More sad news for Grateful Dead fans...

Vince Welnick, the Grateful Dead's last keyboard player and a veteran of other bands, including the Tubes and Missing Man Formation, has died, the Grateful Dead's longtime publicist said Saturday.

Welnick died Friday, said Dennis McNally, who would not release the cause. The Sonoma County coroner's office said an autopsy would be performed next week.

Welnick is the 4th Grateful Dead keyboardist to die, following Ron "Pigpen" McKernan (d. 1973), Keith Godchaux (d. 1980), and Brent Mydland (d. 1990). Welnick played with the band from 1990 until the death of Dead frontman Jerry Garcia in 1995.

Sadly, reports suggest that Welnick may have taken his own life.

My favorite Vince story comes from McNally's 2002 Dead bio, A Long Strange Trip, when Welnick learns firsthand how erratic his new bandmates could be...

Vince's real introduction to the Dead may well have been at the next show after the Garden run, in Stockholm, a truly abysmal night. Despite three days' rest after the flight from home, the band was jet-lagged. Garcia had eaten a chunk of hashish and was useless. At the drum break, Vince went to visit the facilities and then stood backstage, wretched, when [I] came up to him and recognized his dismay. "Vince, you don't understand. It's not you. This is a band that really sucks sometimes, and tonight's the night. Don't worry about it."

Vince Welnick was either 51 or 55 at the time of his death (reports vary).

[MyWay] Grateful Dead's Last Keyboardist Dies

If you haven't had a chance to catch all four parts of "Heavy: The Story of Metal" on VH1 yet, do yourself a favor and make it a priority. I'm not even much of a metal fan, but this documentary is converting me quickly. (I even made a special trip to the music store last night to pick up the first two Black Sabbath albums.) Watching interviews with people like Black Sabbath's Tony Iommi, Iron Maiden's Bruce Dickinson, and Quiet Riot's Frankie Banali is simultaneously hilarious and enlightening. These guys worked so hard for so many years to be dark and menacing and all things metal. Now they're articulate upper-class middle-aged men who can look back in amusement at the lives they once led.

The series is doing little, however, to make me like 1980s hair metal bands. I don't like Mötley Crüe, I despise Poison, and I have no use whatsoever for the Scorpions. But if I had to pick just one band as my least favorite of all time, it would be Warrant. And if I had to pick just one song as my least favorite, it would be "Cherry Pie." And it wouldn't even be close. Just the sight of Warrant lead singer Jani Lane makes me cringe. And I mean really cringe.

As it turns out, however, I have an unlikely ally in my hatred for all things "Cherry Pie:" Jani Lane. Here's what he had to say about the song during part 3 of "Heavy:"

I hate that song. I had no intention of writing that song. The record was done. The record was called "Uncle Tom's Cabin." And Donny Inner [president of Columbia Records] called up and said, "I don't hear the single. You gotta give me a fucking single like 'Love in an Elevator.' I need something like that." So that night I wrote "Cherry Pie." Sent it to him. He lived with it over the weekend. Then all of a sudden the album's called "Cherry Pie." The record's called "Cherry Pie." I'm doing cherry pie eating contests. The single's "Cherry Pie." Right? If I'm lying, I'm dying. And my legacy's "Cherry Pie." Everything about me is "Cherry Pie." I'm the "Cherry Pie" guy. I could shoot myself in the fucking head for writing that song.

I actually feel bad for him. Hell, I've hated him for 16 years because I thought he wanted to be the "Cherry Pie" guy. Some people might see his comments as sour grapes from a has-been, but I think it takes pretty big balls to trash your own legacy with such panache.

Of course, as much as I admire Jani for his comments, this still isn't enough to make me like any of Warrant's music. Not even close.

From the San Francisco Chronicle...

He was a psychedelic cowboy who rode the bus with Ken Kesey and took virtually every step of the long, strange trip with the Grateful Dead. Known to one and all solely as Ramrod, he died yesterday of lung cancer at Petaluma Valley Hospital. He was 61.

"He was our rock," said guitarist Bob Weir.

[...]

Ramrod joined the Dead in 1967 as truck driver and was held in such high regard by the members of that sprawling, brawling organization that he was named president of the Grateful Dead board of directors when the rock group actually incorporated in the '70s. It was a position he held until the death of guitarist Jerry Garcia in 1995.

[SFGate.com] Mainstay of Grateful Dead crew dies

Regular readers may recall my trip to London last spring to see the rock group Cream perform its first full concerts in 37 years. Well, if you didn't make it to the Royal Albert Hall in May or Madison Square Garden in October, you may still have a chance to catch the musical legends live:

Legendary rock trio Cream, which reunited last year for a handful of concerts in London and New York after a bitter break-up in 1968, has scheduled more shows, bassist and singer Jack Bruce said on Tuesday.

But don't expect a world tour. Rather, Bruce told Reuters that he, guitarist
Eric Clapton and drummer Ginger Baker will set up camp in select cities for multiple dates, just as they did last year.

"What we feel is that it's so special, and also so emotionally draining that it's not something we could do every day," he said. "We will play more, but where and when I'm not at liberty to say."

He declined to say when an official announcement might be made, joking that he would "get chopped" if he said anything.

If they come to Vegas, I know how I'll be spending a big chunk of my tax refund. I guess I can always buy a new sofa next year.

[Yahoo! News] British rock group Cream to play more reunion shows

After watching last night's Super Bowl halftime show, I'm genuinely curious as to why (apart from the millions of dollars they get from touring) the members of The Rolling Stones still want to work with Mick Jagger. Sure, even at his best the man never had what one would call a "pleasant" singing voice, but what he did have was a great "rock voice." And that voice was a perfect match for the band's sound.

But those days are long gone. Simply put, Mick can't sing anymore. At all. In last night's performance there was no real tone to his voice. Gone was the sexually-charged growl of the 60's, 70's, and 80's. In its place was an unrecognizable series of atonal grunts. It was awful.

(As bad as it was, however, Jagger's voice sounded far better than Jessica Simpson's did in that Pizza Hut commercial; and Simpson even had the advantage of being pre-recorded. And post-produced.)

The real shame of all this is that, musically speaking, The Rolling Stones sound as good as ever. Guitarists Keith Richards and Ron Wood and drummer Charlie Watts can play their instruments every bit as well as they could at their peak. Perhaps better. But it's all being wasted behind a front man who has no instrument left.

I realize the money is still good, and that's probably the only justification they need for soldiering on. And they're hardly alone in that attitude. Just look at Harrison Ford and Robert DeNiro. Those guys can still act with the best of them -- when they want to -- but right now they'd rather pick up big paychecks for awful movies. The sad thing is, none of these guys should need the money!

In my opinion, former Stones' bassist Bill Wyman had the right idea. Once it became apparent that the band was a mere shadow of its former self, he ditched the rock life and went into the restaurant business. He's still musically active, too, but these days he focuses his energy on jazz and blues ensembles, not bloated arena rock.

You know, it's pretty sad when a guy who owns a diner called "Sticky Fingers" is the last bastion of musical integrity.