The KLF - What Time is Love
Cale Leth has posted just one video to Vimeo. They posted it yesterday morning.
Interestingly I was thinking a lot about the JAMS as I was driving around yesterday morning. They were musically significant.
I'd heard Doctorin' The Tardis back when MTV used to play music videos; I was busy being an anarchist and squatting in Amsterdam above a coffee shop called Siberie. It is still there - the coffee shop - the first time I walked in there the person asked if I wanted 'tea' and I assumed it was a euphemism. It wasn't. I had a lovely cup of jasmine tea and then they came up with a box of weed. There were no printed menus back then, and it cost around 10 guilders for a bag of grass.
Who knows. It was a long time ago. Wasted youth. Forgotten youth. I'd not shaved off the sides of my hair back then; I think it was summer time. That first Dutch holiday.
The first time I heard the KLF was the tail end of '88. The college alternative society had brought in a couple of big name club DJs (Jonathan and Eko from Feet First) to play Freshers Week. One of them - I don't know which is which any more - dropped an early pressing of "What Time is Love?" and the place went off. I mean it was crazy. The goths and the punks and the ravers bouncing off the black painted walls of the Biko Bar. When arms in the air met slamdancing and nobody knew which way was up.
I think it is the first time I ever heard a dance floor demand a song again. They didn't shout "rewind" (wrong subculture) but rather mobbed the DJ booth and demanded it. A sea of black and hairspray; emaciated dance floor sharks baying for beats. I was one of them. Held aloft by the press of leather and lace I was practically through the hatch into the DJ booth. The DJ held up the record cover, either to hold the press of bodies at bay, or to hide from the vicious kiss that threatened to devour him. It is still clear in my mind. A white label in a white record sleeve with "What Time is Love?" written on it with a marker pen.
What time indeed?
"The final chapter, prophetic, poetic
When I'm done, this calls for anesthetic
Get to, step to, let an MC
Come in effect with Kingboy D
A wannabe, gonna be, ol'time sucka
You know the time, I never stutter
A feat, a dream, a-yeah seem bright
Yeah, pass the mic, What Time Is Love?"
It meant a lot, that song, that band, the Stadium House Trilogy and all who sailed in peril on the sea. They were the first great crossover act. It didn't matter what "tribe" you were in, you see. The crusties and the ravers, I suspect even the casuals got it, but we never really got to talk to them. The streets were a bit of a warzone and we never really got the chance to sit and talk about music, or life, or the true meaning of rock'n'roll. They had football, fighting, and market stall rip offs; we had snakebite, bathtub sulphate, and ripped fishnet.
I got to talk to an old National Front Skinhead once, wasted at an afterparty, realising that the horrific burns up his leg might have been down to the actions of a young antifa activist with a wine bottle half and half with petrol and polystyrene. Long story, wrong time to tell it.
Back to react, enough is enough
Let me ask you a question, what time is love?
https://vimeo.com/197669227
Interestingly I was thinking a lot about the JAMS as I was driving around yesterday morning. They were musically significant.
I'd heard Doctorin' The Tardis back when MTV used to play music videos; I was busy being an anarchist and squatting in Amsterdam above a coffee shop called Siberie. It is still there - the coffee shop - the first time I walked in there the person asked if I wanted 'tea' and I assumed it was a euphemism. It wasn't. I had a lovely cup of jasmine tea and then they came up with a box of weed. There were no printed menus back then, and it cost around 10 guilders for a bag of grass.
Who knows. It was a long time ago. Wasted youth. Forgotten youth. I'd not shaved off the sides of my hair back then; I think it was summer time. That first Dutch holiday.
The first time I heard the KLF was the tail end of '88. The college alternative society had brought in a couple of big name club DJs (Jonathan and Eko from Feet First) to play Freshers Week. One of them - I don't know which is which any more - dropped an early pressing of "What Time is Love?" and the place went off. I mean it was crazy. The goths and the punks and the ravers bouncing off the black painted walls of the Biko Bar. When arms in the air met slamdancing and nobody knew which way was up.
I think it is the first time I ever heard a dance floor demand a song again. They didn't shout "rewind" (wrong subculture) but rather mobbed the DJ booth and demanded it. A sea of black and hairspray; emaciated dance floor sharks baying for beats. I was one of them. Held aloft by the press of leather and lace I was practically through the hatch into the DJ booth. The DJ held up the record cover, either to hold the press of bodies at bay, or to hide from the vicious kiss that threatened to devour him. It is still clear in my mind. A white label in a white record sleeve with "What Time is Love?" written on it with a marker pen.
What time indeed?
"The final chapter, prophetic, poetic
When I'm done, this calls for anesthetic
Get to, step to, let an MC
Come in effect with Kingboy D
A wannabe, gonna be, ol'time sucka
You know the time, I never stutter
A feat, a dream, a-yeah seem bright
Yeah, pass the mic, What Time Is Love?"
It meant a lot, that song, that band, the Stadium House Trilogy and all who sailed in peril on the sea. They were the first great crossover act. It didn't matter what "tribe" you were in, you see. The crusties and the ravers, I suspect even the casuals got it, but we never really got to talk to them. The streets were a bit of a warzone and we never really got the chance to sit and talk about music, or life, or the true meaning of rock'n'roll. They had football, fighting, and market stall rip offs; we had snakebite, bathtub sulphate, and ripped fishnet.
I got to talk to an old National Front Skinhead once, wasted at an afterparty, realising that the horrific burns up his leg might have been down to the actions of a young antifa activist with a wine bottle half and half with petrol and polystyrene. Long story, wrong time to tell it.
Back to react, enough is enough
Let me ask you a question, what time is love?
https://vimeo.com/197669227