It’s thirty years since The KLF’s 3am Eternal hit Number One so I suppose it must also be about thirty years since 13-year-old me met The KLF at Top Of The Pops.

I’d decided they were my favourite band a couple of years earlier and at that point I hadn’t really grasped the fact that most of the music they were making in 1989/1990 was for people either at raves or coming down after raves. https://t.co/GxkZZZ85Du
To be frank I made a complete nuisance of myself. Often after school I’d phone their PRs Mick and Pam, or their radio plugger Scott, or their distributor James, and later on Cress and Sallie at their office in Brixton.
I must have been extremely annoying but they’d make time for a chat and sometimes send me photos and white labels and merch. Sometimes they even phoned me. I once came home from school to find my dad on the phone to Bill Drummond.
At one point someone mentioned in passing that on my 13th birthday the band had toyed with the idea of driving their famous but increasingly dilapidated car, Ford Timelord, to my house in East Grinstead and dumping it outside. (?)
They knew it was my birthday because my mum had written to their PO Box asking if they would sign a birthday card (they replied with a heap of signed merchandise, music, white labels, and Ford Timelord’s tax disc).
Anyway, by 1991 they were having hits and had been booked to play a pre-Brits show at Wembley Arena but when they pulled out their plugger, Scott Piering, knew I’d be disappointed so invited me to Top Of The Pops to finally meet my heroes. I got the afternoon off school!
I don’t look excited in the pic but in my mind they were on a Madonna/Michael Jackson level and I remember nearly throwing up as they first walked up the stairs to say hello. I spent the day with them. Jimmy Cauty gave me his home phone number (why would you do that??).
While the whole TOTP experience was happening my dad, who’d been told to wait in reception, decided to go for a wander around Television Centre. He held a door open for a famous person and was rewarded with a ‘thanks, boss’. (Jimmy Savile.)
In 1992 the band split. I did a fanzine about them, which was shit, but Scott Piering gave it to Steve Wright who banged on about it on Radio 1, read out my home address (!) with price details. I received hundreds of orders and for better or worse that set my career in motion.
Anyway all those small acts of generosity (and patience) the band and their team showed their annoying teenage superfan three decades ago still mean a huge amount to me.
So if you’re a popstar or are thinking of becoming one, or work with one, don’t underestimate the power of acknowledging your fans. Maybe send them a letter for no reason! I don’t know. Maybe it only takes a like or a follow.
Also: still a banger https://t.co/j9vkkeLC3d

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