Between 1988 and 1992, British Electronic duo The KLF had scored #1 records throughout the world and had become household names. Determined to ridicule the establishment, they battled The Beatles and ABBA after sampling their music in hit records, and published the best-selling book The Manual (How to Have a Number One the Easy Way). In 1993, to mock performance art in the ultimate fashion, The KLF set fire to £1,000,000 in cash and destroyed their entire catalogue, vanishing from the public view... until now.
How does a working class autodidact, with no visible means of support, maintain his role as the leader of a cult British underground band into its fifth decade? Comedian and writer Stewart Lee, director Michael Cumming and James Nicholls investigate the mysterious existence of Robert Lloyd, Britain’s ultimate post-punk survivor. Robert Lloyd’s Prefects played with The Clash on the White Riot tour in 1977, and their ongoing incarnation, as Birmingham’s Captain Beefheart suffused post-punk poets The Nightingales, recorded more John Peel sessions than any other band. Ever. But what were the social, cultural and economic circumstances that enabled and sustained such outsider artists in the punk and post-punk eras, and how has the world changed to the point where such figures are unlikely to flourish in the same way today? Lloyd’s own odyssey echoes how abstract notions of social mobility, of the value of culture and music, have changed in the last five decades.
James Brown is a British journalist and media entrepreneur, the founder of 90s lads mag Loaded