Donald's Encyclopedia of Popular Music

A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z

KULA SHAKER

Britpop group named after a 9th-century Indian mystic. Lineup: Alonza Bevan, bass, piano, tabla, backing vocals; Jay Darlington, keyboards; Crispian Mills, guitar, vocals; Paul Winterhart, drums. Mills' mother is actress Hayley Mills, his grandfather Sir John Mills, familiar to generations of Britons; he also had a line in banal quotes: "I'm not a drugs person, nor a New Ager. I don't believe in conspiracy theories - I believe in the truth.' They played their first impromptu gig at Glastonbury '93 (hence song "303', the A303 being the road to Glastonbury). The songs came with a veneer of '60s rock in a half-reverential way, with some lyrics said to be in Sanskrit and an overlay of Indian sound; as guest on "Sleeping Jiva' they recruited sarodist Wajahat Khan, whose father Imrat Khan was a famous virtuosi on the surbahar, the heftier, deeper-voiced relative of the sitar, his father's brother Vilayat Khan a sitar virtuosi. Debut single "Grateful When You're Dead'/"Jerry Was There' referred to the Grateful Dead while the coda "Jerry Was There' had been tacked on after Jerry Garcia's death '95. Had Top 100 hits "Govinda' and "Hey Dude', servings of counterfeit psychedelia. Debut album K '96 on Columbia gathered singles and other tracks, sold 300,000 copies in two weeks; The Independent wrote, "Without the Zeitgeist to excuse them, the love-over-gold hippy sentiments of "Hey Dude' and the Biba-hippy lifestyle outlined in "303' just seem irredeemably naff and middle class.' Reworked "Govinda' '96 had Suchitra Malik on backing vocals, previously seen in videos for Apachi Indian and Oasis, whose Noel Gallagher announced on a BBC Radio 1 Evening Session that Kula Shaker was "The best band in Britain': with this degree of press-agentry it seemed Kula were aided by invisible cosmic forces, while they lacked the skill to pull off their stuff live at the Brixton Academy early '97, according to The Daily Telegraph.