Kula Shaker

Famously fronted by Hayley Mills' son, infamously embroiled within one of those "are they/aren't they" racist debates which so engage the British press, Kula Shaker's only purposeful claim to fame was that they were an amazing band. Sometimes. Frustrating schizophrenia was the name of the game. Their late-'60s bent was an open secret, but when Kula Shaker plundered parts of the past, they plunder all the parts they could find. Their Hari Georgeson sitar rockisms were apparent through hits (and titles) like "Tattva" and "Govinda," but elsewhere, you want Spirit? You want the Dead? You want a cauldron filled with turgid, third-generation Bay Area guitar noodles? Kula Shaker had them all. When they were good, they were very, very good. And when they weren't, they were Moby Grape. Recorded at the Aston Villa Leisure Centre in Birmingham, England, in January 1997, Blender Blendha opens with a spot-on period Beatles cover, then lurches through all shades of the Shaker spectrum, highlighting some stunning highs and, depending upon how you like your guitar solos, some stultifying lows -- usually within split seconds of one another. The "Grateful When You're Dead" Garcia rock pastiche is followed by the semi-Santana'd "Jerry Was There," which is succeeded in turn by the psyched-out space ballad "Ragi One." The best working comparison would be a "one night at the Fillmore"-type compilation album, with Kula Shaker playing all the parts. That's how uneven they are, but it also shows how good they are, a point which the epic closing triptych of "Hollow Man," "Into the Deep," and "Govinda" hammers home. Especially "Govinda": How many other classic Radha Krishna Temple covers can you think of, after all? ~ Dave Thompson, All Music Guide