The stunts were done in protest "Wall Street's dirty ways" according
to the release. The band also had this to say: "Our mother is a bank
manager at Bank of America. Our father is a small business owner. We
believe in the American Dream. But the dream is broken. You and I have
something in common, we want the good life. But there is a problem.
Wall Street's dollar is dirty. Let's burn that dirty dollar. We are not
economists. We don't have a solution. But through symbolism we can
raise awareness together."
A publicist for Living Things told me that over the course of
several shows at SXSW, a total of $200 went up in smoke but also
donated that much to a homeless shelter.
Of course, this was caught on tape and is already on YouTube. Take a look at it after the jump. The clip is notable because Little Steven is introducing the band -- and if you haven't seen yet, our music feature this week is a chat I had with him a few weeks ago. His radio show, Little Steven's Underground Garage, is airing on KLOU (103.3 FM) every Saturday night. [Edit: The Little Steven video was taken down, but here's more live footage of the burning.]
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WOW NONE OF YOU GUYS UNDERSTAND THIS BAND..WHEN THEY BURN MONEY THERE MAKING A STATEMENT ON HOW WALL STEERT AND AIG OUR BURNING OUR DIRTY MONEY ON THERE BIG BOUNCES.. SO OUR DOLLAR IS DIRT MONEY EVERYONE SHOULD READ THIS http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/music_blog/2009/03/living-things-r.html
these lads have quite a ways to go:
K Foundation Burn a Million Quid was an action that took place on 23 August 1994, in which the K Foundation (an art duo consisting of Bill Drummond and Jimmy Cauty) burnt one million pounds sterling in cash on the Scottish island of Jura. This money represented the bulk of the K Foundation's funds, earned by Drummond and Cauty as The KLF, one of the United Kingdom's most successful pop groups of the early 1990s. The duo have never fully explained their motivations for the burning.
The incineration was recorded on a Hi-8 video camera by K Foundation collaborator Gimpo. In August 1995, the film�Watch the K Foundation Burn a Million Quid[1]�was toured around the UK, with Drummond and Cauty engaging each audience in debate about the burning and its meaning. In November 1995, the duo pledged to dissolve the K Foundation and to refrain from public discussion of the burning for a period of 23 years. Despite this Drummond has spoken about the burning in 2000 and 2004. At first he was unrepentant [2]but in 2004, he admitted to the BBC that he regretted burning the money.[3] [4]
A book�K Foundation Burn A Million Quid, edited and compiled by collaborator Chris Brook�was published by ellipsis Books in 1997, compiling stills from the film, accounts of events and viewer reactions. The book also contains an image of a single house brick that was manufactured from the fire's ashes.
Annie, I saw them at a day show at Maggie Mae's on Thursday and they did the same thing. It was OK, but a little less so now that it is obvious that it was staged.
It was cool when Lillian threw his lighter down and it accidently "popped" and exploded hitting the floor. And man, it must have been hot in those leather jackets.
Video's broken. *bored*
These guys are douche bags, they never give any solutions to problems and are always negative. Typical post modern liberalism hipster bullshit. I think these guys live in Fenton.....LOL!
Personally, this makes me a little sick. If I had been in the audience, that would have been MY hard-earned money that I spent to see them and now I'm paying to watch it literally go up in flames? Give it back.
Good for them, well sort of anyway. By burning money they actually made the money in my pocket worth more. Also though B of A managed to buy up some of those collapsing messes so more power to them. Luckily that evil Clinton signed off on repealing a 60 some odd year old rule about investment and consumer banks.
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