Scott Bringedahl
June 15, 1960 - October 12, 2012
(Everett Herald Obituary)

Scott was four years younger than me (Bill) and lived down the street, on 60th Avenue West in Mountlake Terrace. He stopped by one day, after I had been playing bass for a few years, and asked if I could give him some tips on the bass. He was so sincere and direct (and he had his bass with him) I couldn't say no. I showed him a few things and he picked them up right away. He considered everything I said, asked lots of questions and wasn't afraid to speak his mind. For example, when I said I was self-taught he said "how can you say you're self-taught when every musician you've played with has taught you something?" I was a little irritated at first, like who does this kid think he is? But then I realized that this kid knew exactly who he was, and he was absolutely right. In that moment my respect for Scott skyrocketed and I knew he was really special. That feeling only grew as the years went by.

I saw him play a year or so after our bass-to-bass meeting and he had surpassed my skills by a long shot. I was blown away. It seems he had sat down with a lot of other musicians and learned from every one of them, and I'm sure he also taught every one of them. I always told him he was the best bass player I knew, and he always told me I was the best bass player he knew. He was a kind soul and, somewhere, still is.

In late summer of 2012 I was in an all-day meeting at work and got the strongest urge to call him, so during the next break I did. I asked if we could get together and jam and he told me his cancer had taken a turn for the worse. He said he wasn't giving up though, and was focusing all of his energy on beating it. I was choked up, moved to tears in the middle of the day in the middle of a factory. It was one of those moments when the world doesn't seem real. We talked a little more and before hanging up I said "I love you Scott" and he said "love you too, man." It turned out to be our last conversation.

Like I said, Scott lived down the street from me on 60th. Across the street from Scott lived the McBrides. Jon McBride shared some of his memories of Scott and they are so beautiful, I had to include them here.

October 22, 2012

Scott was my very first best friend. We were babysat together when we were kids. From the earliest of my memories to about when I turned 14 we were together almost every single day. Scott was 3 years my junior and that's a big difference when you are a teenager so we had different friends after that, but living across the street we still saw each other all the time. We used to build tree forts and pull each other on Tonka trucks behind our bikes and hitch rides on that 3-wheeled popsicle truck until we got chased off.

In the mid sixties they still had those civil defense sirens going off all the time in Terrace and the fire dept would use them as well to signal they were off to a fire. So when we heard it blast me and Scott and whoever else was with us would hop on our bikes and jet down the hill to city hall and try to follow the fire trucks to the fire as fast as we could go, but our crappy home-made bikes could never keep up and we never once saw a fire in all those years.

What's funny is you always imagine your friend is always going to be around, I guess that's why people don't keep in touch as much as they should. There's always tomorrow. I live in Connecticut now, about as far away from where I grew up as you can get. I don't get back too often but when I do I usually hooked up with der bopper (that's what I called Scott, he called me Zonderby, I don't remember why or when like all that DEEOWWWWL! stuff we came up with) but in the last 20 years or so I had very little contact. So when Scott's cancer took a turn for the worse I contacted him about 3 months ago by phone. We talked about 6 hours the first time, so much about our growing up together. Hunting frogs, his crow Egor, his dog Heidi, and cat Sylvestor. His father Huby never really liked me, he always thought of me as Eddie Haskel always getting Scott into trouble. Probably right there, ol' Huby was no nonsense and could size a guy up pretty good.

Of our many phone calls toward the end Scott would remark about what a “magical” childhood we had playing flyers up in the street or TV tag and camel fights and hide and seek way into the night. I told him yeah, I can't imagine ANYONE having as wonderful a childhood as we did. With all this internet crap and all kids just don't know and can't even fathom what real fun is. We were so so lucky to grow up where and when we did. People say what a great guy Scott was and it sounds so cliché but he was different, he really WAS that great guy everyone talks about. Of all the people I've ever known I cannot recall of anyone ever saying a bad thing about Scott on any occasion – EVER! And if you know anything about life that's pretty impressive.

One pearl in which to illustrate this point: I can recall when I was about ten years old and my dad took me and Scott down to Richmond Beach in Edmonds . The water was really shallow and we were catching flounders by clasping them between 2 large shells (our Terrace method). Anyway, Scott saw this big crab skittering along and he scooped it up with the shells and it latched onto his finger with one of its burley claws. He started swinging it around, which only made it worse, and was screaming and crying. I got the thing off him and was ready to clobber it into a messy pulp when Scott says “don't do that, it was just defending itself.” I couldn't believe it. There he was crying and bleeding and he was worried about the crab! I knew right then he was better than I could ever be. Who else in this world would have given that dirty finger biting crab a fair shake? Nobody, only my special friend Scott Bringedahl that's who. I really love you Scott and I'll miss you the rest of my days. Your best friend always – Jon McBride

Video of Scott's Benefit Poker Run, Auction and Jam Session (with Scott), 2011


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