On this day in 1990, Stevie Ray Vaughan died in a helicopter crash outside East Troy, Wisconsin, after sharing the festival stage with Eric Clapton, Robert Cray, Buddy Guy, and a host of others.

I was twenty, and still living in a dorm at Alabama. I still remember hearing the rumor that one of the helicopters serving a concert featuring Clapton had gone down. I had tickets to see Clapton a few weeks later, so I payed attention. I wasn’t the only one that skipped class to stay by the television. CNN, not yet impotent and ridiculous, gave regular updates until we knew that we’d lost Vaughan, not Clapton.

Then? Then we drank. And smoked. And whatever. But mostly we played “Couldn’t Stand the Weather” at about volume 11. Which is what we’re doing now, at Heathen central.