Apparently having one of the Beatles as a supporter wasn't enough for Kula Shaker, as the highly-touted, Sanskrit-flaunting U.K. band has split up.

• Kula Shaker

The mantra-tinged music of Kula Shaker returns to record stores this week as the British group released its sophomore album, "Peasants, Pigs & Astronauts," the follow-up to its acclaimed 1996 debut, "K."

• 7/5 - Toronto, ON @ Opera House
• 7/6 - Pontiac, MI @ 7th House
• 7/8 - New York, NY @ Irving Plaza
• 7/9 - Boston, MA @ Roxy
• 7/10 - Philadelphia, PA @ Theater Of Living Arts
• 7/12 - Washington, DC @ 9:30 Club
• 7/13 - Carrboro, NC @ Cat's Cradle
• 7/14 - Atlanta, GA @ Cotton Club
• 7/16 - Chicago, IL @ Metro / Smart Bar
• 7/17 - Minneapolis, MN @ First Avenue
• 7/19 - Denver, CO @ Bluebird Theater
• 7/21 - Los Angeles, CA @ Mayan Theater
• 7/23 - San Francisco, CA @ Fillmore

• Kula Shaker
• Splender

Kula Shaker's new album, "Peasants, Pigs And Astronauts," now has an official U.S. release date of March 30. The London-based band will be embarking on a major city club tour of the States beginning the first week in April, according to a record company spokesperson.

• Kula Shaker

Kula Shaker is taking time out from their recording schedule to play some live dates around the U.K. starting March 25 in Torquay, England, and so far scheduled to wrap up April 9 in London, although an additional date is likely.

The band's website says that the road trip, dubbed "The Revolution for Fun," is a "low key tour, namely D Minor." The opening act for the shows is still to be determined -- The Lilys were recently forced to pull out when the band's singer lost his voice.

Britain's "New Musical Express" reports that the new Kula Shaker album is being recorded on a barge on the Thames River and that it has the working title of "Strange Folk." The band had flown to Los Angeles late last year to record three of the tracks with producer Rick Rubin -- "Sister Breeze," "Shower Your Love" and "Sound of Drums." They debuted the latter at a surprise show at the Viper Room earlier this year. "NME" also reports that two tracks, "Golden Avatar" and "Holy River," were just completed with veteran studio whiz Bob Ezrin.

The magazine says that the band's new album is due in July. The website says to expect a single in April.

• Kula Shaker

Crispian is the son of former child actor Hayley Mills. His aunt is actor Juliet Mills and his uncle is soap star Matthew Caufield. His father is director Ray Boulting.

The entertainment also included Lord Andrew Lloyd-Webber performing songs from his new musical, "Whistle Down The Wind," which is based on the novel by the same name written by Mills' wife (Crispian's grandmother) Mary Hayley Bell. The film version, starring Hayley, was released in 1961.

• Kula Shaker

August 12 [10:00 EDT] -- The Kula Shaker section of your neighborhood record store will get a little more crowded this week as the British band delivers a new EP to the American market.

On Tuesday, the band with the fixation on Indian culture releases "Summer Sun," which boasts six songs previously unavailable in the U.S. The release will give fans the opportunity to hear the fruits of a collaboration between Kula frontman Crispian Mills and another fan of Indian music, former Beatle George Harrison.

"Some of it is stuff that never quite made it to the album," Mills told MTV News about the material that surfaces on the EP. "Some of it is stuff that didn't fit in. There's tracks that were recorded after that. It was nice to have something out between albums." [900k QuickTime]

Meanwhile, the band has been trotting out Deep Purple's 1968 hit "Hush" during its set on the H.O.R.D.E. tour, and fans will soon be able find the band's re-working of that track on the soundtrack to the upcoming film "I Know What You Did Last Summer."

• Kula Shaker

May 23 [10:00 EDT] -- Kula Shaker frontman Crispian Mills admits that he wasn't being "sensitive to other people's pain" when he told an interviewer that he wanted to adorn the band's stage show with swastikas, the symbol adopted by Adolf Hitler's Nazi movement.

Last weekend, Mills spoke with MTV News before the band's concert with Aerosmith in Nuremberg, Germany. That location is rather ironic, since Mills recently told the British music magazine "New Musical Express" that he'd, "love to have big flaming swastikas onstage." In the NME interview, Mills also said that Hitler's Nazi followers probably got support because of their uniforms.

