(Al at the Hollywood Bowl July 21, 1974.)
I just got a call from my old bandmate, Bob Nakamine, informing me that our old bandmate Al Feldstein died of a heart attack yesterday (6/21/09).
He was cranky and opinionated and a thoroughly decent man.
When I moved to Berkeley in 1973, my high school classmate Ernie was just dropping out and moving back to San Jose. He told me to look up his buddies on Etna Street – "They play Grateful Dead music!" he said. And play Grateful Dead music we did, starting in the second-floor living room of that house and off and on in bars and back yards for the next 30+ years.
The first Grateful Dead tape I ever heard was at Al’s apartment in Oakland – the 3/23/74 Cow Palace show, a couple of weeks after it happened. I had no idea such a thing existed before then.
He was a solid rhythm guitar player and a half-decent singer. He brought a handful of songs to our band, all of ‘em good. There was one that I liked better then he did! And there were a couple that I continued to perform myself after we stopped playing together regularly. I played “Scene of the Crime” at the Grand Lake Farmers’ Market a couple of weeks ago, and mused that it was about time for his annual “When are we gonna play?” email. We had a string of annual reunion gigs in the early ’00s but hadn’t done it in a year or two, largely due to the geographic scattering of our mates.
Coincidentally, I recently transferred some recordings from the early ’80s. The first three are Al’s songs, and the last is of course a Johnny Cash song we took from the Dead. Mostly our band was called The Reptiles, but for some reason we tried being The Undecided for a few weeks in early 1981; that’s the band on these four.
Dust Bowl 2/15/81
Night Crawl 2/15/81
Watchin’ for the Bear 2/8/81
Big River 2/1/81
Tags: Al Feldstein
If the measure of a man is how people remember him, these posts reflect well on our old friend. They also bring back to mind some of the times shared with many of you and Al as friends. I will always think of Al “Fiddle†Feldstein as a good friend who didn’t need to stay in touch daily to pick up our friendship right where we left off. Although our last contact was the twice yearly call to catch up and promise to play some music soon, I want to add to the collective memory introductions to future friends at Etna in ’76 where I first met Al, experiencing and then learning the Dead with Al, losing $50 in a 24 hr nickel-dime-quarter at Etna St, push-starting Bergdorf’s baja bug to go someplace – for months, Nakamine falling asleep mid-lead at a Running Dog Laundry practice, Joe barfing all over his peddle steel, falling asleep playing guitar with Fiddle and friends in a cabin in Big Sur after Nakamine’s wedding, Al’s LA music career, 100 mile trips to Junkband practice and a Financial News Network holiday gig so loud my ears were bleeding, Dan Hull’s wedding and the “endless†ending to “Watching for The Bear†as we played on during a 10 hour set that leaves the index finger on my left hand arthritic to this day, and sharing a mystified response from Al at Winterland while watching a guy in the row behind us drop to his knees, rolled bill in hand, vainly trying to snarf up the coke he just dropped on the floor. Al’s response; shaking his head –“ Nah. Have you even looked at what’s on the floor in here when the lights come up? I don’t think I’d ever be that hard up!†You gotta love a guy with that conviction and wit. I will always remember Al in the context of all of us as friends.
Caryn, all Al’s friends and loved ones, My heart goes out to you all. I’m still in shock and just kind of numb. Al and I were like brothers since we were about thirteen. We literally grew up together. We made our way through adolescence with a friendship and brotherhood that was true Americana. Emerson Jr High, the first boy-girl parties, going steady, hangin’ out at the student union at UCLA and on the beach each summer at Sorrento Beach. We thought we were so cool. Then it was Uni High, punks again. We played together on the C-Basketball team our first year. We went 12- 0, undefeated league champs. Wow. Not so much because of Al and me but because of Bobby Shamberg and Fred Sakomoto. Then 11th grade. Al’s in student government, getting A’s and I’m barely passing but we were still best buds. I fell in with the stoner gang while Al was more in the in-crowd. We still played a lot of basketball, saw a lot of rock and roll shows together. The summer between 11th and 12th grades my friend Mike Viscovich and Gregg VanAllen turned me on to the Dead. Then I in turn turned Al on to them but he put up a fight as Al would. He came around and that’s how we came to be Dead Heads. We were silk screening and wearing Dead T-shirts before you could ever buy them. We saw a lot of shows together throughout the years. Great memories. So many.
