49 years old today.

One of my Favorite Singers Ever and I share a birthdate. A love of the 90's Big Four from Seattle inevitably led to explorations of the secondary sounds of the time and place and the Screaming trees have held up better than some.. There are other good bands from that era but something about that voice that's only gained in gravitas and gravel over the years. Others prefer Nick Cave or Tom Waits for those melancholic moods associated with hard drinking and general curmudgeonliness but this is where I find it.

The Screaming Trees were my entry band, dinged-up library copies of Sweet Oblivion and Dust. I'm assuming they never got as big due to not being as poster-boy-ready as the heavier hitters, but ten years past my late teens, I'm still listening to these, the comforting chord progressions, the misanthropic psychedelia, and lapsed Catholicism striking a deep chord that only continues to reverberate.

Last year's odds and sods comp was welcome for its additional tuneage and I have yet to figure out if anyone else besides me and Randal cares that it's floating around. Thankfully the Best Record Store Ever had a hard copy so I didn't have to resort to the evil that is itunes.

In the meantime, there were the collaborations, with Queens of the Stone Age, with Brits doing electronica.

The Soulsavers rekindled the love of that voice once again and on their jaunt through the States, I caught them at the Grog Shop, standing there a few feet away as we collectively swooned to the depth of that voice, and the corroding guitar courtesy of Spiritualized alumni.

Revival made it onto every mix CD for a few years. It still melts me. Kingdom of Rain led me back to the solo albums I ignored for so long as they weren't grungy enough for my teenage ears.