On a beautifully serene summers evening in 2002 I attended an intimate garden party in Worcestershire to celebrate the birthday of a friend. The 20 or so guests enjoyed barbecue food and copious amounts of alcohol. As the night drew in a large screen was erected and a projector mounted for a short film. Chief operator of the proceedings was "Alan Goodrick":http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alan_Goodrick, (Gimpo)the roadie/sidekick/friend/film maker of KLF’s "Bill Drummond":http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bill_Drummond and "Jimmy Cauty":http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jimmy_Cauty. For anyone not aware of "The KLF’s":http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_KLF place in music history, having achieved success as The Timelords at the end of the 80’s the pair turned their attention to the growing rave/house genre releasing a string of top 10 hits, with the result that in 1991 they were the biggest selling singles act in the world.Gimpo sprang the projector into life, and the grainy Hi 8 images shone on to the white screen. The film we witnessed was the now infamous “K Foundation Burn A Million Quid”, a kind of handicam recollection of Cauty and Drummond feeding one million pounds to an open fire in a derelict barnhouse on the island of Jura off the Scottish mainland. As a piece of work, the 70 minutes it takes to burn the large majority of the money is bizarrely intriguing because of the questions it raises. Whilst the rest of the guests were being entertained by a second film charting the course of the London docklands light railway system I spoke to Gimpo about the movie and asked him about his memories and reflections of the period, his filming technique, and his views on the motivation of the chief protagonists.Firstly I asked if the money was real. Oh yeah, it most definitely was real. 50 pound notes in bundles. Cauty and Drummond had, for a long period of time courted controversey during their stint as Pop pioneers and much of their motivation lay in a deep mistrust and loathing of the structure of the industry. In addition, the pair were attempting a different type of approach to art. Gimpo’s film was created as a piece of work that would deliberately ask questions that could never possibly be answered. For every cross examiner who asks “Why burn more money than most people will see in their whole life ?”, there is a counter from those who claim that it’s just paper, and in any democratic society a person can do as he or she feels with their money.Perhaps the importance of Gimpo’s film is that it doesn’t make logical sense. Deluded Rockstars or inspirational artists ? The choice is yours.What Time Is Love?3A.M Eternal
On a beautifully serene summers evening in 2002 I attended an intimate garden party in Worcestershire to celebrate the birthday of a friend. The 20 or so guests enjoyed barbecue food and copious amounts of alcohol. As the night drew in a large screen was erected and a projector mounted for a short film. Chief operator of the proceedings was "Alan Goodrick":http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alan_Goodrick, (Gimpo)the roadie/sidekick/friend/film maker of KLF’s "Bill Drummond":http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bill_Drummond and "Jimmy Cauty":http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jimmy_Cauty. For anyone not aware of "The KLF’s":http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_KLF place in music history, having achieved success as The Timelords at the end of the 80’s the pair turned their attention to the growing rave/house genre releasing a string of top 10 hits, with the result that in 1991 they were the biggest selling singles act in the world.Gimpo sprang the projector into life, and the grainy Hi 8 images shone on to the white screen. The film we witnessed was the now infamous “K Foundation Burn A Million Quid”, a kind of handicam recollection of Cauty and Drummond feeding one million pounds to an open fire in a derelict barnhouse on the island of Jura off the Scottish mainland. As a piece of work, the 70 minutes it takes to burn the large majority of the money is bizarrely intriguing because of the questions it raises. Whilst the rest of the guests were being entertained by a second film charting the course of the London docklands light railway system I spoke to Gimpo about the movie and asked him about his memories and reflections of the period, his filming technique, and his views on the motivation of the chief protagonists.Firstly I asked if the money was real. Oh yeah, it most definitely was real. 50 pound notes in bundles. Cauty and Drummond had, for a long period of time courted controversey during their stint as Pop pioneers and much of their motivation lay in a deep mistrust and loathing of the structure of the industry. In addition, the pair were attempting a different type of approach to art. Gimpo’s film was created as a piece of work that would deliberately ask questions that could never possibly be answered. For every cross examiner who asks “Why burn more money than most people will see in their whole life ?”, there is a counter from those who claim that it’s just paper, and in any democratic society a person can do as he or she feels with their money.Perhaps the importance of Gimpo’s film is that it doesn’t make logical sense. Deluded Rockstars or inspirational artists ? The choice is yours.What Time Is Love?3A.M Eternal
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