LIVING LIFE TO PIECES

"I fucking love all the weird magic and coincidence and kismet that I’ve ever experienced,” says Shannon Shaw pensively. “I’m into seeking the symbolism. It gives me comfort."

If you aren’t yet acquainted, Shannon is the husky-voiced singer-bassist leading her eponymous garage rock band Shannon & The Clams. She’s recounting a day in Tualatin, Oregon, years ago, when she had stopped at a Lane Bryant in a strip mall to find something to wear to a wedding. As she waited for her bandmate Cody Blanchard to pick her up in the parking lot, it started pouring rain, so she went into the Starbucks and ran into Joe Haener, who would eventually become her fiancé. She had had a crush on him for years, so she invited him to be her plusone. He couldn’t make it, but that chance meeting set into motion a series of events that would change her life forever.