The KLF: Chaos, magic and the band who burned £1M

I recently listened to a podcast about these guys and their attempt to meet ABBA. Thanks for the reminder I need to actually listen to their music

Certainly my favorite of all her performances.

I used to work for Jimmy Cauty and Bill Drummond's record label. This book looks interesting ... but I really wish the focus was on the art and the music, and not the "the guys who burnt 1 million quid" incident.

One thing that the media have a tough time recognizing is the fact that Bill and Jimmy are legit experimental artists, and still love making art of all kinds. And they also happened to have some amazing musical talent and experience (Jimmy: The Orb; Bill: Big In Japan and early manager of Echo and the Bunnymen).

So, they decided to take their talents into areas where few experimental artists had ever gone before, taking over the pop charts ... and then proceeded to do what experimental artists are wont to do in such a situation.

They gave a huge middle finger to the industry, by barnstorming the big UK music industry award ceremony (the '92 Brit Awards), playing a death metal version of one of their dance hits while Bill fired blanks from a machine gun over the heads of the crowd. Later in the evening they dumped a dead sheep outside one of the after-parties, and shortly afterwards deleted their entire back catalogue.

They proceeded to do lots of other experimental stuff, ranging from writing some excellent books (I recommend Bill's "45") to activities such as Jimmy's model English village a few years back.

And the music, 30+ years later, is still fantastic! Not just the pop hits. Listen to The White Room. Dig up the club singles and experiments like the Abba and Whitney projects and It's Grim Up North.

Yet after all that, what does the media remember them for? More often than not, it's the one-off act of Burning a Million Quid in 1994. Their ground-breaking music, the books, the anti-establishment statements and art ... it's almost an afterthought.

It's like releasing an otherwise interesting book about Ozzy Osbourne - a seminal figure in the history of heavy metal with an unusual groundbreaking role in reality TV - and positioning it around a single sensational incident from 1982, "Crazy Train: Ozzy Osbourne, the Man Who Bit The Head Off A Bat"

I bought The White Room on cassette on a school trip to Québec. Lying in that hotel room that night, headphones on, 14 years old, having my first real mind blow of a musical experience. I will always remember them as groundbreaking artists, playful satirists, and master trolls of the music industry.