In my humble little opinion, this may be the greatest performance piece ever.
British art duo Jimmy Cauty and Bill Drummond -- also known as the K Foundation, the KLF, the Timelords, the Justified Ancients of Mu Mu -- were at one point one of the world's best selling music acts, selling millions of records and considered pioneers of acid house, ambient house and sample-heavy rave. Notorious pranksters partially inspired by the completely bizarre novels The Illuminatus! Trilogy by Shea and Wilson (1975; a postmodern romp of sex, drugs, conspiracy theories, numerology and a multitude of other topics), the KLF can best be described as conceptual anarchists who subverted popular culture in a fashion never seen before or since. Their album The White Room was wildly successful and had a number of hit tracks, including "3 a.m. Eternal" which hit #1 in the UK; 1988's "Doctorin' the Tardis" was a novelty single purposely designed to be a vapid hit (which it was); "Justified and Ancient (Stand by the JAMs)", another top-10 single in the UK and the States, was a mix of techno, pop and rap, and featured famed country star Tammy Wynette singing esoteric lyrics about the 'justified ancients of Mu Mu land'.
So what to do with the millions of dollars they made off of blatant pop crap?
When nominated for multiple BRIT awards in 1992, they were invited to perform "3 a.m. Eternal, their airy, melodic trance-pop hit. The stage is lit, the KLF is announced, and Jimmy Cauty, balanced on crutches, shouts "This is television freedom!" before performing the track: with hardcore vegan-death-metal group Extreme Noise Terror. Explosions, growls, heavy guitars. The song goes on, bewildering the audience -- and then the kilted Cauty pulls out a machine gun and shoots blanks into the audience. The song finishes, explosions ring out, and the bands leave the stage while the PA system announces that "The KLF have now left the music business." Later that evening, a dead sheep was dumped at a post-party with a message tied to it "I died for ewe - bon appetit."
In 1994, Cauty and Drummond took 1 million pounds sterling of 50-pound notes in cash to the Scottish island of Jura... and burned it.
And I can't believe that a 45-minute documentary is available to watch online. It's poor quality, but I have been unable to find it elsewhere -- I normally have major qualms against viewing anything on YouTube or other video sites (pixelated images on a small screen with tinny computer speakers is not how we are meant to view most films), but this is an opportunity I can't pass up.
Jimmy Cauty
"Yeah, you wanna make out that everything is fine and it's this 'fantastic art statement' and there's nothing wrong with it, but it's kind of riddled with flaws... the whole thing of burning the money I'm taking anbout: what, the possibility that the whole thing is a load of rubbish and a complete waste of time. Once it comes up, you have to start to... you kind of have to deal with it. Most of the time it's not a big deal and you don't think about it, but when you do start thinking about it you can get into this area where it's pretty, y'know, it's pretty black.
I don't even know what are we're trying to say, innit? It's just that there's another side to it -- it's just really heavy for me and Bill to deal with. Every day you wake up, you go "Oh god, I just burned a million quid." Everybody, nobody thinks it's good, everybody just thinks it's a complete waste of time, y'know, everybody wants to know why you did it, but you can't tell them because you don't know why you did it; it's just not good enough, really?"
Friends of Drummond and Cauty claim that they were never the same again. Why did they do it? They have never said.
And I think it's genius.
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