Top 10-bothering Liverpool guerilla artists The KLF have launched a new website promising to “provide branding solutions to independently owned care homes.”
Creators of the “It’s Grim Up North” slogan The KLF, aka The Justified Ancients of MuMu, aka K Foundation, aka K2 Plant Hire, aka The Timelords, aka Bill Drummond and Jimmy Cauty also used the site’s launch to announce the winner of the inaugural Kareovision Kristmas Song Kontest, reportedly “a recorded song contest for the strictly over 65s who are also residents in KLF KARE homes.”
The duo’s launch statement in full read: “Are you older than you thought you would ever be? But at heart…Are you still an…Indie Kid or a…Death Metal Head…or a…Punks not Deader…or a…Proper Head (Dead or not) or just a…Raver to the Grave?
“If so…You might want to know more about KLF KARE*. KLF KARE may have the care home for you. KLF KARE will take you where the sun keeps shining, through the pouring rain. To find out more visit www.KLFKARE.com”
“And while visiting listen to…Everybody’s Talkin’ At Me by Harry Nilsson (featuring Ricardo Da Force) As in the ‘Live from the After-Life Party’ premix by Tony ‘FUUK’ Thorpe. It being the winner of the first ever Kareovision Kristmas Song Kontest**.
“*KLF KARE is a multinational franchise that provides branding solutions for independently owned care homes.”
“**Kareovision Kristmas Song Kontest is a recorded song contest for the strictly over 65s who are also residents in KLF KARE homes. The songs they chose to record (or premix) can be of any genre from the 60s all the way through to the 90s and beyond. As you may guess Tony ‘FUUK’ Thorpe chose to go for the ‘Peak Nineties’ genre as defined by Andy Weatherall. 2023 was the inaugural year of the Kareovision Kristmas Song Kontest. Those that have read the novel 2023 by The Justified Ancients of Mu Mu, especially page 370, might have a better understanding (or not) of the above. And remember don’t trip while attempting to catch that last train to Trancentral.”
This is, of course, the duo who burnt a million quid on a remote Scottish island for a laugh, appeared onstage at the Brit Awards with thrash metallers Extreme Noise Terror then went home and sent a motorcycle courier to pick up their award, and launched a 1993 rival to the Turner Prize for the ‘Worst Artist of the Year,’ with double the prize money and, coincidentally, an identical shortlist and winner to the esteemed Turner Prize.
Drummond, meanwhile, as manager of Scouse miserabilists Echo and the Bunnymen once sent the band on a world tour of seemingly obscure and random locations on the basis that “If you look at a map of the world, the whole tour’s in the shape of a rabbit’s ears,” so it’s unclear how seriously we should take their latest move into care home branding.
Last week, the duo also held their latest ‘MuMufication’ ceremony, laying bricks containing the ashes of dead people in their People’s Pyramid in Liverpool, according to their official website.
