Directed by Chris Atkins
Running time 1 hour 28 minutes
Currently playing at Fantastic Fest

by Jaime Davis, The Fixer 

In 1991, I bought my first CD on my own, in the Sam Goody in the Centre at Salisbury mall with my very own money. Afterward, I felt very grown-up and important (seriously, no one could tell me nothing). That CD was The White Room by electronic-stadium-acid-house-art-experimentalists and all-around chaos enthusiasts the KLF. I’d seen the videos on endless rotation on MTV, including “Justified & Ancient”, featuring the vocal stylings of one Tammy Wynette, decided they were my new favorite band, and then for about six minutes wondered who the hell those dudes in the red robes and the animal horns were. Then I went back to playing Barbies and watching Beverly Hills, 90210, because I was 11. 

Upon purchasing, The White Room was on near-endless repeat in my little boombox, which makes a lot of sense considering I went on to become a teen raver in the late ’90s. I loved its mix of sampling, acid house, house, rap, and vocals - plus, none of their songs made a bit of gd sense, adding to the mystery of it all. What is a Mu Mu, anyway? Do all the Mu Mu’s live in Mu Mu Land or have some of them emigrated elsewhere? In what way is the KLF both justified and ancient? Why do they drive an ice cream van? Where is Trancentral, and how do I get there from Delaware? Anyway, for a brief amount of time in my life it felt like the KLF were everywhere, and then all of a sudden they were nowhere.

Meanwhile, across the pond, the KLF had already made the conscious decision to blow up their newfound mainstream success. They decided the best way to do this was during their live performance of “3AM Eternal” at the 1992 BRIT Awards, where they were nominated for Best British Group (and then won in a tie with Simply Red, which is simply hilarious). Originally they planned on disemboweling a sheep and then dumping its blood on the audience before dramatically announcing their exit from the music industry. But (allegedly) after some legal discussions with the BBC who aired the show, they settled on spraying the crowd with blanks from an automatic weapon. Cool? The KLF officially left the building, taking its entire music catalog with them, making it unavailable for printing, distribution, sale, and eventual streaming. On its own, that would be a pretty punk rock thing to do, to turn your back on the commercialization of the music industry, of mainstream success, of the industry of cool. As it turns out, that’s not entirely what happened to the men behind the KLF. They had other plans in mind. 

A new documentary from filmmaker Chris Atkins, Who Killed the KLF?, currently showing at Fantastic Fest, attempts to clear some of the mystery shrouding the band’s masterminds, Bill Drummond and Jimmy Cauty. Using a mix of never-before-heard audio interviews, animation, reenactments, talking heads, and archival footage, Atkins traces the KLF’s steps from beginning up until now. Visually, it’s an interesting watch, especially if you enjoy music docs, but it suffers from a bit of indulgent self-importance that doesn’t necessarily feel warranted. At times, the film wants us to see Drummond and Cauty as influential and critical to both music and the art world, but (music aside) I failed to buy into it. 

Here’s where the doc begins: in the late 1970s Drummond, captivated by seeing the Sex Pistols live at Eric’s in Liverpool, formed the band Big In Japan with musicians who would later achieve success in other bands: Siouxsie and the Banshees, Frankie Goes to Hollywood, and The Lightning Seeds. (How wild is it that so many awesomely talented bands formed after seeing the Sex Pistols live? Crazy). After Big In Japan, Drummond managed Echo and the Bunnymen for a spell before joining a label as an A&R man, discovering a local band called Brilliant. Cauty was the guitarist, the band pretty much flopped, but the two felt a kinship and decided to work together. Half band, half experimental art pranksters, the two began their musical collaboration under the name The Justified Ancients of Mu Mu, later The Timelords (check out their Doctor Who theme / Gary Glitter mash-up “Doctorin’ the Tardis” if you’re a Whovian), and then finally the KLF. Don’t ask what the KLF stands for, because you’re bound to get a different answer each time (King Lucifer Forever, Kopyright Liberation Front, the Kings of the Low Frequencies). Post-musical career, they went by the moniker the K Foundation. If this feels at all elusive to you, well, that’s the point. 

The KLF, or the Justified Ancients of Mu Mu, or whatever they’re currently calling themselves, were inspired in part by The Illuminatus! Trilogy, a three-novel series published in 1975 and a satirical take on various conspiracy theories, the Illuminati, and religious philosophy Discordianism. Drummond was a huge fan of the novels, and he and Cauty set out to spread chaos and confusion in any way they could. As part of their work (or art hacks, whatever you prefer), they created a manual on how to create a #1 hit pop song (which actually worked), enlisted a gaggle of journalists to unknowingly take part in a fake Pagan ceremony, were responsible for some of the UK crop circles that baffled residents during that time, and burned $1 million pounds for no reason except that they could. When that last stunt didn’t get the attention they felt it deserved, they went on a multi-city tour, screening a one-hour long film of the money being burned followed by a Q&A debate on why they destroyed it. The rub? Both Drummond and Cauty didn’t really know why they did it and, in their words, “any reason we gave was never good enough.” THAT IS BECAUSE THERE WAS NO REASON. You can imagine those debates got pretty heated. 

And that’s exactly what’s so frustrating about the KLF and Who Killed the KLF? - much of their work, whether music or conceptual art or visual art or promotional stunts masked as performance - were made entirely without intention. To hear Drummond and Cauty via their audio voiceovers, they had no idea what they were doing or why nor did it really matter so much. It’s one thing to burn $1 million pounds if you have some kind of overwhelming message or statement to make. To do it just because maybe it’s provocative and maybe the right people will notice is pretty asinine. Drummond and Cauty are still at it, actually, and the movie does very little to explain where their motivations may stem from. Perhaps if Atkins had gone back a little further, we could understand a bit as to why these two do the things they do. 

Who Killed the KLF? raises more questions than it answers, but I’m not gonna lie - it’s still a fun watch. Just don’t expect to get to the heart of who the hell the dudes in the red robes and the animal horns are - they’re still an enigma. And maybe that’s the point? Maybe we’re just not supposed to know. At least they made the KLF albums available for streaming - I’m happy I’ve got their music again.