Work on transmediality, despite being concerned with intellectual properties moving across media, has tended to focus on film, television, comic books and video games. When introducing transmedia storytelling as a concept, Henry Jenkins discusses the Matrix franchise (2006, 101). And it is emblematic of the field that Jan-Noel Thonâs (2016) Transmedial Narratology and Contemporary Media Culture focuses on films, graphic novels and video games. Such an orientation has assumed that some media are not well suited, or even especially relevant, to understanding transmediality. For instance, popular music has been largely occluded, despite the fact that
Rather than using transmediality as a lens through which to understand pop music and its fans, music has instead been confined to a distinct âmedia familyâ, and one not concerned with narrative (Thon 2016, 72) or cross-media meanings. However, here I will focus on a highly successful UK pop music act from the 1980s and 1990s: the Justified Ancients of Mu Mu (The JAMs)/the KLF, made up of Bill Drummond and Jimmy Cauty. In the summer of 2017, Cauty and Drummond staged an unusual multiday happening in Liverpool entitled âWelcome to the Dark Agesâ (âWTTDAâ), the city being linked to the duoâs pop-cultural history. The title of the event related to diegetic incidents from Drummond and Cautyâs novel 2023 (Justified Ancients of Mu Mu 2017), where the internet is catastrophically disrupted, leading to a new âDark Ageâ (Gell 2017).
I am interested in considering the âtransmedia aestheticsâ (Long 2017, 140) of popular music. In fact, the KLF have been described by Jeremy Deller â a leading proponent of participatory art â as âone of the great mythological bands of all timeâ (in Harrison 2017, 18). As a pop music act, the JAMs/KLF have crafted a significant mythos around and through their music (Fitzgerald and Hayward 2016), appropriating Robert Shea and Robert Anton Wilsonâs novel The Illuminatus! Trilogy along with aspects of Discordianism as a new religious movement. The KLF also deleted their entire back catalogue at the height of their fame and single sales, and burnt ÂŁ1 million â income from their pop career â on the island of Jura in 1994.
But if pop has typically been excluded from transmedia theorizations, then so too have the JAMs/KLF been marginalized in academic work. They are frequently lauded in music criticism and journalism; Bob Stanleyâs history of pop posits that either The Beatles or The KLF would be âa hard one to argue withâ, if âyou were forced to name your favorite group of all timeâ (2014, 646). In a similar vein, chapters have been devoted to The Jams/KLF in book-length pop criticism of the 1990s focusing on sampling (Beadle 1993), and in later histories of âindieâ music mavericks (King 2012), while multiple volumes have been produced about the KLFâs exploits by writers and music journalists (Higgs 2012; Shirley 2017). In contrast to their pop-journalistic canonization, scholarship focusing on the band â including Drummond and Cautyâs subsequent literary and artistic work â has been thin on the ground (see, for example, Fitzgerald and Hayward 2016; McLeod 2011; Wiseman-Trowse 2014). I am therefore aiming to belatedly focus academic attention both on this particular UK band and the relationship of their music to transmediality.
âWTTDAâ was unusual for the manner in which it shifted between music, popular fiction, physical merchandise, film, multiple forms of participatory art, and the announcement that Drummond and Cauty â as aging former pop stars â had entered a new and wholly serious career phase as undertakers, with all of these aspects being framed in relation to âthe realities of popular music [JAMs/KLF] fansâ who had aged alongside their idols. It was announced in advance on bidolito.co.uk â the JAMsâ mythos encompassing a strong opposition to music industry norms â that âThe Justified Ancients of Mu Mu in any of their ⊠guises ⊠[would] not be performing musicâ. Instead, the event (officially running from 23â25 August 2017) was immediately preceded by the book launch of a novel by the JAMs, 2023: A Trilogy, itself timed to coincide with the end of a self-imposed twenty-three-year moratorium on Drummond and Cauty discussing their burning of the ÂŁ1 million.
âWhere on Earth to Begin?â: The Mythology of the JAMs/KLF as a Challenge to Conventions of the Pop Music Industry ⊠and Fandom
Only 400 tickets (priced at ÂŁ100) were available for âWTTDAâ, and when they went on sale it was not entirely clear what the event would involve. Potential ticket purchasers were told via bidolito.co.uk: âThere are no guest lists. There are no press passes. Every one of the 400 ticket holders will be expected to be Volunteersâ. By selling such a limited number of tickets for a one-off event, the JAMs secured a sense of exclusivity as well as challenging typical industry hierarchies (where âguest listsâ and âpress passesâ would usually grant privileged access over and above fansâ access to ticketing). At the same time, however, ticketholders were not positioned as standard consumers within the âexperience economyâ (Pine and Gilmore 1999), given that they were also expected to carry out the role of a âVolunteerâ. An anonymized contributor to Liverpoolâs niche newspaper covering the cityâs music scene, Bido Lito!, who wrote up âWTTDAâ, observed that:
We paid ÂŁ100 for a bit-part in [something]⊠We 400 had become the band. It trumps that bit, which is just entertainment, where the singer makes you yell youâre having a good time to obscure the emptiness.
