| KULA SHAKER Biography (1994 - 2016) Header Photo: Low resolution detail from the beautifully innocent K album. Available @ amazon.co.uk (direct link to the splendid release). © Kula Shaker.
Kula Shaker K2.0 Vinyl, LP, Album, Limited Edition
Kula Shaker CDs/Vinyl/Cassettes Kula Shaker are the Black Cat of the CD World... Give a CD a Home Their debut album, K, entered the UK chart at number 1. The band crowned an extraordinary first year by winning a BRIT Award in February 1997 and released a frenetic cover version of Joe South's Hush, previously a hit for Deep Purple.
Two years between albums is an eternity in the fickle pop world and with no exotic catchy eastern tunes wrapped around a western mentality to offer meant the album wan't going to sustain their charge towards world domination.
Mills returned three years later with his new rock band, the Jeevas.
Reformation and redemption came in with the reforming of the band in 2004 ('redemption' for a world without Kula Shaker is almost in black & white) minus jay but with the guy with the mother of all moustaches, Harry Broadbent. Three albums later and a tour in 2016 has revealed a body of work maturing and just getting better, there star steadily rising as they reach K2. Kula Shaker are the Black Cat of the CD World... Give a CD a Home kula shaker - k   
cd single 2002.
 cd single 2002. buy: cd (uk) |
The 15th anniversary release from Japan, K-15, is 
The sumptuous cover is 
This UK retro-rock band (named after an Indian emperor) formed originally as the Kays then the Lovely Lads in 1994. Despite regular live work, that band was abandoned when the singer left. Ex-Objects Of Desire members Crispian Mills (b. 18 January 1973, England; vocals), Paul Winter-Hart (b. Somerset, England; drums) and Alonza Bevan (bass) then regrouped under a new name with Jay Darlington (keyboards), and embarked on a support tour with Reef that resulted in a contract with Columbia Records. Columbia were evidently impressed by Kula Shaker's commitment to recreating the "authenticity" of 60s bands the Beatles and Small Faces.
Their debut single, Grateful When You're Dead (a reference to the recent death of Jerry Garcia), immediately entered the UK Top 40 as critics feverishly scrambled to interview them. Mills, the son of 60s actress Hayley Mills and grandson of venerated actor Sir John Mills, did his best not to disappoint them: "By the end of the century we're gonna be the biggest band in the world, and to celebrate we'll play a gig at the Pyramids on the last day of 1999. That's where we're headed."
Further singles proved no fluke. Tattva and Hey Dude were sparkling slices of intelligent guitar pop, with its heart in the sounds of the late 60s.
Mills reputation was subsequently tarnished by some ill-advised remarks about the Nazi swastika, provoking a hostile reaction from the music press. Mills subsequently retired from public view, embarking on a spiritual quest to India.
The band returned in May 1998 with the UK Top 5 single, Sound Of Drums. Peasants Pigs & Astronauts followed in March 1999, but failed to match the success of its predecessor, debuting at number 9 on the UK album chart and quickly tumbling down the charts.
After all the swagger and column inches the band was no more, with Mills leaving in September to concentrate on solo work. A strange decision as though the sales of Peasants Pigs & Astronauts were disappointing, it would have been far more commercially sound for the band to have regrouped and tried to have learnt from their mistakes of the second album. Indeed, it would surely have been worth trying to build on the success of their debut album rather than giving up at the first signs of problems.