Then he was off to Cal. It was tough on me but I made a lot of trips up to see him. Hangin’ out with the Piedmont gang then to Etna listening to the Bobcats then the Reptiles upstairs at Etna. Al and I wrote a song together that was a main stay in the Reptiles repertoire forever. That will always mean a lot to me.
In 1980 I got married and the boys came down to LA to play. What a set. What a party. Anyone who was there will never forget it.
I’m skipping ahead but this is getting too long. Al and Caryn married and lived in Burbank. I fondly remember lots of afternoons by the pool. In fact, my son Luke (20 now) learned to swim in that pool. Then May ‘94 we moved to Colorado and I didn’t see Al much after that. We still talked on the phone frequently. He visited the house in Longmont once. Then the Reptiles came to Boulder. That was a special night backstage at a Reptiles show with Luke. Then up to the Devil’s Thumb Ranch for Steve’s wedding. Another just fantastic day of good friends, good cheer and good music. That was the last Reptile set I saw and I only saw Al once after that. It was last Thanksgiving. Fred Luke and I were out for a week at Hemet and Sierra Madre. Al was real busy while we were there but made a point to come to my sister Mutia’s house the afternoon before we left. We had a great visit. Al and me, Fred Luke, Mutia and my mom. It was like we had seen each other often even though it had been many years.
Al was a fine person and my best friend. I will miss him dearly. Thanks to David for putting this together and thanks to all of you for sharing your memories. I would love to hear from ALL of you, especially Richard Briskin, Steve Kirshbaum and Randi Kinsler. I’m not a computer guy, real cowboys don’t use computers. You can reach me at
PO Box 366
Hygiene, CO 80533.
303.775.1180.
May God bless you all. Dan Hull.
P.S. Come visit me. I’ve got a beautiful, peaceful quiet little ranch here in Northern Colorado.
[...] photos of Al Feldstein were sent to me by Dan Hull. He added a beautiful note to the original memorial post; I’ll [...]
I met Al through a mutual friend in the fall of 71 when he was a freshman at Cal. I told him I had a few tapes, which I was pretty proud of, and then he whipped out 8-6-71 and we spent the afternoon doing what 18-year-olds did best in those days. We never lost contact, because he was one of those guys you could not talk to for a few months and just pick it up with whatever excrutiating Cal defeat I wanted to ride him about. He was a true friend and generous to a fault. It’s all still too sad to absorb. So I dug out my old Reptiles t-shirt and wore it. It’s really heartwarming to read about the memories other have of their friendships with Al … the kind of friendships that will never die, no matter where he is.
A couple of years ago, I ran an ad in Relix magazine for musicians interested in playing in a jam band. That began my friendship with Alan Feldstein, and we followed up with a jam in my living room. We had many discussions of launching a Grateful Dead Tribute, but my own musical obligations were responsible for it not materializing. Alan played solid rhythm guitar (while insisting he was rusty), and sang well.
Alan and his wife joined me a few months back at Cozy’s in Sherman Oaks for a Mike Campbell and the Dirty Knobs concert, the first and only time I met her. Alan and I had been planning a jam, to be scheduled after his return from Bonnaroo, which, he told me he would normally not go to, but he was stoked with the lineup.
Today, after my email to him bounced, and I received no return phone calls (very suspicious, as Alan usually replied to emails within a few minutes), I e-mailed Barry Smolin, whom I knew was his buddy, to ask Barry if he had an updated e-mail and/or phone number. Barry replied almost immediately with the sad news.
Alan Feldstein R.I.P.
If anyone has an email or snail mail address for Caryn, I would like to send her my condolences – please email me privately at rocqmusic@gmail.com, or pass my condolences and/or email on to her.
Thank you!
Andy Roth
Wow…
I just found out about this today, via an email from David Gans…
This is just wrong…
I haven’t seen Al since ‘78 or so, when I left the Bay Area to move to Orcas Island, Washington, but we’ve emailed a bit over the years…
Sure wish I would have made one of those Reptiles gigs now…
Al and I were pickin’ buddies at Etna St. (back when I knew how to play Dead tunes), and went to a gob of concerts together back in the early 70’s…
One I remember vividly was Focus, Poco, and Yes at Winterland. I got free tickets (gee, saved 7 bucks!!), so we headed across the bay for this crazy show.
What a weird bill!
