In sports, it is known as the home of Premier League football teams Everton FC and Liverpool FC . The world's oldest still-operating mainline train station, Liverpool Lime Street , is in the city centre; transport is also served by the underground Merseyrail network. The city's port

33389-410: The writing process was treated as a game of one-upmanship between the two co-authors, and was an enjoyable experience for both: They had a lot of access to research staff. And so under the guise that it would be helpful writing articles for Playboy (I don't think it was really) they got into the Illuminati. Wilson would bung these memos to Shea as material came in from the researchers—like the memos in

33582-411: The year before. A notable theme of Illuminatus! is the number 23 , placed overtly and surreptitiously, both in the book and later throughout the band's career: When questioned on the importance that he attaches to this number, Drummond has been evasive, responding enigmatically "I know. But I'm not going to tell, because then other people would have to stop having to wonder and the thing about beauty

33775-596: Was another international hit – peaking at number two in the UK, and number 11 on the Billboard Hot 100 – as was " America: What Time Is Love? ", a hard, guitar-laden reworking of "What Time Is Love?". In 1990 and 1991, the KLF also remixed tracks by Depeche Mode (" Policy of Truth "), the Moody Boys ("What Is Dub?"), and Pet Shop Boys ("So Hard" from the Behaviour album, and "It Must Be Obvious"). Neil Tennant described

33968-480: Was awarded in 1902 to Ronald Ross , professor at the School of Tropical Medicine, the first school of its kind in the world. Orthopaedic surgery was pioneered in Liverpool by Hugh Owen Thomas , and modern medical anaesthetics by Thomas Cecil Gray . The world's first integrated sewer system was constructed in Liverpool by James Newlands , appointed in 1847 as the UK's first borough engineer. Liverpool also founded

34161-404: Was built before 1235, it survived until it was demolished in the 1720s. By the middle of the 16th century, the population was still around 600, although this was likely to have fallen from an earlier peak of 1000 people due to slow trade and the effects of the plague . In the 17th century, there was slow progress in trade and population growth. Battles for control of the town were waged during

34354-539: Was declined by distributors fearful of prosecution, and threatened with lawsuits, copies of the one-sided white label 12" were sent to the music press ; it received positive reviews and was made "single of the week" in Sounds . A later piece in the same magazine called the JAMs "the hottest, most exhilarating band this year .... It's hard to understand what it feels like to come across something you believe to be totally new; I have never been so wholeheartedly convinced that

34547-534: Was described by Wilson as " guerrilla ontology ". This postmodern lack of belief in consensus reality is a cornerstone of the semi-humorous Chaos -based religion of Discordianism . Extracts from its sacred text, the Principia Discordia by Malaclypse the Younger , are extensively quoted throughout the trilogy. It incorporates and shares many themes and contexts from Illuminatus . Shea and Wilson dedicated

34740-407: Was fraught with difficulties and setbacks, including dwindling funds. "Kylie Said to Jason", which Drummond and Cauty were hoping could "rescue them from the jaws of bankruptcy", flopped commercially, failing even to make the UK top 100. In consequence, The White Room film project was put on hold, and the KLF abandoned the musical direction of the soundtrack and single. Meanwhile, "What Time Is Love?"

34933-502: Was generating acclaim within the underground clubs of continental Europe; according to KLF Communications, "The KLF were being feted by all the 'right' DJs". This prompted Drummond and Cauty to pursue the acid house tone of their Pure Trance series. A further Pure Trance release, " Last Train to Trancentral ", followed. By this time, Cauty had co-founded the Orb as an ambient side-project with Alex Paterson . Cauty's ambient album Space and

35126-469: Was instead concluded with a limping, kilted , cigar-chomping Drummond firing blanks from an automatic weapon over the heads of the crowd. As the band left the stage, the KLF's promoter and narrator Scott Piering proclaimed over the PA system that "The KLF have now left the music business". Later in the evening the band dumped the dead sheep, with the message "I died for you – bon appetit" tied around its waist, at

