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Showing posts from January, 2021

Last Train Back from Trancentral

Back in 1988 there was novelty record called Doctoring the Tardis by a band calling themselves The Timelords which blended a ridiculously empty set of lyrics over a sampled bit of music, with a bizarre video of a car blaring out music and running over a bargain basement dalek. It was the number one selling single in the UK and New Zealand. Shortly afterward the people behind it released a book called The Manual (How to have a Number One the easy way) which was a cynical but accurate explanation of how the music industry works and the ingredients needed to game the system and get a number one hit. They’d followed their steps with Doctoring the Tardis and it had worked. Then the KLF began releasing a string of catchy dance hits, the lyrics and videos of which heavily referenced the lore from the Illuminatus Trilogy and firmly placed the performers on the Discordian team. As a long-standing, newly-sitting, sometimes lying-down Discordian sympathiser myself I was duly amused.