(One of the 400 2017, 28)
Bido Lito! played a key role in promoting the happening, stressing how it was grounded in the cityâs pop music-derived identity, and in Drummond and Cautyâs (but especially Drummondâs) prior links to Liverpool. The music paperâs editor, Christopher Torpey, used an editorial to discuss a previous âSituationist eventâ overseen by Drummond in Liverpool in 1984, said to be âpure Drummond in its theatrical flair, designed purely to mess with the audienceâs headsâ (Torpey 2017a, 9). The mystery surrounding âWTTDAâ took on a similarly theatrical lure. In Torpeyâs terms, âthese gaps in our knowledge are the key, cavities ⊠conjecture, folklore and character flood into. These are the things a city is built onâ (Torpey 2017a, 9) â namely, the creations and accretions of pop music mythology. Once the dust had begun to settle, Torpey returned to his theme that Liverpool itself was a collection of ever-evolving mythologies and (trans)mediations:
[During those] surreal days in August, 23 Roscoe Lane ⊠became the hub for the Justified Ancients of Mu Muâs Discordian/Situationist/absurd (delete as appropriate) Welcome to the Dark Ages event. It was a brief period when it seemed like Liverpool was the centre of the world; âŠon [the] national news, and filled with people buzzing with excitement and ritualistic fervor.
(Torpey 2017b, 9)
Just like its 1984 forerunner âA Crystal Dayâ, this event, too, was rendered more permanent via the fragmentary transmedial archives of the national press and broadcasters, operating alongside fan-posted footage of surprise guest Jarvis Cocker performing a newly reinterpreted rendition of âJustified and Ancientâ. But impermanence also necessarily ghosted across the happening (Wiseman-Trowse 2014); left behind it were peeling fly posters, chalked expressions of fandom for the Volunteer-created band Badger Kull, spray-painted signs and fansâ memories of âbeing thereâ which would âlive long [for] those for whom the legend around the KLF is almost sacredâ (Torpey 2017b, 9).
Connections between the JAMs and Liverpool are positioned by Bido Lito! as not just one master story but âmany stories, not an easily navigated narrative footpath but a labyrinth of art and ideas. So where on Earth to begin?â (Fairclough 2017, 13). Transmedia narrative in the guise of popular music mythology becomes sedimented into fansâ âimagined memoriesâ, with fans wishing they could have âbeen thereâ at canonized/romanticized gigs and ordinary moments when scenes or bands first emerged into the pop-cultural limelight (Duffett 2013, 229). Indeed, given the prevalence of popâs transmediated and recirculated âimagined memoriesâ â with these key moments, for example the KLFâs performance at the 1992 Brit Awards, being recounted again and again in media coverage and pop journalism â it could be argued that the fans who eagerly acquired tickets for âWTTDAâ were wagering on the future fan-cultural status of âhaving been thereâ at this happening, anticipating and projecting future memories of fan exclusivity. Rather than merely assimilating live events into an experience economy of popular music and myth, this places the JAMsâ mythos at the service of fansâ personal (and communal) mythologizing.
There is a sense of âTransmedia Earthâ here in terms of Liverpoolâs hosting of the event, with narratives of the city and the JAMs/KLF providing a network of connections for fans to navigate metaphorically and literally, as well as the pre-event mystery (and post-event picking-over) facilitating a transmedial ânegative spaceâ (Long 2017, 147) which could be filled by fansâ speculations, critiques, photos and commentaries. But alongside the locality of the event and its transmedia array of meaning-making, the involvement of fans was significantly international. âThe 400â ticketholders used a shared map within their Facebook group â containing 370 members at the time of writing â to plot where attendees had travelled from. Although the predominant cluster was UK based, this geographical information showed that fans had also travelled from Ireland, North America, Norway, Sweden and Denmark, Austria, Holland, Spain, Germany, Switzerland, Israel, the United Arab Emirates, Australia and New Zealand. Evidently, to participate in the event (and the Facebook group) fans needed a degree of proficiency in the English language. However, given the exclusivity of the happening, and its potential to create future memories indexed to high fan status, it is perhaps unsurprising that such an international fan cohort was called into being.
How did âWTTDAâ draw on the pop music mythology of the JAMs/KLF? Dan Hassler-Forest has been one of the few scholars to explicitly discuss pop music as transmedia storytelling, arguing that pop can be âfar more loosely organized than the fantastic worlds in media more preoccupied by narrative, such as literature, film, comic books, or even videogamesâ: while its âalbums, music videos, and stage performances [can] contain obvious narrative elements, they simultaneously remain open to a wide variety of alternative readingsâ (2016, 175). Pop music can thus work via what Aaron Delwiche terms âsoftâ transmedia, where âa shared fictional world unfolds across media channels but there are relatively few narrative links between the channelsâ (2017, 37). Additionally, Hassler-Forest observes that even specific pop music tracks, using sampled sonic effects, dialogue and/or lyrics, can convey heteroglossic narrative content (2016, 175). The JAMs, by appropriating material from cult novel The Illuminatus! Trilogy, position themselves with the bookâs âJustified Ancients of Mummuâ (Higgs 2012, 232) as agents of chaos opposed to rival repressive forces that are manipulating and using the record industry (Fitzgerald and Hayward 2016, 52). The Illuminatus! Trilogy posits two secret societies â the chaotic Discordians and the repressive Illuminati â who have clandestinely been at war. By inserting phrases from Shea and Wilsonâs novel into their music, and making use of the â23 Enigmaâ from Discordianism, where the number 23 is emphasized and granted a mystical status (Higgs 2012, 239, 242â243), the JAMs/KLF transmedially aligned themselves with a mythos of grandly elemental (but hidden) conflict played out through popular music.
