Hey Dude — Kula Shaker
#365 Songs: February 11
Welcome to FUCKING 90s WEEK: SUBSECTION B — CONCERTS I SAW THAT I’LL NEVER FUCKING FORGET
Do not underestimate the depths to which I’ll take FUCKING 90s WEEK.
London-based psych-rockers Kula Shaker released their debut record K in September of 1996 in the post brit-pop purgatory between the Oasis/Blur era and Travis/Snow Patrol/Coldplay/Radiohead’s eventual swell.
Frontman Crispian Mills — son of Hayley, grandson of Sir John Mills — formed the band after taking a spiritual pilgrimage though India, which explains most anything you needed to know about the origin of Kula Shaker’s specific sound.
The band, along with a few guest performers, made psychedelia radio-accessible and added traditional Indian instruments like the tabla (hand drums) and the sarod (a stringed instrument) and sung in sanskrit on their first single, “Tattva.”
Tattva, Acintya Bheda Bheda Tattva
Like The Flower And The Scent Of Summer,
Like The Sun And The Shine,
Well The Truth May Come In Strange Disguises
Send The Message To Your Mind.Tattva, Acintya Bheda Bheda Tattva
Melody Maker called “Tattva” and the follow-up single “Grateful When You’re Dead” the two worst singles of 1996. Which is pure stupid. Because I was there and fucking “Macarena” was Billboard’s #1 song for the year, which tells you everything you need to know about 1996 if you weren’t there.
If you refer to my first FUCKING 90s WEEK post, you’ll note that I said I hated the fucking 90s. Because of shit like Melody Maker saying that Kula Shaker gave us the worst singles of the year when Los del Rio and the Quad City DJs were right fucking there. Don’t think for a second that social media invented the dumb music take.
I’m not going to defend those songs any further than I can throw them (they’re don’t have mass, obviously), but let’s not overlook the abomination that was “C’mon Ride It (The Train).” Just typing the name of that song makes me fucking ill.
(Saying fuck is part of the FUCKING 90s WEEK brand.)
The singles “Tattva” and “Govinda” represented probably the only time I’d heard Indian music mixed with pop music outside George Harrison’s Beatles songs. It piqued my interest. And then the band released the far more traditional brit-rock track, “Hey Dude,” the first song on K.
All I have is all I need enough for love but not for greed yeah.
I was younger once this guy came to me told me about all the honey out there.
He said “Honey gold jewels money women wine cars that shine.”
I don’t know what he was talking about but I think I had an idea.
Despite the nonsensical lyrics and almost impertinent lack of a proper hook, the song’s instrumentation and bombastic percussion carry the song through the obligatory influence checks that lit my teenage music-learning brain afire.
Hey dude don’t lean on me man, Cause I’m losing my direction and I can’t understand, no no
Hey dude well I do what I can But you treat me like a woman when I feel like a man.
Uh. What?
The genre clearly leans heavily into 70’s psychedelia and despite kneeling at the altar of Jerry Garcia, Kula Shaker has less to do with the Grateful Dead and more to do with Hendrix and The Beatles and a general affection for 1970’s arena rock in a post-Oasis landscape.
The straight-faced use of Sanskrit and sub-continental soundscapes adds color and personality, but it doesn’t detract (no matter what the band’s most vocal critics suggest) — especially as it fleshed out the band’s personality as a live spectacle. The exotic instrumentation made their concert performance eclectic, thrilling even.
One of the best rock shows I’ve ever seen. No fib. It was loud and unapologetic. Jammy and improvisation heavy, but not too much because we’ve got to get back to being loud and having a seance with Jimi Hendrix.
At a massive Tame Impala arena show last year, I couldn’t help but compare the indie darlings’ set less favorably to that of 1997 Kula Shaker at Metropol in Pittsburgh. Rasputina opened. (And if you want to talk about warping little teenage minds, let’s talk about the band Rasputina. No? Some other time, then.)
The point of all of this is that being a music fan or afficionado isn’t one thing. It’s not just the artists you like or the artists you don’t like. There’s also room for the artists that interest you mildly, the ones that inspire you to see a show, just to see what they’re all about. The ones that leave you shaken because you’ve just had your socks fucking rocked by a sarod.
Those moments endure the weathering of time and tide and all of the lugubriosity that’s dulled the spirit since. Kula Shaker had a hook — it may not have been in a chorus — but they had that thing that elevated their sameness.
Mills and company disbanded after their second LP (arguably a stronger overall outing) Peasants, Pigs and Astronauts (1999). When they reunited in 2006, the Indian influences receded into the soundscape. Did they succumb to the Melody Makers of the world? Did that time away convince them, too, that it was all just a hacky gimmick? For shame. It may have been hacky — but it was their thing and they wore it well.
The band just released their new record, Natural Magick, and I’ll just let you be the judge, jury, and executioner about the evolution of their sound.
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