2000 [Image][Image] Bobby Vega, Steve By Kelly Caldwell Kimock and Vince Welnick of The Missing Man Formation Celebrating its fifth anniversary, this year's Trinity Tribal Stomp in Hayfork promises to be one of the best yet. The weekend long festival on Sept. 5 and 6 features a little something for everyone. The list of performers at this year's event includes Clan Dyken, Jai Uttal and The Pagan love Orchestra, Alice DiMichele, Native American reggae rockers Tribal War and many others. For more information you can call 916-623-2656. The highlight of the weekend will undoubtedly be Sunday night's performance by Zero along with special guests Vince Welnick and Prarie Prince. I recently had the opportunity to speak with Vince about the upcoming gig at the Tribal Stomp as well as his band The Missing Man Formation. Having been a deadhead for my "I will always be a entire adult life (I lost count after about 50 memberof The shows) I had to work at maintaining a Grateful Dead! A professional demeanor so as not to sound like large part of my a groupie? After my initial trepidation wore heart and soul is off we began by talking about Vince's musical with that band. background: Those years were Vince: I grew up in Phoenix, AR and got into the happiest years piano watching my mom play boogie-woogie. I of my life." went to a Catholic grade school, so I took boogie-woogie lessons from my mom and classical lessons from a nun. When I was nine I got my first gig playing in church. After that I started getting into popular music, and then The Beatles happened and I dropped all instruction all together. I was in my first rock band when I was eleven and I've pretty much spent all of my life playing in bands. Kelly: At what point did you make the move to the Bay Area? I moved away from home when I was seventeen and lived in Hollywood for a while, then I got together with a band called The Beans, which later became The Tubes. We moved to San Francisco in the early 70's and survived on food stamps. After playing college gigs for a while the first Tubes record came out in the mid 70's. By the early 80's we had somewhat rocketed to stardom with a few top ten hits like "She's a Beauty" and "Talk to You Later." Through the Tubes I got hooked up with Todd Rundgren whom I worked with on various projects. Then in 1990 I auditioned for The Grateful Dead after Brent (Mydland) died, and ten days after I got the job we were out on the road for the Fall tour. Obviously everyone has heard about the live Grateful Dead experience, but The Tubes were pretty renowned for their live stage show as well. We were the greatest show on earth there for a while. It was a traveling circus, we had no less than 35 people up on stage for "White Punks on Dope" every night. Everybody from our crew to our manager to our manager's girlfriend was required to also appear on stage. What about the band that's currently performing as The Tubes? You mean The Tubes not Tubes? It's missing myself, Mike Cotton, and Bill Spooner. Prarie (Prince) plays with them some of the time. Any chance that the original line-up could play together again? As far as I'm concerned , if the Tubes were ever going to play together it would have to involve all the original members and none of the subsequent members. I'm not sure if that's very likely for various reasons. I know Fee (Waybill) was real happy for me when I joined the Dead, he used to come out and see us in L.A. I also played with Spooner in a band called The Affordables that opened for Jerry a few times. So your heading our way for a Missing Man Formation gig at the Hog Farm and then you and Prarie Prince will be playing with Zero at the Trinity Tribal Stomp. Tell me a little about MMF? Well the core members are myself, Prarie Prince on drums, and from Zero: Steve Kimock(guitar) and Bobby Vega(bass). We also have various "missing members," including Bobby Strickland who plays sax and flute and will be at the Hog Farm gig. How long has Missing Man been together? I believe it was April of 96. It's still in the early stages. We're the hardliest working band in show business next to the Affordables. So what has the turnout and reaction been at the Missing Man gigs? Are you finding your audience is largely composed of Dead fans? My feeling is that it's my old friends, along with some younger people who may not have seen The Dead but want to hang with some of the people. We've played so few gigs that it's hard to generalize, but I would say our crowd is mostly the deadheads, which was who I was hoping to see out there. So when people come to the gigs can they expect to hear Dead tunes? Oh Yeah! I do a couple of my favorite Dead tunes and we also do some Dead songs that I never played with the band like "St. Stephen" and "The Golden Road." We also cover other bands like Zeppelin and The Stones. Basically we'll play any of our favorite songs as well as the originals that I wrote. Do you have plans to record with Missing Man? Sure, maybe someone who reads this will sign us (laughs). Either that or I'm going to start handing out cassettes of a Fillmore gig. A lot of people don't even know that there is a Missing Man Formation. What about the name? Is that a reference to Garcia? My sister Nancy actually overheard some deadhead surfers talking about what would happen to the ba dc2 nd after Jerry died, and one of them said it would be a "missing man formation." She mentioned the name to me and I really liked it. It definitely is somewhat of a reference to Jerry; this band is only here because he's not. Other than that it's an Air Force term for a ceremony that occurs when a pilot goes down. So tell me about 1990? I've never heard your version of how you became a member of the Grateful Dead? Did you lobby for the job or did they approach you or what? Bobby Weir's secretary used to be the Tubes secretary, and my wife Laurie spoke to her and found out they were auditioning keyboardists. I was kind of surprised by that, I figured they would know enough people that they could ask to play. So I set up an audition and they sent me tapes so I could practice. After my audition about ten days passed, it seemed like a lot longer, I got a call from Bobby asking if, "my insurance was paid off?" I took that as a yes. Then I spoke with Jerry and he told me to go down to the office and, "get some money." So I went and picked up my first paycheck and I was a member of The Grateful Dead. Where would Vince Welnick be today had that not happened? Either living in the loft above our barn or in Mexico. I'd still be playing music but I wouldn't be living where I am now. Would you have considered yourself a deadhead prior to joining the band? No. I didn't fall in love with the Dead until I met the people in the band, particularly Jerry. When Laurie first mentioned the audition I wasn't sure I wanted to play in that band. There was a lot of stigma attached to it and the keyboard players die often(laughs). A couple of days before my audition I was down at Club Front (the Grateful Dead studio/practice facility) checking out Brent's equipment. Jerry and Bobby happened to drop by and after talking with them I decided I very much wanted to be a deadhead. So do consider yourself a member of The Grateful Dead or someone who played keyboards for the last few years? I will always be a member of The Grateful Dead! A large part of my heart and soul is with that band. Those years were the happiest years of my life. [Image] back to frontpage of Rhythmic Review . 0