Fans of The KLF were sent into slobbering anticipation once again by the posting of a cryptic message informing the public that The JAMs – one of their many pseudonyms along with K Foundation, K2 Plant Hire, The Timelords and of course KLF – are planning to ‘Burn The Shard’ sometime on November 23 of this year. Await further instructions, it states.
The duo, who enjoyed massive hits in the late 80s and early 90s, before moving into art terrorism and writing, recently returned after a 23-year hiatus, staging three days of strange interactive events during Liverpool Sound City. As well as a new book, 2023, they teased the release of a new film, to be screened across three separate screens, called 2023 The Triptych.
No-one quite knows what to expect, which is just how they like it, but going on past form, KLF masterminds Bill Drummond and Jimmy Cauty have something spectacular and out-of-the-box up their sleeves. Here we round up ten of the craziest, funniest and most inspired stunts they’ve pulled in the past…
BURNING A MILLION QUID
They've pulled many a stunt over the years, but this is the one that they've become synonymous with. Was it the ultimate act of punk rock rebellion, or a bizarre art statement, or possibly both? No-one knows, least of all the duo themselves. But one thing's for sure - it upset a hell of a lot of people, and cemented their reputation as artists willing to push the envelope that little but further than everyone else.
HI-JACKING THE TURNER PRIZE
The duo's guerrilla activities in the art world climaxed in 1994 when they offered a parallel prize to The Turner Prize, doubling the award to £40,000 for the worst piece of art made in the UK that year. After a series of TV adverts appeared on Channel 4, the pair appeared outside the Tate with the money nailed to a picture frame. When the winner Rachel Whiteread initially refused to accept it they threatened to set fire to it. She quickly changed her mind.
MACHINE GUNNING THE BRITS
Invited to open The Brit Awards in 1992 on live TV, The KLF decided to hire hardcore band Extreme Noise Terror to re-interpret their massive hit, '3AM Eternal', with Bill Drummond spraying the crowd of VIPs with blanks from a machine gun at the track's climax. The ashen faces of the audience at the end say all that needs to be said.
FUCKING THE MILLENIUM (IN WHEELCHAIRS)
Having reformed under yet another name – 2K – to release 'Fuck The Millenium', they ripped the piss out of ancient rock acts reforming for the cash by performing in wheelchairs at The Barbican, along with a massive choir and Jeremy Deller's acid brass band.
SHOWERING RAVERS IN FREE MONEY
At a rave in Chipping Norton in 1989, the duo decided to re-distribute their fee to the audience. Cue incredulous ravers shouting “Free money!” in disbelieving tones.
HIRING TAMMY WYNETTE
“They're justified and they're ancient, and they drive an ice cream van,” sings country legend Tammy Wynette on their 1991 smash hit, 'Justified and Ancient'. The subsequent Top of the Pops appearance is more like a weird dream than a pop promo, and all the better for it.
DESTROYING ALL COPIES OF THEIR DEBUT ALBUM
This was actually forced by a court order rather than their own media manipulation, but the huge uncleared copyright breaches on their debut album '1987 – What The Fuck Is Going On?' were positively looking for legal trouble from big names like The Beatles, Abba and The Sex Pistols. The court ruled that every existing copy should he destroyed, making an instant collector's item, but the songs have made it onto YouTube and bootleg markets and survive to this day.
MAKING THEIR CAR A STAR
Sussing and also satirising the acid house movement’s stance against pop stars, Cauty and Drummond decided that the frontman of their 1988 single ‘Doctin’ The Tardis’ would be Cauty’s battered 1968 Ford Galaxie, an American police car, henceforth renamed Ford Timelord. The single, meanwhile, which mashes up the theme from ‘Dr Who’ with snippets of various glam rock classics, raced to the Number One slot. When the Radio 1 presenter Richard Skinner called it “an aberration” during an interview, Drummond agreed, saying: “We justified it all by saying to ourselves, 'We're celebrating a very British thing here... you know, something that Timmy Mallett understands.’”
WRITING ‘THE MANUAL’
Having scored a Number One hit with ‘Doctorin’ The Tardis’ – the title itself was a pisstake of Coldcut’s recent ‘Doctrin’ The House’ single, Drummond wrote a hilarious book sharing their secrets and offering a cast-iron money back guarantee to anyone who bought the book and didn’t succeed. ‘The Manual - How To Have A Number One The Easy Way’ remains a brilliant dissection of what makes a hit record, and its prophecy that Morrissey would never have a Number One single in the UK remains true to this day. Among those supposedly carefully following its advice was Austrian techno pranksters Edelweiss, who enjoyed massive success across Europe with their ‘Bring Me Edelweiss’ single.
RETURNING AFTER 23 YEARS – IN AN ICE CREAM VAN
No-one quite believed the duo’s promise in 1994 that they would return after a hiatus of 23 years, but at 23 minutes past midnight on August 23 of this year they proved to be men of their word, arriving at a Liverpool bookshop in an ice cream van playing ‘What Time Is Love?’ to signed (well, stamp) copies of their latest book ‘2023’. Some 400 ‘volunteers’ paid £100 to take part in 'Liverpool: Welcome To The Dark Ages' over the following three days, which included the formation and subsequent performance of the band Badger Kull and The Toxteth Day of The Dead, a march through the area in skeleton facepaint, that culminated in the burning of two coffins within a 23-foot pyramid.
Words: Ben Willmott