The comments, of course, caused an uproar, and Mills soon apologized saying, "My dear grandmother was Jewish, and I am thus Jewish by blood."

When the singer talked to MTV News, he said his statements were prompted by a trip to India, where he first learned that the swastika is an ancient symbol of peace, which had been "stolen," as he put it, by the Nazis. Mills then discussed the lessons he'd learned from his media misadventure.

"You gotta be sensitive to other people's pain, and that's what I didn't quite understand and I apologize to those people," Mills told MTV News. "The thing is sometimes it's very difficult to speak the truth, because the truth is often... What did Oscar Wilde say, the truth is often strange and rarely simple. [1.2MB QuickTime] So yeah, the swastika is a strange and complicated story."

Mills reportedly sings guest vocals on a track that may end up on the new Prodigy album "Fat Of The Land." The song will emerge when the Prodigy album arrives in July, which is when Kula Shaker will help launch the H.O.R.D.E. tour.

• Kula Shaker

Finally, as you may remember, last week we reported a classic media fiasco in which Crispian Mills, the singer in the U.K. neo-psychedelic band Kula Shaker, made the mistake in an interview with London's "New Musical Express" of saying nice things about swastikas -- an ancient symbol that is today associated almost exclusively with rampaging Nazis and the Holocaust. The ensuing uproar forced Mills to point out that his own beloved grandmother was, in fact, Jewish, and so...Well, you get the picture. John Norris encountered Mills and his band last weekend, opening up for Aerosmith in... Nuremberg, alas. Mills said his enthusiasm for the pre-Nazi uses of the swastika was prompted by a visit to India. He had this to say about what he'd learned from this major media misadventure.

CRISPIAN MILLS: You gotta be sensitive to other peoples pain, and that's what I didn't quite understand. But I apologized to those people. The thing is sometimes it's very difficult to speak the truth, because the truth is often... What did Oscar Wilde say? The truth is often strange and rarely simple. So yeah, the swastika is a strange and complicated story.

I think we've all learned something there. Crispian Mills and Kula Shaker will be here in July to hook up with the H.O.R.D.E. tour.

• Kula Shaker

May 16 [7:55 EST] -- When the English neo-psychedelic band Kula Shaker heads out on this summer's H.O.R.D.E. tour, singer Crispian Mills may find himself with some explaining to do.

Recently, the frontman has been fielding some angry questions about an interview published in England's "New Musical Express," in which he made what some readers took to be pro-Nazi remarks.

Apparently referring to the fact the swastika now associated with the architects of the Holocaust is in fact an ancient symbol that long predates the rise of Nazi leader Adolph Hitler back in the 1930s, Mills told the magazine, "I'd love to have great big flaming swastikas on stage... It symbolizes peace and illumination."

He followed this with the quip, "You can see why Hitler got support... It was probably the uniforms that swung it."

When a certain uproar ensued, Mills quickly issued an apology, insisting he was neither a Nazi nor an anti-Semite saying, "My dear grandmother was Jewish, and I am thus Jewish by blood."

Ironically, Kula Shaker is scheduled to play a concert this weekend in Nuremberg, Germany.

• Kula Shaker

April 7 [14:00 EST] -- Kula Shaker, the British rock outfit with a penchant for Eastern mysticism, has brought its sound ("303" Live, QuickTime, 910KB), Sanskrit and all, to the States.

The band, who scored some airtime on rock radio with the single "Tattva," launched a U.S. tour on Saturday in Tempe, Arizona, and then rolled on to play Denver on Monday.

The band will stay on the road for most of April, and here's where the tour will take them:

• 4/7 - Denver, CO @ Bluebird Theatre
• 4/9 - Minneapolis, MN @ First Avenue
• 4/10 - Milwaukee, WI @ The Modjeska
• 4/11 - Detroit, MI @ St. Andrew's
• 4/12 - Chicago, IL @ Metro
• 4/14 - Atlanta, GA @ The Roxy
• 4/15 - Nashville, TN @ 328 Performance Hall
• 4/17 - Washington D.C. @ 9:30 Club
• 4/18 - Philadelphia, PA @ TLA
• 4/19 - New York, NY @ Irving Plaza
• 4/20 - New York, NY @ Irving Plaza

• Kula Shaker