Rock and Roll Saved My Soul: 30 Years of Listening to Kula Shaker
This all starts in 1996. I am 14 years old, mesmerized by a psychedelic music video on MTV featuring a blonde British singer with a mop top haircut. It sounds like the 60’s rock music I grew up hearing nonstop through my dad. But it’s also something new. I love the Eastern influence on the music and the mysterious Sanskrit lyrics. I am excited to be discovering something new to immerse myself in because my entire teenage world is falling apart. I would not say that I grew up in a cult but rather a “cult-like” religion. Obviously, this was not my choice, I was born into it. We went to church for 5 meetings a week. We read the bible daily. We were reminded constantly that the world was going to end any day now so we had to be ready, be good Christians so as to survive judgement at Armageddon. We went knocking on people’s doors to preach to them because Jesus instructed us to do so in the bible. How my parents ever bought into any of this is a mystery I will never have the luxury of under...
