Eine Warnung: Vor ein paar Tagen las ich, dass die legendären The KLF im August beim SOMA Festival in Köln auftreten. Welch Sensation, dachte ich. Schließlich sind die Herren seit Jahren nirgends mehr aufgetreten. Umso erstaunlicher, ausgerechnet bei SOMA ein Comeback zu feiern. Jetzt hab ich allerdings auf einer KLF-Fanpage die Hintergründe des Ganzen erfahren:

“This year’s S.O.M.A. Festival lists The KLF in their line up, announcing their first live gig for years. Since many people asked us about this, we just want to confirm that this obviously does NOT include Bill Drummond or Jimmy Cauty, but Wanda Dee and her guest singers and rappers – once more just listed as The KLF.

According do Roland Schmitz from S.O.M.A. the line-up includes – of course – Wanda Dee, a rapper, two female and one male dancer along with their road manager.

For those who are not familiar with Wanda Dee and the fuzz surrounding her, please have a look at this excerpt:

Wanda Dee is a dancer, singer, and performer. The KLF sampled vocal snatches from her “erotic rap” record ‘To The Bone’ on Tuff City Records and included them in WTIL? and the single version of LTTT. When Wanda’s manager/husband (Leroy from Fame!) heard these records they sued the KLF and the out-of-court settlement was that Wanda would get a cash payment, co-writing credits on these songs, and hence publishing royalties, and appearances in the videos for these songs. I expect that if the KLF had known the trouble she would cause them they wouldn’t have sampled her. It’s up to you to decide whether the non-inclusion of “I wanna see you sweat” and “Come on boy d’ya wanna ride” would have detracted from these songs.

Since the KLF’s retiral Wanda has performed hundreds of dates round the world under the names “The KLF featuring Wanda Dee”, “Wanda Dee and The New KLF”, “Wanda Dee and the KLF experience” and so forth, which *strangely* always seem to be advertised by promoters as just “The KLF”. Bill and Jimi have nothing whatsoever to do with these “concerts” and would like very much to see them stopped, but it’s difficult to pursue legal action against her unless she performs in the UK, and they can’t really be bothered with the hassle.

Whenever Wanda is questioned (either by the press or KLF fans in the audience of one of her shows) she comes up with an explanation somewhat like this: All 90’s dance music is constructed in the studio by production teams and this can never be recreated live on stage. However the performers (dancers singers etc) on the record can play live. She says she is the co-writer and singer of all the biggest hits on The White Room and she was the reason those songs were hits!”

Was widerwärtige Abzockerin, diese Wanda Dee. Also: Geht bloß nicht zum SOMA Festival. Zumindest nicht, wenn ihr wegen KLF dort hin wolltet. Hört lieber die alten KLF-Sachen und erinnert Euch an große Zeiten. Bei mir liegt gerade ein Glanzstück meiner Vinyl-Sammlung auf dem Plattenteller: die “What Time is Love? – remodelled & remixed”-Maxi. Ich hab schon verdammt lang kein Vinyl mehr gehört, merke ich da gerade.