b. Jyoti Mishra, 30 July 1966, Rourkela, India. Mishra appeared to embody a number of peculiar trends in 90s pop: the bedroom one-man band; the self-sufficient indie scene; the unexpected marriage of wildly different musical styles and traditions; and the ‘unknown’ act that leaps to number 1, apparently from nowhere, then disappears from sight.
Mishra’s family moved from India to Derby, England in 1969 and Jyoti’s first brush with fame was playing keyboards with local band Daryl And The Chaperones. He then began touring the clubs as a solo synthesiser act, performing cover versions of Buzzcocks songs, before, under the influence of the Wedding Present and the Pixies, he formed White Town as a guitar band. He began releasing singles on his own Satya Records, at the same time producing other bands and DJing in indie clubs. Five more limited edition singles followed before the debut album came together, by which time the other band members had fallen away and White Town was, effectively, Mishra. A portly Asian on a scene that favours skinny white kids, he was something of a local character in the Midlands but it was not until Radio 1 disc jockey Mark Radcliffe began to play ‘Your Woman’, a bizarre fusion of dance-beats and sampled 30s jazz trumpet (Nat Gonella’s introduction to Lew Stone’s ‘My Woman’), cobbled together on Mishra’s eight-track home studio, that White Town finally went overground. Re-released by Chrysalis Records, it went straight to the top of the UK charts in early 1997, despite Mishra’s refusal to make a video or appear on BBC Television’s Top Of The Pops. The single also broke into the US Top 30.
Mishra went down well with music journalists, revealing a delightfully anorak knowledge of acts as diverse as the Rah Band, Michael Nesmith, Landscape and the Merseys but his first album on a major label was not really strong enough to justify the original promise. Mishra resurfaced in May 2000 on his own Bzangy Groink label with the typically eclectic Peek & Poke.
