Grateful or not, he's Dead

In local news, my fellow Sonoma County resident Vince Welnick, the fifth and final keyboard player for the Grateful Dead, passed away over the weekend, an apparent suicide.



Before joining the Dead, Welnick was a founding member of the seminal Bay Area band The Tubes, famous for their early MTV hits "She's a Beauty" and "Talk to Ya Later," and the anthemic "White Punks on Dope."

Creepy factoid: Of the five keyboardists The Grateful Dead employed during their "long, strange trip," four — Ron "Pigpen" McKernan, Keith Godchaux, Brent Mydland, and now Vince Welnick — are deceased.

I'll bet Tom Constanten crosses the street a little more gingerly from here on out.