Edmond Lapine, magnetic musician and ‘funky soul,’ among Oakland fire victims

Edmond Lapine, magnetic musician and ‘funky soul,’ among Oakland fire victims

Edmond Lapine, 34, of Oakland, was among the 36 people who died Friday night during an underground music event in the Fruitvale District.

People tended to gravitate toward him, and he was always surrounded by friends who would “get together, jam and go to concerts,” Bob Lapine said.

Over the weekend, friends from near and far — from high school in Utah; from Evergreen State College in Washington, where he graduated with a degree in French and Russian literature in 2008; from the semester he studied in Paris; from the music scene in Olympia, Wash., where he lived before moving to the Bay Area in 2014 — reminisced about his kind spirit, “funky soul” and deep talent.

“There’s a huge community of people that love him all over the country and we’ve all been in contact the last few days, sharing stories and pictures and hugs,” said Madeleine Woodhead Nutting, 26, a former partner of Lapine.

David Adelson, owner of 20 Buck Spin record label in Olympia, said Edmond Lapine “was the kind of guy who would be willing to be friends with everybody.”

When he became friends with Lapine at their day jobs at a computer shop in Olympia, Wash., Adelson said it was of little concern that he was into heavy metal while Lapine was into indie rock.

In the quiet morning hours their other co-workers arrived, they still bonded over their mutual love of music.

“Even though he liked a lot of different stuff and I liked a lot of different stuff, there was overlap, and I could always tell that he would steer our conversations about music to where that overlap existed so we could relate to each other,” Adelson said.

Like many others who died in the fire, Edmond Lapine subsidized his passion for music by working day jobs, his father said, at a bakery and then at an art gallery cafe.