Off:RIP:Vince Welnick

[Carl Edlund Anderson]

On 07/06/2006 00:56, Cyberkrel wrote:
> Jeezussssssssssssssss...................
> playing keyboards for the Grateful Dead hs got to go down in history as the
> riskiest job in music - Ron Pigpen Mckernan, Keith Godchaux, Brent Mydland,
> Vince Welnick - 30 years of G Dead keys players - all deceased!!!

Well, Tom Constanten is still alive -- perhaps escaping the curse by 
only staying in the band a year or so.  And I suppose Bruce Hornsby is 
still alive, though I'm not sure he counted as an "official" member ;)

Poor Vince, though. I think he was only just finding his feet in the 
band when Jerry died.  That really seemed to pull the rug from under 
him, since he  had gotten close with Jer and was, by all accounts, doing 
what he could to get "the Boys" to pull their fingers out and put a 
little juice back in the band (he was working hard to get "St. Stephen" 
and even "Golden Road", back into rotation).  There's a lot of feeling 
in Deadhead circles that Vince got a bit shafted by not being invited 
back for the post-Jerry Other Ones/Dead tours (though Phil had him along 
to some Phil & Friends shows -- Phil has definitely been the cool guy in 
recent years), and that probably didn't do a lot to help what was, 
clearly, a somewhat fragile guy.

I can't say I know his work with The Tubes at all, really, but I saw a 
couple of 90s GD shows with Vince and later heard some of his Missing 
Man Formation work and it sounded pretty solid.  I kept a few live MMF 
MP3s on the iPod :)

It's been a rough year for psych rock music (Vince and couple of other 
GD associates, Doug Walker, even Dave Wyndorf's overdose!).

Cheers,
Carl

-- 
Carl Edlund Anderson
mailto:cea at carlaz.com
http://www.carlaz.com/