Vince Welnick - Suicide!!??

[Swamp Gas]

One of the most incredible keyboardists in Rock and Roll, both with The Tubes and The Grateful Dead, is dead from suicide. We saw The Dead with Welnick, and The Tubes once when they first started in the 70's, and recently in New York. Very Sad. In Rock, he stood with the best..............Emerson, Wakeman, Hudson, Lord, and Manzarek

www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2006/06/04/BAGOUJ89201.DTL

Here is Vince on the Keys with The Tubes, "Up From The Deep"

Up From The Deep - Song (click Here)

[Mech]

Whoa...

Now thats a shock.

I thought this guy had it all together.

i saw him with the GratefulDead several times....and i saw interviews with him.

Always chipper.

I guess you don't know how someone really feels inside.

What a tragedy.

[Thetaloops]

I feel very bad about this also. Another person who had vision and talent who is pushed over the edge. The artists and musicians are really taking a beating. Like the intellectuals in Nazi Germany who were run out of town, like Einstein or killed in the camps. Einstein was able to adapt to survive, but so many of us with vision can not take the rejection and isolation of living. We have lost way to many friends in our life time.

Like you say it is hard to say what exactly caused him to make such a terrible decision.

[altitudelou]

Yes, It truly SUCKS when an artist like Vence Welnick checks out, even more so when it's by their own hand.

I had read an interview that he did with Rolling Stone Mag about five years ago and in that interview he alluded to the fact that he was fighting with Manic Depression and said that he felt so low at times that he wanted to kill himself, wish I could remember the year and volume of that Rolling Stone article, Oh well, guess it really doesn't matter, Vince has gone the way of so many artist before him, he's in good company and no doubt jamming up a storm on the other side .

[Swamp Gas]

The Tubes REALLY impressed us when they first came onto the scene in 1975, and when Thetaloops and I saw them in 1976. The theatrics AND the music were completely psychoactive, hilarious, thought-provoking, and masterful. It really was Progressive Rock, and for an American band, that was rather unique. New music simply does not have the quality anymore, with few rare exceptions. Here's some shots of The Tubes:

[KNOWTHIS]

So many important musicians have taken their own lives in recent years. Kurt Cobain of Nirvana shot himself. Layne Staley of Alice In Chains died of a heroine/cocaine overdose which was officially classified as “accidental” but very well could’ve been a suicide considering his (used to be) extremely melancholy nature. I'm still not sure about Michael Hutchence, lead singer of INXS's death. At first the police suspected no suspicious circumstances despite finding a leather belt then later a coroner revelaed this:

Post mortem examinations showed that Michael Hutchence died from suffocation caused by hanging.

A coroner in Australia recorded the death as suicide caused by depression.

And now the Grateful dead keyboardist? I think that many people feeling mental anguish and emotional pain gravitate towards music as a sort of internal release. It doesn't surprise me that many musicians are depressed. Muisc and art is a great coping mechanism but it can only do so much. It's too bad that these people couldn't eventually find the help that they needed.

Here's a list of famous peope that have ended their own lives via suicide.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_famous_suicides