35319-616: Was killed in New York City in 1980. Liverpool Airport was renamed after him in 2002, the first British airport to be named in honour of an individual. Previously part of Lancashire, and a county borough from 1889, Liverpool became a metropolitan borough within the newly created metropolitan county of Merseyside , in 1974. From the mid-1970s onwards, Liverpool's docks and traditional manufacturing industries declined due to restructuring of shipping and heavy industry, causing massive losses of jobs. The advent of containerisation meant that

35512-401: Was planned, fought and won from Liverpool. The Luftwaffe made 80  air raids on Merseyside , killing 2,500 people and causing damage to almost half the homes in the metropolitan area. Significant rebuilding followed the war, including massive housing estates and the Seaforth Dock , the largest dock project in Britain. Since 1952, Liverpool has been twinned with Cologne , Germany,

35705-457: Was published two years prior to Illuminatus! Wilson claims his book was already complete by the time he and Shea read Pynchon's novel (which went on to win several awards), but they then went back and made some modifications to the text before its final publication to allude to Pynchon's work. The phrase "So it goes" is repeatedly used in reference to death, a deliberate echoing of Kurt Vonnegut 's Slaughterhouse-Five . Author H. P. Lovecraft

35898-508: Was released on April 4 2022. Atkins began creating the documentary against Drummond's and Cauty's wishes, but was incarcerated in 2016 for tax fraud for two years; he continued editing the film while in prison. According to Atkins, the duo eventually claimed they "love" the film, though they pointed out some minor inaccuracies. The band's master tapes were donated to the British Library in 2023. From their very earliest releases as The Justified Ancients of Mu Mu until their retirement in 1992,

36091-443: Was rumored that it would feature a resurrected Winifred Saure (the only female member of the American Medical Association) exerting her influence through virtual reality . Shea died in 1994 before this project came to fruition. An excerpt was published in Robert Anton Wilson 's Trajectories Newsletter: The Journal of Futurism and Heresy in spring 1995. In a 1994 interview for FringeWare Review , Wilson suggested he may even "do

36284-454: Was the first railway in the world to use electric multiple units , employ automatic signalling, and install an escalator. Liverpool inventor Frank Hornby was a visionary in toy development and manufacture, producing three of the most popular lines of toys in the 20th century: Meccano , Hornby Model Railways (both in 1901), and Dinky Toys in 1934. The British Interplanetary Society , founded in Liverpool in 1933 by Phillip Ellaby Cleator,

36477-485: Was the fourth largest in the UK in 2023, with numerous shipping and freight lines having headquarters and offices there. Residents of Liverpool are often called "Scousers" in reference to scouse , a local stew made popular by sailors in the city, while "Scouse" is also the most common name given to the distinctive local accent . The city's cultural and ethnic diversity has resulted from its history of attracting immigrants, especially from Ireland, Scandinavia, and Wales; it

36670-404: Was the guitarist in the three-piece Brilliant – an act that Drummond had signed to WEA Records and managed. In July 1986, Drummond resigned from his position as an A&R man at record label WEA , citing that he was nearly 33⅓ years old (33⅓ revolutions per minute being the speed at which a vinyl LP revolves), and that it was "time for a revolution in my life. There is a mountain to climb

36863-414: Was the largest store in the world at the time. Between 1862 and 1867, Liverpool held an annual Grand Olympic Festival . Devised by John Hulley and Charles Pierre Melly , these games were the first to be wholly amateur in nature and international in outlook. The programme of the first modern Olympiad in Athens in 1896 was almost identical to that of the Liverpool Olympics. In 1865, Hulley co-founded

37056-401: Was the single largest contributor to the British Exchequer . Liverpool was the only British city ever to have its own Whitehall office. During this century, at least 40% of the world's entire trade passed through Liverpool. In the early 19th century, Liverpool played a major role in the Antarctic sealing industry, in recognition of which Liverpool Beach in the South Shetland Islands

37249-410: Was to a pool or tidal creek now filled up into which two streams drained". The place appearing as Leyrpole , in a legal record of 1418, may also refer to Liverpool. Other origins of the name have been suggested, including "elverpool", a reference to the large number of eels in the Mersey . The adjective "Liverpudlian" was first recorded in 1833. Although the Old English origin of the name Liverpool

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