Published
Mon, Aug 29, 2011, 10:00
- The music journalist and author of Techno Rebels died of cancer on Sunday.
Dan Sicko, music journalist and chronicler of Detroit's techno movement, died of cancer on Sunday at his home in Michigan.
Sicko made his early career as a freelance journalist writing for magazines like Wired and Urb. His area of expertise was the history Detroit's techno scene, which Sicko witnessed firsthand in the '80s and '90s. In 1999 he gave the movement its most defining text with Techno Rebels: The Renegades of Electronic Funk, a book Philip Sherburne called a "thorough, intimate account of the music's origins." An expanded edition was published last year.
Speaking to Detroit Free Press, Movement director Jason Huvaere said: "I know this is a serious statement, but he was the first guy who legitimized Detroit's techno history... 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."
In 2008 Sicko was diagnosed with a rare form of eye cancer called ocular melanoma. After three years of treatments, his doctors declared the disease's progress to be irreversible and sent him into hospice care on Friday. He died at home two days later.
Sicko's wife Amy Lobsiger kept an account of the experience at www.mattsicko.blogspot.com. The family is also taking donations to help cover his medical costs. Our thoughts are with his family and friends at this time.