Further evidence why the KLF’s Jimmy Cauty is an absolute legend… [December 1996]

You’ve heard the one about the KLF’s Jimmy Cauty buying up two old Saracen tanks and turning them into ‘weapons of audio destruction’, right?

Back in 1996, Cauty picked up the two armoured vehicles for around £4,000, and set to work fitting them with audio cannons capable of transmitting sound for up to seven miles.

He then tested said cannons out on midsummers day of that year, which was reported by Melody Maker as such [taken from the KLF.de archives]:

“[Cauty] was testing his two Audio Weapon Systems in a field near his new home. ‘He alerted people to the fact that he was doing this by setting off some military flares. Then he tested his Audio Weapons System for an hour for a very select group of scientists and friends. The Audio Weapons System is not designed to kill people.”

Once tested, what better opportunity to take said ‘weapons’ out on the road, which Cauty duly did, bringing them to a road protest near Exeter in Devon, as this Mixmag article from December 1996 reveals.

“I only went down there to get them some publicity,” the Wirral-born musician revealed. Legend.

[Article taken from Mixmag, December 1996]