At 03:16 PM 6/26/2004, you wrote:

----- Original Message -----
From: "John"
> Discuss! :-O
> http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2004/06/10/1086749829755.html?oneclick=tr
> ue

No go:
"We will be asking all readers to register for full access to
The Sydney Morning Herald website in the near future."

That article is unavailable unless one is registered.
And, yes, I did copy'n'paste the full URL.

seek

Full text:

The KLF ripped off Wanda Dee. But is she returning the favour at the Sweatfest retro techno fest? George Palathingal reports.

SWEATFEST with THE KLF featuring WANDA DEE, SNAP! featuring TURBO B and C+C MUSIC FACTORY featuring BARBARA TUCKER
Wharf 3, Hickson Road, The Rocks
When: Sunday, 1pm
How much: $82.20
Bookings: 9266 4800

The KLF ripped off Wanda Dee. But is she returning the favour at the Sweatfest retro techno fest? George Palathingal reports.

They're justified and they're ancient ... yet if you believe American couple Eric Floyd and Wanda Dee, eccentric English producers Bill Drummond and Jimmy Cauty - aka the KLF, aka the Justified Ancients of Mu Mu - are not the reason the KLF sold millions of copies of their 1991 album The White Room.

"Please tell your readers, in no uncertain terms: the KLF producers and the KLF performers have always been two different entities," says Floyd, Dee's manager and partner of "at least two decades".

The 39-year-old Floyd is hijacking an interview that was scheduled to be with Dee alone. Metro is still talking to him because he has put together Sweatfest, a tour featuring some of the people who sang and rapped on records made by '90s dance-pop stars the KLF, C+C Music Factory and Snap!, rather than the people who put together respectively What Time is Love?, Gonna Make You Sweat (Everybody Dance Now) and The Power. Dee is present, but barely gets a word in.

"This is no secret, this is no scandal, it's no con job," Floyd says. "That is the techno-group syndrome from the '90s. C+C Music Factory - the 'C+C' stood for David Cole, God rest his soul, and Robert Clivilles. The voices of C+C were always Freedom Williams, Zelma Davis, Barbara Tucker ..."

Floyd reels off a list of vocalists and then another of comparable '90s acts whose rarely seen producers were replaced in video clips by buff MCs and/or foxy divas - Black Box of Ride on Time fame, Technotronic (Pump Up the Jam) and Snap!

"So when it comes to KLF, Bill Drummond and Jim Cauty - yes, they are the producers!" says Floyd, starting to sound agitated. "But when they were asked to tour, they refused. They said, 'We do not sing, we do not dance, we do not rap.'

"[The KLF's then-label boss] Clive Davis said, 'Well, we need to sell some f---in' records.'

"So Wanda was asked to hit the road. And why shouldn't she? She's got a vested interest. Do you know that she co-wrote the biggest hits on the White Room album? As a co-publisher, she didn't want it to sell just another 100,000 units like the [KLF's] previous last three albums - she wanted it to sell millions.

"So she got out there and did what any responsible artist would do: she toured the album."

Strictly speaking, Dee didn't co-write the KLF hits What Time is Love? and Last Train to Transcentral- on those tracks, Drummond and Cauty sampled her voice, without permission, from an underground club record of Dee's, To the Bone. After all, KLF does stand for Kopyright Liberation Front, but there's no stopping Floyd.

"If you're coming [to Sweatfest] to see somehow a producer symposium featuring the producers of Snap!, C+C and KLF, please stay your arse at home," he says.

"If you're coming to see the performers of these groups, to shake your arse off until you sweat like you can't sweat no more, then this

is the show for you.

"We have not tried to mislead anyone. Wanda is the KLF performing entity and the only one there's ever been. If you can find another one, I will eat my hair on national Australian television."

Yes, the words "methinks he doth protest too much" spring to mind.

The curious thing is this. Floyd - who raps under the name MC Shadow alongside singer Dee with this version of the KLF - and the rest of the Sweatfesters are touring their show around the world and earning their crust.

Drummond and Cauty settled with Dee 13 years ago, paying her and giving her a warranted writing credit for the sample they used. On top of this, the Englishmen evidently can't stop the Americans touring and, frankly, are possibly too bonkers to care. This, should you not know, is the duo who once nailed 1 million ($2.6 million) in cash to a board, displayed it around the UK, then filmed themselves burning it on a remote island in a baffling postmodern art statement/stunt.

So why is Floyd so passionately defensive?

"I guess the passion comes in only because there are KLF fanatics - not fans, 'cause the real fans appreciate what Wanda has done - who somehow believe that she has besmirched or stained or sullied the KLF legacy because Bill and Jimmy are not onstage with her," he says.

"First of all, they don't know these gentlemen like we do. We've asked them to tour with us time and time again; the answer's always the same: 'When world peace ensues and we can fill stadiums, then we'll tour.'

Who the hell has time to wait for that?

"And you're right: if indeed they could have legally stopped us years ago, they would have. There is no controversy. Do not create one where there is not one."

He has no bitterness towards anyone, then?

"Oh God, no," Floyd says, finally calming down. "The reason is, you see, too many people leave the moment. Either you're living in the past or you're projecting yourself so much forward - like, when you get that Grammy, and you get that big house - that you're not enjoying the journey, the moment.

"So every day me and Wanda are together with our family and our crew, we are thoroughly 100 per cent in the moment and we enjoy the journey.

"Right now, we're with you, 100 per cent. And that's how we're gonna be, hot, live and otherwise, with the audience in Australia. When we're with them, we're with them."