Jones Alley bassist Al Gedney collapsed, died during Nirvana cover at Argilla Brewing

A veteran Delaware rock musician collapsed and died last weekend while performing at Argilla Brewing Co. at Pietro's Pizza in Milltown.

Jones Alley bassist Al Gedney was performing Nirvana's "Breed," the band's final song of the night, around 9:45 p.m. on Friday when he fell backward into a stack of amplifiers.

The cause of death will be determined by an autopsy.

Gedney, 49, lived in Newark and is survived by his wife Maria and children Dylan, 17, and Alaina, 16. He had performed in various punk and hard rock bands in Delaware since he was a teenager, including '90s Newark rockers Deadlyne.

A funeral service will be Saturday at 10:30 a.m. at the Doherty Funeral Home (3200 Limestone Rd., Pike Creek). Visitation begins at 8:30 and the family asks visitors to dress casually.

Gedney was not complaining of feeling ill before he stepped on stage for the last time with longtime bandmates Mike Martin, a childhood guitarist friend, and drummer Matt Frick, who first began playing with Gedney at the age of 18.

"The last memory I have of him alive is me thrashing away on the cymbal looking at him and him looking at me going, 'Yeah, man!' Right after that is a thud," Frick says.

As Martin puts it, "God, it was just like a lightning strike next to me."

A cousin of Gedney's shot video of the band kicking off the song after Gedney thanked the crowd. He can be seen voraciously playing his bass just as the 43-second clip ends.

A minute later, Gedney was falling backward with the amps crashing against the restaurant's front window. Frick and a friend bent down to attend to Gedney, joined by a nurse who was there eating dinner. Emergency medical services arrived soon after and took over.

"When I got to him, he was blank. There was just nothing in his eyes, so we just sat there trying to comfort him," Frick says. "It happened real quick."   

Jones Alley, a cover band that "plays classic punk and punked-up classics," had been at Argilla opening for Wilmington-based garage/surf rock four-piece Kitty Rotten, which features a lead singer in an oversized mascot cat head. They never went on and the restaurant closed early.

Frick says he first met Gedney 31 years ago at the former Mal's Music, a music shop located only steps away from Argilla in the same Meadowood Shopping Center. Even as he prepares for Gedney's funeral, Frick still cannot believe his friend died only feet away from where they first met. 

"It's so crazy how it all went down," says Frick, who also performs with the wedding band Strangers. "The whole thing is just so devastating."

Pete DiSabatino, Argilla's general manager, is also a musician and booked Jones Alley at the brewery. He grew up listening to Gedney and Deadlyne, which helped inspire him to become a musician himself. DiSabatino's band, Daimonic Grey, has shared bills with Jones Alley, including shows at Argilla.

"It was the last note of the last song and he just dropped. He went too early, but it was in the truest of rock star fashion," DiSabatino says. "Al was great dude. He was a rocker through and through and was loved, respected and appreciated."

Gedney, who worked for more than 20 years for Bank of America, was recently dealing with a loss of his own.

His brother Chris, a former NFL tight end who played for the Chicago Bears and the Arizona Cardinals from 1993 to 2000, died in March.

HBO correspondent Jon Frankel, who knew Chris Gedney, revealed on "Real Sports with Bryant Gumbel" last month that Chris Gedney had committed suicide after recognizing something was wrong with his brain, which had led to depression and other behavioral issues.

Frick says Al Gedney never spoke about his brother's death, but they did see a change. Martin and Frick had been encouraging Gedney to join them in writing original songs, like they used to do together in Deadlyne. Only a couple of weeks ago, Gedney told his bandmates that he was ready to write again.

"I was pretty surprised when he seemed wide open to it," says Martin, 47, who knew Gedney since he was 10. He played with him in Jones Alley at Argilla every first and last Tuesday of the month. The band is on hiatus in the wake of Gedney's death.

Frick believes music and songwriting was an outlet for Gedney, who enjoyed playing so much it didn't matter if it was at a show in a bar or just the guys alone in a practice space.

The last complete song that Jones Alley performed Friday before the Nirvana cover was  "Goodbye Cruel World" by one of Gedney's favorite band's, Pink Floyd.

"The irony is wild," says Martin. 

"Goodbye cruel world/I'm leaving you today," Gedney sang, harmonizing with Martin. "Goodbye/Goodbye/Goodbye."

Contact Ryan Cormier of The News Journal at rcormier@delawareonline.com or (302) 324-2863. Follow him on Facebook (@ryancormier), Twitter (@ryancormier) and Instagram (@ryancormier).