James Francis Cauty (born 19 December 1956), also known as Rockman Rock, is an English artist and musician, best known as one-half of the duo The KLF, co-founder of The Orb and as the man who burnt £1 million.
He is married to artist and musician Alannah Currie, a former member of Thompson Twins.
Early life and career
Cauty was born on the Wirral Peninsula. As a 17-year-old artist, he drew a popular The Lord of the Rings poster (and later, a counterpart based on The Hobbit) for British retailer Athena.
In 1981–82 Cauty was guitarist in a band called Angels 1–5, who recorded a Peel session on 1 July 1981. Lead vocalist was Cressida Bowyer, whom Cauty later married. He then joined the band Brilliant with which he remained until its break-up in 1986. Cauty was also an original member of Zodiac Mindwarp and the Love Reaction, in 1985.
Artistic partnership with Bill Drummond
Cauty joined with Bill Drummond to form The Justified Ancients of Mu Mu (The JAMs), a collaboration that played out in various guises and media over much of the next decade.
As an A&R man, Drummond had signed Brilliant to WEA. Concocting a scheme for a hip-hop record on New Year's Day 1987, Drummond needed a like-minded collaborator with expertise in current music technology, and so contacted Cauty. Drummond later commented that Cauty "knew exactly, to coin a phrase, 'where I was coming from'". A week later, The JAMs had recorded their debut single, "All You Need Is Love". Several singles and three albums as The JAMs followed (their debut, 1987; the follow-up, Who Killed The JAMs?; and compilation Shag Times) before a change of direction saw the duo mutate into dance and ambient music pioneers, The KLF. The duo had their first British number one hit single as The Timelords with the Gary Glitter/Dr. Who novelty-pop mash-up "Doctorin' the Tardis", claimed to be sung by Cauty's 1968 Ford Galaxie American police car. During this period, Cauty also worked with Tony Thorpe of The Moody Boys; besides remix and production work by the Moody Boys for The KLF and vice versa, Thorpe and Cauty recorded the single "Journey into Dubland" together at the KLF's Trancentral studios.
The KLF released two albums, Chill Out and The White Room, and a string of top 5 singles, becoming the biggest selling singles act in the world in 1991. In 1992, suddenly and very publicly, The KLF retired from the music industry and deleted their entire back catalogue.
Drummond and Cauty re-emerged in 1993 as the K Foundation, releasing one limited edition single ("K Cera Cera") and awarding the £40,000 K Foundation art award for the "worst artist of the year". In 1994, the duo courted infamy by setting fire to one million pounds in cash on the Scottish island of Jura. In 1995, they undertook a screening tour of a film of the burning, before signing a moratorium on K Foundation activities.
Cauty worked with Drummond again in 1997 with a campaign to "Fuck the Millennium", the highlight of which was a 23-minute live performance satirising the "pop comeback", in which Cauty and Drummond appeared as grey-haired pensioners and wheeled around the stage in electric wheelchairs. They returned as The Justified Ancients of Mu Mu in 2017, with a novel - 2023: A Trilogy - and a 3-day festival, "Welcome to the Dark Ages". Cauty confirmed that the duo's work is an ongoing project.
Throughout their career, Drummond has often been the mouthpiece of the group and was sometimes viewed, subjectively, as their chief protagonist. NME, for example, wrote: "One suspects that the real boiling genius of the duo is initiated by Drummond. The elements of the K Foundation affair are classic Drummond – honesty mixed with deranged publicity-seeking, pop terrorism ideas mixed with utter strangeness and mysticism..., and a sense that the things pop groups do should be visionary and above all should not be mundane." However, the initial idea for the K Foundation's one million incineration was Cauty's, although he was beginning to express regret in 1995 at which time Drummond remained resolute.