Kid Chaos: 20 Greatest Hits EP

frontsheet

Fierce Recordings 1988.  No catalogue number.

Discogs

This continues the Fierce theme and is something of an oddball record.  It claims to be by the KLF, and was sent to the music papers in 1988 for review.  However the KLF themselves denied all knowledge of it while heartily approving of the idea of musicians pretending to be other musicians.  It should have been obvious to anyone with even the slightest knowledge of the KLF that this was a fake because it lacked any of the features which made the KLF worth paying attention to.  There’s no humour, no statement, no Scottish ranting, no flair and no tunes, but the British music press fell for it and reviewed it as a KLF release.  To their credit it got the bad reviews it deserved.

What this actually is, is a Fierce scam, a real one this time, not a pretend one.  It was made by Kid Chaos – which does give a KLF connection because he played bass with Zodiac Windwarp, aka Mark Manning who co-wrote various books with Bill Drummond, most notably Bad Wisdom.

The A side, probably called Borderline is Jon Bonham’s drum break from When The Levee Breaks looped with some random records playing in the background.  To call it sampling would imply some sort of competence.  So it’s garbage, but still an enjoyable listen because the looped drum break is fabulous.  It would have been better without Kid Chaos’s inept turntablism in the background though.  The first of the B sides, All U Need Is Love actually has some merit.  Like Borderline it has looped drums, although I don’t know where they’re lifted from, which create a powerful sense of tension.  In the background is a Morcambe and Wise skit, but without the laughter track.  For some reason it works really well – maybe I’m just a sucker for anything different sounding.  The final track, BFB is a rip-off of the Public Enemy track She Watch Channel Zero – it samples the same Slayer riff and dumps more random bits of music on top.  It is utter garbage and doesn’t even have the appeal of the first track…

The “info” sheet it came with is above, and I’ve pasted a couple more letters from Fierce below.  It’s an interesting historical curio and worth hearing if you’re interested in Fierce or the KLF.

Update: I’ve just played this to a friend and he described it as fascinating, so maybe I’ve been a little harsh. It’s certainly true that it doesn’t sound like anything else.

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4 comments
  1. […] posted a fake KLF single here, and this is another KLF related fake, this time, the band pretending to be someone else, rather […]

  2. re-upped

  3. Thanks again for sharing!

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