Photo credit: Whitney Freedman
On August 9, Dave Deporis passed away. His death was sudden and unexpected, and it happened three days after the completion of Splendor’s Gas Cap Tour, which Dave was a big part of planning and performing in.
In part, this post is to publicize the Memorial and Music Fund for Dave -- a fund to get Dave’s unfinished album produced. Splendor All Around is participating in a benefit show for the fund on Friday, September 8th. Pancho and Mikayla will be playing, as well as Dave’s friends Ruben Diaz, Zachary Seth Greer, and the beautiful Diane Cluck. (Tickets)
https://www.facebook.com/events/737046089820534/
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This is Rosie writing, and it also just seemed right to me to put something up here about what happened and about Dave. A member of the Splendor family has died. Sharing a project like this is a hell of a way to know someone, and losing him was gut-wrenchingly sad, and more than a little surreal. Writing this post, now, is a strange echo of trying to introduce Dave before his set. I never really knew what to say, then, and I sure don't now.
Dave, you were an inspiration as a musician, and a kind man, and radically weird, and you looked great in stage light, and your songs and performances were beautiful, bizarre, otherworldly, electrifying. If an audience was drifting, you pulled them back in and took them places they’d never been before, places some of them were afraid to go. I honestly came to rely on you for it, and you never let me down. You, undeniably, had powers. It’s some comfort to know that in the last few weeks of your life, you were making music. It’s an enormous honor to have been a part of that. And it’s very, very hard to believe I’ll never see you play a song again.
Thank you for playing and thank you for listening, and thank you for leaving us with so much music.