A tall Scottish man with a Billy Connolly delivery, Bill Drummond firstly announced his age, 55, and that he believed in the death of recorded music. Launching his latest book, The 17, based on the number of performers he needed to recreate the engine noise of his battered landrover, Drummond refused to talk about some of the more colourful aspects of his past. These include managing Echo and the Bunnymen and the Teardrop Explodes (with the wonderful Julian Cope), starting the K Foundation and giving the Turner prize winner Rachel Whiteread, £40,000 (double the Turner prize winnings) for being the “worst artist of the year”, and most notably burning a million pounds in cash.
“Let me take you down… because I’m going to…”
“All the stuff was old. All of the new stuff was old stuff. None of it opened a door…”
Drummond went down to the bottom of his garden, where, in the time-honoured tradition of British men, he had a shed, locked the shed door and got out ‘Pet Sounds’ by the Beach Boys. By the last track, ‘Good Vibrations’ he was weeping. He even played air guitar. He made a new decision:
” for the next 12 months I will only listen to artists whose names begin with ‘B’.”
“For the next 26 years I’ve got it all worked out. I assumed that in 26 years time, I’d be listening to the ‘A’s’.”
“It sounded like 100 Vikings in my head. For 20 minutes, it was totally intense. This opened a door.”
For the next 6 or 7 years he tried to make those noises into a reality.
“Nobody in their right mind would listen to bagpipe music on a CD. But, live, we would have followed that music anywhere. Church bells have the same effect.This is Year Zero for music. There is very little difference musically between the music of 1977 (punk) and the music of 1964. Pop music doesn’t change, just the technology.”
"the whole thing's just a compleate load of rubbish."
well that' the bleadin' point in'nit
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i6q4n5TQnpA
jeenyuss that
Just posted up your link Jim, thanks. He's so cool isn't he? Reminds me of Serge Gainsbourg who caused outrage when he set a 500 (about 100 dollars) franc note on fire on live tv in France.
KLF are my favourite band of all time! It was only years later, when I read and fell in love with the book "Illuminatus! Trilogy" that I realized that he and Cauty had been so strongly influenced by Robert Anton Wilson.
I made a tidy sum by selling my copy of the first JAMMs album after Abba threatened to sue him. But the fact remains: he's never made a good record, and all his post-Situationist posturing will never make up for that.
When I was a pink, chubby kid, I used to go to a club called Eric's, in Liverpool (my home town). BD was, I think, one of the promoters there, and I worshipped him; here begins a long story that, as I'm a firm believer in never hijacking someone else's fabulous story, we don't need to go in to here. Suffice to say, thanks so much for the memories, ML. I wish, wish, WISH I'd have been revisiting them with you in the flesh; as it is, I can't thank you enough.
AD, please hijack away…sounds like there is an interesting story there.
I remember Eric's. When I was going out with the guy in Madness, we drove up there. For once the WAGs were allowed by Stiff records(Dave Robinson wanted to pretend that everyone in the band was five years younger and single) and we all had to sit in the back of the rusty old Bedford van.
Eric's still had the Cavern atmosphere and I got some great pictures of The Specials and Madness. It was my first time in Liverpool and I was surprised that for scousers, we were all Cockney's, not just those with the accent.
the truth is most likely that the money was switched with something that looked quite a bit like money
but was not in fact legal tender
aah the old switcharoo
so … were is it now then ?
also jimmy doesn't know .
weird
but not outside of human experience.
Occam's razor not withstanding.