At the same time, the high-selling singles at the commercial peak of the KLFâs pop career were also narrated as part of a âtrilogyâ, being self-dubbed the âStadium House Trilogyâ. These tracks â What Time is Love?, 3AM Eternal and Last Train to Trancentral â use recorded crowd noise as a type of world-building device, creating the (fictional) sense that they are occurring at raves:
The âstadiumâ aspect of their sound refers to the singlesâ dense sound mix, high dynamic range and the use of background crowd sounds to give the performances an epic quality (as if the artists were being cheered on by a massive crowd). They also featured frequent use of branding lyrics (such as âKLF is gonna rock yaâ and âAncients of Mu Muâ).
(Fitzgerald and Hayward 2016, 55)
This repeated âbrand assertionâ (ibid) or self-reference â common across the JAMs/KLF musical oeuvre, as well as via their âBlaster in the Pyramidâ logo and consistent typeface â is therefore fused with production emphasizing âsufficient crowd noise, a thumping bass line and a propulsive house beat so that ⊠the listener was transported and submerged in the disorientating euphoria of a rave in full swingâ (King 2012, 391). By interweaving epic Discordian narrative and an âepic qualityâ of sound and production via self-branding, the band engaged in an âintermedia campaign ⊠steeped in excessâ (Fauteux 2015, 60), creating âa myth which ⊠[was] self-propagating, self-sufficient, self-consuming and self-recreatingâ (Beadle 1993, 223).
This insistent narrative excess and brand assertion has occurred across all their different pop guises, including the Tinelords, the K Fundation and K2. It is present â via sleeve imagery and the accompanying video â in the Timelordsâ use of a car, âFord Timelordâ, to front their single âDoctorinâ the Tardisâ (Hayward and Fitzgerald 2013, 142). It is also felt in the K Foundationâs subsequent burning of ÂŁ1 million, and the KLFâs deletion of their back catalogue â something that, as an independent, they were able to enact â as well as via K2âs self-reflexive âcomebackâ in 1997 with a brass band version of âWhat Time is Love?â (Drummond 2001, 342â343). The catalogue deletion and money-burning created further transmedial ânegative spaceâ (Long 2017, 147), inspiring bootlegging and fan-compiled catalogues of official releases along with attempts to understand and narrate the bandâs destruction of ÂŁ1 million. The latter very much informed âWTTDAâ, as a âHearingâ at the end of Day One discussed the meaning of Drummond and Cautyâs money-burning via a series of commentaries and eye-witness accounts. Meanwhile, the world-building âStadium House Trilogyâ, whereby raves could be imagined even if listeners did not actually attend them, was reflected in the âpopâ discourse (Frith 1996, 41â42) of Day Threeâs Graduation Ball with its performing DJs and fictional/imagined band, Badger Kull. Most of âWTTDAâ was far more focused on what Simon Frith has identified as âfolkâ and âartâ discourses of popular music (1996, 39â41), revolving around a festival-like gathering of fans with the JAMs/KLF plus associates, and involving the activities of participatory art.
However, a âpopâ discourse was also integrated into the rites of Day Three. The KLFâs commercially successful popular music was commemorated, and characteristically extended into a new self-branding narrative, by the live appearance of Jarvis Cocker who performed a reimagined/âremixedâ version of âJustified and Ancientâ, continuing the JAMs/KLF tradition of reworking their own material multiple times with different vocalists (King 2012, 398). Lyric sheets were distributed to attendees, emphasizing the new Jarvis-specific reworking of Tammy Wynetteâs previous version, and despite requests that the performance should not be filmed by fans, it nonetheless circulated online.Thus although the JAMs themselves did not perform, their back catalogue was nonetheless updated, not as an instance of âretromaniaâ (Reynolds 2011) where the musical past was nostalgically replayed, but rather in heteroglossic dialogue with the KLFâs earlier selves (Earl 2010, 131) and fan memories (Harvey 2015, 38â39). Indeed, the recreation of âJustified and Ancientâ was highly emotional for many fans present. For those who were perhaps teenagers or pre-teens at the time of the JAMs/KLFâs pop ascendancy (One of the 400 2017, 28), this allowed an individualized âaffective sceneâ â the relatively privatized or domestic consumption of KLFâs music in the present day, where other fans might be imagined via Facebook groups and YouTube uploads rath...