Oh lord, we’re heading down the Drummond-hole again.
Pity your poor, diligent and bow-spined scribe, friends. He scrivens and drafts, he rattles and hums, forcing the vibrations of his over-clocked imagination down to the tips of his fingers and into his magical glass scrying-plate, trusting in energies and magicks he only dimly understands to transmit these electrical functions into a form which makes some sort of—if not sense than at least, legibility.
It’s a rough game, but one your pal needs to stay on top of. Because he never knows when the boss will fire off a demand for some writing, usually stacked on top of a giant info-dump which needs to be transcribed, translated from the Dominic into English, sifted and reformed into something readable.
Enclosed for your approval, then, the latest update from Dom-world. A tale of art and concept, underpasses and over-reactions and as ever, a bit of promo. An attempt has been made to channel the following into a logical flow—but let’s face it, logic has little hold here. Stick with us, it’ll all fall into place at the end.
Mr Drummond has released a record, Voices From The Galloverse. I do not need this record, I would just like it.
David Hopkinson who I know via the Cube in Bristol has a similar level of interest in most everything Bill, Jimmy, Gimpo and another Bill have done. David did a Q&A with Bill Burt, the director of all the KLF promo films. This was for the showing at 23 Seconds To Eternity at the Cube. I filmed David doing this.
You might say David and I are swimmers in the Penkiln Burn, always seeming to have a strong desire to work with Bill, to try and understand his view on the world.
Hear Hard by Bill looks back to his time with Echo And the Bunnymen. We can hear Scotland in the words. The Galloverse may be under the motorway in Birmingham called Spaghetti Junction. We all live the analog/digital life. Which one is more human?
David and I wrestled with each other—figuratively speaking. My mind takes some untangling at times. I filmed David for half an hour. We get some clarity of vision. Return the following day, wrestle again. Then no doubt made some progress on how we present HEAR HARD to the public. Emotions run high over interests that sit deeply with us. Our minds fixate on certain things: the records have to be with us for the event to take place. 10 copies are what Bill is sending. 1,000 of them have been made. Which might you prefer—the words contained within the vinyl or the package? Or just the chance to HEAR HARD on the night?
https://www.penkilnburn.com/home/hear-hard
A sidebar to include a pair of communications, part of the ongoing flow of text between Bill and Dom.
§
My moto for this year is…
NEVER GIVE THE PEOPLE WHAT THEY WANT
And with that in mind it is only natural a Feral HEAR HARD session would be difficult.
As in, it not about doing and thinking ’That was great’
Yours,
Bill Drummond
§
Dominic,
When listening to VOICES FROM THE GALLOVERSE, any music that may have happened between 1985 and 2003 must not be referenced either verbally or in your brain.
If references can be made it is with the music sung in the Wee Frees and the music made in Liverpool in the late 70s and early 80s. And maybe this record would not have been made if The17 had not existed. And this record is not by me it is by The Penkiln Burn Players.
I take it you do know about the Kalevala Record label and the records released on that label in the 1990s?
Listening to VOICES FROM THE GALLOVERSE while attempting to think of it in some context of The KLF, will weaken your mind thus understanding of what this is and what it is not.
Yours,
Bill
The whole idea of never wanting to claim ownership of one’s creative art is a bit curious. Banksy has to be one of the top practitioners of this and I’ve followed the same route to plausible deniability. Bill doesn’t do this so much (although he has been known to claim the William Drummond named as the author of some of his books is not Bill Drummond the artist and musician) but they do operate in similar territory.
As 2024 draws to a close, somehow I have found myself involved in putting on a Drummond ‘Hear Hard’ listening event at the Cube in Bristol. David Hopkinson, part of the Cube massive, and I have been part of the art cult of Bill and Jimmy Cauty for quite some years now. David and I have russled and tussled over the arrangements for the show.
Another friend, James, is part of the cult. We both went to one of Bill’s shows in Birmingham, the 25 Paintings, which took place at Eastside Projects in 2014. Ten years ago now, so time to up the stakes with Bill!
Hear Hard and its associated record, Voices From The Galloverse, is the latest version of Bill’s culture-jamming concepts. Since interviewing him for The End Point Of A Circle, you might say Bill and I have been attempting to get to know each other. I believe I signed some sort of unofficial contract with Bill on the day I became aware of the KLF (whether Bill knows about this is another question).
That’s enough background. On Tuesday 3rd September I and two friends, the aforementioned James and Nick, went on a road trip back up the M6, to photograph a piece of Bill’s art situated under Spaghetti Junction. There was a flurry of vehicle changes and kit-flipping before we properly got under way—I guess a way of covering our tracks. The circuitous route took us past Steve Lazarides’ compound. Ex art-dealer for Banksy, newly forged millionaire after selling some of his pieces. He and docoBANKSY have form and beef so we merry pranksters stuck Hear Hard stickers on his business unit signs.
Then on to the Second City, following directions kindly provided by Bill. We make landfall by a five-a-side football park and rig up for action. There was a cone by the entry ramp—surely a marker from Mr. Drummond. The excitement kicks in as we head down the path and onto the embankment. And there’s the site, a twenty-foot wide rectangle of black paint, ready for the next part of the story.
We three naughty rascals decide to pre-empt the process with a little art action of our own. After all, the pots and brushes were still there, ready for use. With stills and video cameras rolling, I make a start—black on black at first, then yellow spray with the words HEAR HARD. I resist the urge to throw paint at the rectangle. Nick sees Kubrick’s monolith in the expanse of black paint, a comment which only fires me up more. I paint two support structures on either side of the monolith, grounding it to the path. Two strong oblongs of black stone—great! But the yellow text looks awful. I add black paint to the middle—now the yellow looks like a glow around the text. Better.
Now for the final presentation. I lay out the paint pots, lids, brushes and rollers neatly under the dark slab of conceptual art and record the moment. Then it’s time to go, as the light fails us. We nearly forget Nick’s horribly expensive viewfinder from his horribly expensive Leica camera. We place a few more bits of Hear Hard ephemera, and I adopt a Jesus Christ pose for Nick to snap with the last dying rays of the low winter sun. Then we stumble up the slippery bank, slap a sticker on Bill’s cone and load up for the long trip south.
We laughed all the way home over the day’s japery. Bill, it turned out, was not so amused. He fired off angry emails regarding the work he would need to do to return the site to usability. I resist the temptation to point out the signs and signifiers he had left for us, frantically trying to gain a little perspective on events. Who knows how serious Bill is being? Nick is slightly un-nerved by the change of tone—it’s all just a bit of a laugh, surely. But somehow, our spirits remain high. We drive past a Cotswolds art gallery describing itself as ‘edgy’. Look ‘ere, pal, we’ve just been under a motorway slinging paint about and annoying a music legend—that’s edgy.
In a pub nearby, I chat to a nice lady who is intrigued by the usual wad of Di-faced tenners I carry with me. The sales pitch comes out, and notes are exchanged for goods and services. Capitalism in action, or simple forgery? If both parties are in on the joke, is any harm done?
The whole point to all these shenanigans will perhaps become clearer on January 5th 2025 at The Cube. Probably not, though. In the meantime, the story continues…
Get all that? Let’s tie this up with the essential promotional information which is, after all, the point to this whole endeavour.
Made by Wade 