In 1975, the British soul DJ Chris Hill appropriated Goodman's shtick and had a Christmas hit with 'Renta Santa'. The approach proved not only durable, but transportable. His final single - 'Safe Sex Report' released in late 1987 - tackled the same topic that had inspired the first JAMs single: whether this was coincidence or consequence will probably never be known (Goodman died two years later). 'Energy Crisis '74' included bits of Steve Miller Band, Wings and Stevie Wonder records, while 'Mr Jaws' lifted chunks of 'Rhinestone Cowboy' and 'I'm Not in Love'. Goodman carried on beyond his partnership with Buchanan, and kept to his established cut-and-paste methodology. The pair celebrated their victory with a follow-up track made in a similar manner - 'Buchanan And Goodman On Trial' - and continued to mine the formula for a year or two. In 1957, the American legal system took the view that Bill Buchanan and Dickie Goodman had created something new out of pieces of other people's records, and that they had a right to make money out of that new work.

Curiously - and indeed surprisingly, given the JAMs' encounters with the legal system - the court case provoked by the many snippets of hits of the day used to make 'The Flying Saucer' may have predicted the legal back-story for sample-based music in the late '80s and early '90s, but it resulted in a very different outcome to the one everyone was conditioned to expect. Manipulation of recorded sound goes back to the invention of magnetic tape, and the first record that would recognisably fit the bill of a 'cut-up' was made by a pair of American comedians in 1956. Whether you go back to Teo Macero splicing different Miles Davis sessions into suites inspired by classical music forms, George Martin and the Beatles messing around with tape loops, or Delia Derbyshire and the BBC's Radiophonic Workshop's journeys into sound, even those folks weren't quite the lonesome pioneers they're sometimes portrayed as. And although its music-press profile overshadowed the rest of those records, the album's effect was multiplied because of the things other similarly minded artists were doing around the same time, and the wider historical context they all were working within.Д¬ontrary to various claims made down the years, there was a tradition of cut-and-paste, copyright-challenging records well before the invention of sampling technologies or the emergence of hip hop culture. It arrived amid a disparate set of releases we probably couldn't call a scene or a movement but which looked and sounded quite like one. But the album didn't exist in splendid isolation.

1987 What The Fuck Is Going On by the JAMs is singular in a great many ways - it's a rare album that receives a ritual burning in a Swedish field followed by a burial at sea for a handful of remaining copies discovered in a car boot on the ferry back to the UK. A fine, thorough piece by Ben Graham has shed more light on the back story than one had suspected possible, given the extensive availability of online research and theories, and the reluctance of the principals involved in shining a clarifying light on this chapter of ancient (though doubtless justified) history. This site's interest in current work by the artist formerly known as King Boy D is clear - not to mention entirely understandable.

The strange saga surrounding the creation, release, deletion and destruction of the first Justified Ancients Of Mu Mu LP is likely well known by most people who'll find their way to this particular corner of the internet.

Cut it paste it song