My first memory of loving music was playing my dad’s “Alabama” cassettes when I was…well, old enough to form a memory that survived into this moment. “Alabama”, for any who are unaware, was a country music group from the 70’s and 80’s that put out a number of hits and songs that will probably be played for as long as people still listen to music in one form or another. Songs like “Mountain Music”, “Song of the South”, “Tennessee River”, “Roll On”, and my favorite “I’m in a Hurry and Don’t Know Why”. They were a band that seemed constitutionally incapable of making bad music. So, a decent beginning, all told.

As time went on I progressed through a wide range of music, from country to rock to metal to industrial to punk to grunge and on and on. But one thing remained consistent throughout. Music was the closest friend I ever had. It was my confidant when I needed someone to listen, it was my joy when I felt the first crush (Debbie Heubner) consume my life with late night calls and questions and dreams for hours on end and it was despair and heartbreak when it fell apart. It was my rage when I came home bruised and bloody and terrified only to find a more sinister beast waiting there. It was the Idaho fields and Kansas prairie fires turning the sky brilliant oranges and the sun a nebulaic red. It was a porch in Seattle on a Halcyonic July night, a glue that bound us together, drunken pranksters and beatific saints burning ourselves out to keep the darkness at bay.

It was all these things and more. Always something greater than the sum of it’s parts, music was the whole of life. Life is the soundtrack to music.