As a longtime veteran of the Atlanta music wars, I can attest that Sean Costello was as real deal as it gets. It was 1997. My good friend Nico Constantine (now of Program The Dead) was working at Clark Music on Ponce de Leon. One day, this kid walked into the store and just slaughtered every guitar he pulled off the wall. And he wasn't shy about breaking into song amid a roomful of strangers and cynical music store clerks either. He was Sean Costello. He was free.

Of course, Nico called me immediately raving. At that time, our band Madfly was playing around Atlanta quite a bit. We had an acoustic show booked at Eddie's Attic in Decatur. Nico invited Sean down to the gig. Sean showed up early. Nico introduced us and the three of us sat at the bar. Nico said to Sean, "Sing something for William." I handed Sean my guitar and he proceeded to let loose. I can't remember what song he sang. I just remember the unmitigated joy I felt. This kid looked like Elvis Presley, sang like Johnny Burnette, and played guitar like Buddy Guy. I couldn't believe what I was seeing. I told Sean, "Dude, our stage is your stage."

Later that night, when the place was near packed, I invited him up to play. He did 3 or 4 songs. Needless to say, he totally destroyed. It was beautiful to watch. From then on, I was an ardent admirer of Sean Costello.

In the years since that incredible night, our lives took a great many interesting turns. But no matter how far afield we got in our respective journeys, I always tried to stay in touch with what was happening with Sean. Every so often, when I was on the road in some strange town, I would come across another glowing Sean Costello review in the local weekly, or see a tour poster for a gig he had just played or was about to play in that city. It always made me smile inside. I had no doubt that kid would become a big deal in the blues world. It was destiny. He was born for it. He was the real thing.

December '06. I had just finished a 23 country world tour fronting Alice In Chains. I'm in Atlanta visiting the my family for the holidays. All I want to do is eat home-cooked food, have pretend tea parties with my little niece, and generally do as little as possible. The last thing I want to do is go out and see a gig. However, I happened to see in the Creative Loafing a little notice that Sean Costello was playing a pub in Decatur, right down the street from Eddie's Attic, the place where I'd first been blown away by him (on my own stage) a decade before. I had to go.

I hadn't seen him years. I walked in sometime in the middle of his first set. He was as amazing as ever. Just ripping. If anything, he was only that much better because of all the life experience he'd accumulated since I'd last seen him - all the records he'd made, all the one-nighters on the road, all the playing and learning he'd done with his idols, the loneliness of cheap motels, the romantic entanglements - all the beauty and heartache that goes with making a life in music. I was blown away all over again.

His first set ended and he came right over to my table to say hello. It was so great to see him. The boyishness he had when I first met him was now replaced by the wizened look of an honest-to-god bluesman. But he still had the Light inside. We talked about one day doing a record together. By that time, he had made several records with our good friend Jeff Bakos at the Amp Works studio. Comes With The Fall had also made our last two records there (inspired in part by the fact that Sean had recorded there). With the both of us being well acquainted with the magic of that room, and both of us being lifelong disciples of the blues and early rock, somehow it seemed fitting that we might one day wind up working there together. The subject had been broached to us separately before by mutual friends, including Bakos himself. I dug all of Sean's albums. But I wanted to make a totally ruthless, down-n-dirty, utterly nasty record with him. Something harder and heavier than he'd ever done, completely over the top. Like Buddy Guy on a bender. We were both really stoked on the idea. We exchanged numbers and filed it away for the future.

I last spoke to Sean a few weeks ago. He was here in L.A. playing a showcase at the Viper Room for his new label. He called to invite me to the gig. He was playing super early, like 8:30PM. I was in the studio and didn't get the message until after his set was already over. But I called him back and we talked about how it went. He seemed really excited about his new situation at Delta Groove. I told him how happy I was for him. We talked once again about this insane record we were going to do one day. It was just positive all around.

That's why it absolutely knocked me to the ground yesterday when I heard the news of his death. I was in a store paying for something, waiting to get my card back from the cashier. I checked my text messages. There was one from Nico: "Oh my God!! Sean Costello just died... On my way to Northside Tavern for a gathering in his honor." I literally lost my breath. Here's my best friend texting me, the same guy that called me 10 years ago to rave about this child phenomenon called Sean Costello, only now he's calling to tell me Sean is dead. The symmetry was perfectly horrific. I walked out of the store in a stupor. If my girl hadn't been with me, my card and all my stuff would still be sitting there at the cash register.

The guy was a day shy of 29 when they found him. TWENTY-NINE. That's the same age most say Robert Johnson was when he left here. I only say that to marvel once again at the impact that some people can make in so short a time. Hendrix, Janis, Morrison, Cobain, Jeff Buckley, Layne Staley, etc. We all know the long, sad list. But for those of you who don't know Sean Costello, I invite you to check out what he left behind immediately. There's a lot there. It's rich and it's powerful. And, like all the greats listed above, it only underscores what this young man had left to do yet.

When you're in this music game for any length of time, you resign yourself to losing people, friends that you love and admire. It's an occupational hazard. But it never gets any easier. I'm having an especially hard time with this one. There are some cats you meet that really knock you out but you say to yourself, Damn, he is not long for this world. Better enjoy it while I can. Then there are others you meet that you can immediately picture as an old man, having had a long, rich career and an interesting, epic life. You imagine them working right up to the end. Like Chuck Berry. Eighty years old and still gigging, his own children in his backup band. THAT was how I pictured Sean Costello from the moment I met him. Perhaps sometimes we'd be more in touch than others. Perhaps we might find ourselves working together. But, no matter what, I would always enjoy looking across the water and seeing his ship there, still afloat, standing up to the waves and the weather. That's what I envisioned. But fate dealt a different hand.

Sean, I wish I would have come down to the Viper Room that night. Just to have a drink, if nothing else. I will miss you profoundly. And that record we were gonna make would have been insane. Another time.

I guess the lesson here, as always, is that tomorrow isn't guaranteed to any of us. As trite as it sounds, enjoy every day you're given. Treasure the people you love. Call that friend you haven't spoken to in years. Or that relative with whom you had a falling out. The clock is ticking.