All three bands were *very* entertaining, and we were in a state of mind to be *very* entertained…
What a night…
Went to a lot of Dead shows together, from Reno to Stanford, but I remember that Winterland run in ‘73 like it was yesterday…
Good clean fun…
Well, I’m very sorry that I didn’t make the effort to get together with Al down in SoCal, as I’ve been down there a lot to take care of my folks…
We made plans, but never really got it together…
Oh hell…
RIP, friend…
BH (“OB”)
PS…
Here’s a pic that David forwarded…
http://i231.photobucket.com/albums/ee22/e_stamp/bob-marcie_wedding.jpg
I’m upper-left, David on the right, Al in front…
Those were the days…
Just this week I was contacted by a guy that I wrote and played with in the mid-seventies–it was great! What a connection! A connection that somehow survived 26 years of silence. Well, this got me thinking of some of the other people that I had a musical connection with and Alan popped! What a shock to find he had passed on.
When we met, sometime in the early, early 80’s Alan had just left a job with Southland Corp.–not really sure what he did, but he came to work at the same company that I was working for. Alan Feldstein was my trainee. Now Alan was pretty smart and a good talker so I didn’t do much training; instead, we would drift down to a storage container that I had in Pacifica and we would sit in the sun and play songs–sometimes or was it most of the times we forgot to go back to work.
[...] – and I would especially like to direct your attention to the comments section of this post, where several dozen others who loved Al Feldstein have shared their thoughts and [...]
Back in the day it was really hard to find musicians who liked to play GD. You’d go to jams and find the ‘Jerry’ guys, ‘Phil’ guys, etc. Alan was one of the first really good ‘Bobby’ guys. He could play every plinkity Bobby chop and inversion from Europe 72. He also knew the words and arrangements. This was a pretty disciplined approach compared to the(bong hits and headphones) way most eveyone else had.
Alans’ one and only drawback was his stubborn insistance on playing only acoustic guitar. We’d get back from a life changing Greek run, crank our amps, and continue shedding brain cells as poor Alan would try to weave something cohisive into our slush.
At one jam I’d had too much nitrous and couldn’t even pick up my bass. Alan asked me if he could play it. “Finally he’ll play something electric” I said to my self as I headed back to the tank. Well let me tell you he just ruled that jam from the bottom up.
Alan may you have the peace we never gave you.
In Loving Rememberance,
Mike Lipuma
Thank you all for sharing so much about Alan here. I knew him in his Southland days – we worked together there. He always made me laugh. He found me on LinkedIn last year and we’ve been emailing off and on since. Still made me laugh – like no time had passed at all. Also, one of the nicest guys I’ve ever known. I have to agree – this was just wrong. My condolences to all – such a loss.
I’m obviously a late comer here, but I just experienced a huge wave of sadness as I read about Al’s passing. I was good friends with Alan BEFORE he left NY and moved to LA. We used to play at each other’s houses – tossing a football in his yard or playing games. I hung out with him a lot when his dad died – another sad time. We must have been about 9 when he left. My mom knew his mom from high school, and stayed friends with her after the move and during her long, long decline (and more sadness, but she was such a fun, warm, wonderful women before her senses started to fail her). The only other person here I here I know is his brother, Richard. If you happen to see this, I hope you and yours are well, Rich. And Caryn, I never met you but please accept my condolences and Waves of Love for your loss (or perhaps someone here can pass them on).The last time I saw Alan in person was at his place in Oakland in the early 70’s. We hadn’t seen each other since he’d left but we were delighted to discover that we both loved & followed the Dead (we saw many of the same shows, but never imagined the other was in the audience). My mouth dropped open in his place looking at shelves and shelves of bootlegs of the Dead, NRPS, & others. Then it wasn’t until the late 90’s that I heard from him again – must have been Classmates.com or something, and since then we would write each other once every couple of years, and then we friended on Facebook a year or two ago. So, over the last almost 50 years, I barely had any contact with him at all and yet I feel like I lost my brother. He was just that kind of guy, as others here have said. With all the sadness that I’ve mentioned, though, I never felt any of it from Alan, and I think he’d say something sarcastic to me about my mentioning it here. I wish I had seen him play and sing, though I’m very grateful to find links here to listen to this fine musician – pun intended.
Say Hi to Jerry for me brother…
Wow! Just heard on the KPFA show tonight that David Gans dedicated a song to Alan. I knew Alan at Emerson and Uni, and when I remember that I thought someone looked like a wee bit like him at many of the shows I enjoyed, I realize now that it WAS him. We were at Cal together, too, and most likely many Keystone and Winterland shows. Doesn’t seem fair he won’t be at Phil’s b-day show with us in a couple of weeks … but maybe somehow, there’s a Winterland up there and the music goes on with Jerry and Bill and many other fine players! Let’s certainly hope so!