Jimmy Cauty
James Cauty (commonly known as
Jimmy or
Jimi Cauty, also known as
Rockman Rock), was born in
Devon,
England in
1956. As a 17-year old artist, he painted a popular
Lord of the Rings poster (and later, a counterpart based on
The Hobbit) for
Athena.
["The KLF", Western Mail (Cardiff), 4 March 2005, p29.] He has continued painting over the years, with his early reputation being "London artist, bohemian".
In 1981/2 he and (now wife)
Cressida were in a band called Angels 1-5 recorded a
Peel session.
In 1984, Cauty took on guitarist duties with
Brilliant, a pop trio in collaboration with singer June Montana and
Killing Joke bassist
Youth. (Youth said he "cut the original ten (or so) members of the band down to just him, June (Montana) and Jimmy...") Brilliant signed with
WEA, where Jimmy first met
Bill Drummond.
Following Brilliant and a brief stint with
Zodiac Mindwarp and The Love Reaction, Cauty joined Drummond to form
The Justified Ancients of Mu Mu, a
Situationist-inspired artistic collaboration that played out in various guises and media over much of the next decade, including an unlikely UK #1 hit as
The Timelords with the seminal
Gary Glitter/
Dr. Who novelty-pop
mash-up "Doctorin' The Tardis".
During this period, Cauty was also DJing alongside
Dr. Alex Paterson at
The Land Of Oz, the chill-out room at
Paul Oakenfold's
London club
Heaven. Paterson and Cauty were soon recording and releasing material as
The Orb. After the release of the breakthrough
ambient house single "A Huge Ever-Growing Pulsating Brain That Rules From The Centre of The Ultraworld (Loving You)" Cauty left The Orb to refocus on his ongoing collaboration with Bill Drummond, by this time in full bloom as
The KLF. Shortly thereafter, Cauty's contributions to what would have become the first Orb LP were released by KLF Communications as an ambient album entitled
Space.
Following the dissolution of The KLF in 1992, Cauty and Drummond collaborated occasionally (
K Foundation,
The One World Orchestra) as Cauty continued his solo work under new aliases. He eventually called himself
AAA (aka Triple-A, Advanced Acoustic Armorments) and experimented with low-frequency weapons that he bought from the
British Ministry of Defence. His
Squawk-EP was already listed by
Blast First Records but like a lot of his projects this album was never released.
In 1999 Cauty produced several remixes under the alias The Scourge Of The Earth for artists such as
Placebo,
Marilyn Manson,
Hawkwind,
Ian Brown,
The Orb etc. Then, in December 1999, he was joined by
Guy Pratt and they released the cellphone-themed novelty-pop record "I Wanna 1-2-1 With You" under the name
Solid Gold Chartbusters. Although it was intended to be Christmas number 1 it didn't even go top ten;
BBC Radio 1 refused to play the song.
In
2000 Cauty worked on several new tracks for his new record company Crapola Records. Until mid-2005, together with
James Fogarty and
Keir Jens-Smith, he was part of art/music collective
Blacksmoke. He also began collaborating with Alex Paterson again, as
The Transit Kings.
A new project is the Cautese Nationál Postal Disservice.
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Cautese Nationál Postal Disservice
