Community Mourns Loss of Dan Sicko, Influential Electronic Music Writer

Music journalist and Ferndale resident Dan Sicko, a key figure in the  local electronic music scene, died Sunday after a years-long battle with cancer. He was 42.

Sicko wrote Techno Rebels, released in 1999, about Detroit's dance music movement. To this day, the book remains the scene's defining publication, according to URB magazine, an independent music magazine.

"... he was the first guy who legitimized Detroit's techno history," Jason Huvaere, director of Movement: Detroit's Electronic Music Festival, told the Free Press on Sunday. "Now, the world is drowning in Detroit techno coverage. But before that, there was Dan, who not only understood the history of the city and electronic music, but he was the historian who put it all down on paper."

Sicko also wrote about his hometown music in Rolling Stone, Wired and URB.

Sicko suffered from ocular melanoma, a rare form of eye cancer, which would eventually travel through his body, his brother Matt Sicko wrote on his own blog.  

"We are deeply saddened to let you know that Dan passed away peacefully this morning," Sicko's sister, Allison Vinyard, wrote Sunday on a blog set up to collect funds for Sicko's medical bills. "We have no way to adequately express our gratitude to all of you who reached out to help Dan. You responded in a way we never could have imagined. Your notes and thoughts have kept us going. We are blessed to feel all the love people have for Dan. Thank you to each and every one of you."

Any leftover funds from the donation website will go toward an education fund for Anabel Sicko, the daughter of Sicko and his wife Amy Lobsiger.

Visitation is scheduled for 2-9 p.m. Wednesday at  in Ferndale. Services were set for 10:30 a.m. Thursday at in Ferndale.