Collective Soul Unlocking A Core Memory

Photo unrelated. Trying to get the studio all packed up and cleaned out but also going through the photo backlog. Here's Kindy.

My partner Della's music shuffle library is truly a gift. She has effectively every song she owns on shuffle at any given time so it's not uncommon to just randomly hear Ani DiFranco followed by 2Pac, then a PeacPRC song, a chunk from Girl Talk's Feed the Animals, then a Feeder track from the Buffy soundtrack fade into a 9 minute Sarah McLachlan club remix.

Last night, a live version of Collective Soul's Shine came on her shuffle and I was hit with this like, incredibly vivid memory and lemme tell you, after 21 years of being married it's rad when either one of us can pull a "Oooh you don't know this one!"

I was about 11 and in a car with my best friend and his older brother (I think their mom was driving because while a lot of my memories of that older brother involve him behind the wheel of a car, he would have only been maybe 14ish at the time). They'd done some elaborate sorcery to hook up a CD player to the car and we were listening to the brand new Collective Soul album, Hints Allegations and Things Left Unsaid.

When Shine (the opening track and arguably the most recognizable Collective Soul song of all time) kicked off I wasn't really paying much attention but you bet your ass that in the pre-chorus where the guitar starts chugging and then suddenly everything cuts out as an incredibly awkward voice shouts "YEAH" from out of nowhere - my attention was locked the fuck in. I lost my shit, I was not ready for that. Started laughing. Joyous laughter. Music could be anything, did you know this??

It's been how many years and I'd never seen this video until today lmao

I was already wanting to learn how to play guitar because of hearing Siamese Dream but that "YEAH" was such a clarifying moment for me as a young, would-be songwriter. Like maybe this is a unique experience that no one else shared but I cannot stress enough how unprepared I was for everything to cut out except one voice with a lowpass filter and then have everything flood back in.

So anyway, I was telling Della a version of this memory and I pointed out that they'd gotten the Collective Soul CD through their Columbia House subscription and she stopped me to say "Wait did you hear?"

I had not heard

A few days ago, Columbia house announced they're shutting down and, gonna be real with you, I did not know they were still in business because I figured music download era would have killed them long before streaming showed up, but now I'm kinda sad because like, it was an institution, y'know?

I don't have any greater thoughts here. I was never a member of the club but I knew lots of people (like my friend's family) who were and it's wild to think it's finally done?

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Anyway, here's your end-of-post cat. Her name is Possum and she's trying to get the spider on the ceiling but I don't want her to because it's been eating the mosquitos.

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