KLF (aka The Timelords & Justified Ancients of MuMu )

NAME:		KLF (aka The Timelords & Justified Ancients of MuMu )
MEMBERS:		Bill Drummond, Jimmy Cauty
HIGHEST CHART SINGLE:		Doctorin The Tardis
ESSENTIAL TUNE:		Last Train To Transcentral
ESSENTIAL ALBUM:		The White Room - BUY NOW!
FASCINATING FACT:		Bill Drummond was in Big In Japan with Holly Johnson and Ian Broudie
BAGGY RATING:		Not really baggie I know but one of the most interesting acts known to pop

At a time where pop stars are increasingly planned, produced, packaged and paraded, it's difficult to believe that the same industry was, just over ten years ago, producing artists like the KLF's Bill Drummond.

Born in South Africa, the son of a Scottish preacher, Drummond ran away from home at an early age to become a fisherman. Clearly disillusioned by life on the ocean waves, he settled in Liverpool, enrolling in a Liverpool art school and developed a taste for punk, an ethos which would remain constant - in one form or another - throughout Drummond's career.

In 1977 he formed Big in Japan with Holly Johnson and Ian Broudie and while Johnson went on to form Frankie Goes To Hollywood and Broudie the Lightening Seeds, Drummond formed his own record label and became manager and producer for the Teardrop Explodes and Echo & the Bunnymen. After both bands left the label, he went on to work for WEA as an A&R man, before quitting the business in 1986 and releasing a vengeful solo album (or tirade against the music business, as some people have suggested), suggesting he never wanted to work in the industry again.

He did of course return to the business and under a variety of guises (The KLF, The Timelords and the Justified Ancients of MuMu), Bill Drummond and fellow troublemaker Jimmy Cauty, assaulted the charts first with their unique brand of sampled experiments, then later with their phenomenally successful acid-house excursions, and in 1991, Cauty and Drummond - the biggest-selling singles band of the year - were on the verge of becoming pop superstars.

But Drummond, not one to shirk his punk responsibilities and his fondness for the out-of the ordinary decided on a very different path for the KLF. A path which basically involved riling anybody he didn't like and almost completely confusing his until-then loyal audience.

Voted 1992's best band by the BPI and the Brit Awards, the KLF performed an extreme thrash-metal version of their biggest hit, while Drummond sprayed the audience assembled with blanks from an automatic rifle. Post performance, they announced: "The KLF have left the music industry" and then delivered a dead sheep's carcass (with eight gallons of blood) to the lobby of the post-bash party hotel.

The stunt was met with negativity within the industry, but Cauty and Drummond seemed not to care; they'd made a fortune and proclaimed they would never make another record until world peace had been proclaimed. To emphasise their point, they denied themselves potential millions by deleting their back catalogue in its entirety, before re-inventing themselves as fierce critics of the modern art world.

But the 'work' that Drummond will always be remembered for is perhaps the most bizarre publicity stunt in history. In front of a select group of journalists who had made the journey up to the remote Scottish isle of Jura (by invitation only), Drummond set fire to a board nailed with banknotes - an art piece that had been shown around the UK, entitled "Nailed To The Wall" and watched one million pounds of the KLF's personal wealth turn slowly from hard currency to ash, before disappearing into the windy night, a bizarre twist from Drummond who had taken it upon himself to be the art world's most controversial guerrilla-critic.

Just meaningless publicity stunts? No, not really. Drummond freely admits that £1m was much more than a dip into his personal wealth and recent interviews have pointed towards a personal belief from the man that deleting his entire back catalogue wasn't particularly intelligent and that he's by no means financially solvent any more.

The sad thing is, Drummond's KLF or the recent crop of manufactured-by-TV pop celebrities have one thing in common; neither will really remembered for their music. The only difference is that Bull Drummond probably intended it that way.

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