"Radio, radio, radio. When I got the music, I got a place I can go." -- "Radio" by Rancid

Over ten years ago, the Seattle scene exploded into national prominence after the overdose death of singer Andrew Wood (Mother Love Bone). A relatively close-knit music community became the beacon of light in the dying days of rock and roll. Because rock and roll has been dying since it began. It has always surrounded itself with ghosts and superstitions and the possibility that all of this could collapse at any moment. Desperation is key. And the new heroes of rock were Soundgarden, Alice In Chains, Pearl Jam and above everyone else, Nirvana. This lasted about two years. So it goes.

I was in college when all of the upheaval took place, soaking up the new sound along with everything else that came my way. I first heard Alice In Chains in 1991, on MTV ("Man in the Box") and eventually from my brother's friends. Dirt, their second full-length album, was a huge companion in the last years of college. Not because I was on heroin (about 75% of the songs are about this subject), but because I felt like the cover. A woman's body is slowly drying into dust on the orange desertscape. And the songs, even though they were about experiences I had little knowledge of first hand, connected with me. I was a tormented young man, and while my torment was not heroin addiction, I understood just the same.

By the mid-90s, Alice In Chains was over. Oh sure, they occasionally came out of hiding and did a gig here and there. Or another mixed up box of Seattle musicians put out a side project with one of the AIC guys in it, but the thrill was gone. The band was done. Layne Staley, the one with the voice, had gone into the deep underground with his longest love. Every year or so, I'd ask aloud, "Is that guy still alive?"

The answer now, is no. He became a victim of his own wants--overpowering the need to survive.

Considering that a good friend of mine died the same way (although at the completely opposite end of the timeline spectrum of heroin addiction) just six months ago, I am not quite so numb or surprised as I was back in 1990 when I heard about Andrew Wood. But I can still hear the music, and it gives me a place to put those feelings.

Friday morning brought the headline: Left Eye dies in car crash. At about the same time Dirt came out, three girls calling themselves TLC got into the pop spotlight with their day-glo hip hop gear and infectious grooves. The same guys I lived with who moaned along with Alice In Chains were also bopping their heads to TLC. So it goes.

Freak accidents involving planes and cars and busses are common in popular music. "American Pie," people! Lisa Lopes was no stranger to freak occurrences, as she burned down her then-boyfriend Andre Rison's mansion in Atlanta more than half a decade ago. She was the most outspoken member of the group, the leader and the instigator of many bad feelings which usually got mended in one way or another (with money, most likely).

And while I was a fan of the group, I hadn't listened to one of their CDs in years until Friday night. Alice In Chains, on the other hand, is still being played on the radio and was in my CD player when the bad news came down the pike. After I got into these two very different music groups, I discovered Kurt Vonnegut, Jr.

The first novel of his I read was Galapagos. It is about the end of the world and the evolution of humans into farting seals. Friday night, at a sold out Popejoy Hall on the UNM campus, the old man farted around the stage, telling his stories and views of the world. Vonnegut is older than Layne Staley and Lisa Lopes's combined. He survived the bombing of Dresden in WWII and will probably survive for a while longer to die a peaceful, if not quiet, death. So it goes.

He is blissfully aware of his upcoming fate, having seen so many before him take that dusty road. He clarified that he knows there isn't a god, no heaven or hell, but he's enjoying what he's got left nonetheless. And the rest of us can have what he's given for the rest of our lives. If you want to know what he thinks about war and life and death, read one of the many novels he's written about that very subject.

Considering there is a war going on (which Vonnegut tried hard not to snort about the "war," but the contempt was in his voice) and the Middle East continues to be a zone of death and recriminations, the deaths of pop stars are rather insignificant. Except for one thing: I love what these two fallen musicians left behind. The music is the gift. All I see halfway around the world are stubborn assholes arguing about who is going to be shirts and who is going to be skins. So it goes.

Matt Worley plans to listen to the dead for a while to come.