Album Notes

In the late 1980's, Syracuse, NY's premier alternative theatrical country-rock band was unquestionably The Fourth Cow Revival with Orchestra. Headed by songwriter/performance artist Ekendra dasa (born Eric Dailey, stage name: "Jeffrey Age Four from Columbus Ohio"), their live shows featured frenzied, sweating fundamentalist preachers, sequined bouffant hairdo-sporting backup singer/comediennes, rear projections, huge inflatable Godzillas, and men with pumpkins on their heads singing Kenny Rogers. Their homemade recordings, "What Ails You, Boy?" and "Hoax" quickly sold out of the university area stores they were occasionally stocked in.

Then, in 1989, Ekendra surprised everyone-family, friends, fans, and himself most of all-by doing something apparently more bizarre than a Fourth Cow show: checking into a Hare Krishna temple, shaving his head, and deciding to devote his life to the practice of Bhakti-yoga and study of Bhagavad-gita. Far from dropping off the face of the earth, however, Ekendra soon joined a new band-Hare Krishna straight-edge artists Shelter-with whom he spent the early 1990s touring and recording CDs which have since sold hundreds of thousands.

Ekendra eagerly returned to roots rock in 1998-this time as Ekendra dasa and the Planet Cow Orchestra-and released God Project on Krishnaphonic Records. God Project's unlikely mix of alternative country, rockabilly, gallows humor, and soul-searching philosophy was voted one of the top D.I.Y. albums of the year by Performing Songwriter Magazine, who called it "one of the funniest, most infectious slices of country and rockabilly you're every likely to hear."

Planet Cow Orchestra's second CD, 200 Proof Absolute Truth, propelled Ekendra into the alternative folk world. "Red Light Up Ahead" was a finalist in Blue Sky's Road Song competition, and subsequently earned airplay on college and internet radio stations all over the US and Europe.

Ekendra's live show-a mix of storytelling, original music and humor-has since traveled to the South Florida Folk Festival, Forksville Folk Festival, Philadelphia's Fringe Fest, Extreme Folk Scene's Spring Mosh, New York City's Festival of India, the Northeast Regional Folk Alliance conference, Chicago City Limits, Ohio University, and Temple University.

Planet Cow's CDs are now used as course material at Philadelphia's Lutheran Theological Seminary and the Bhaktivedanta International Gurukula (school) in Vrindavan, India.


For more information:
www.planetcow.org