The Song Fight Bulletin Board

It is with great sadness that I must inform the boards here that Dennis of Sonofsupercar passed away suddenly last Friday, April 4, 2025.

Dennis was one of my closest friends, an old band mate, and so much more. Song Fight was a big part of his creative outlet and he would make frequent mentions of the site. "We should Song Fight this" was a frequent quip of his. Song Fight was more of his thing and I just showed up to practice and did my part so I never became active here. I don’t think he ever uploaded any of the songs from the band we were in together to Song Fight.

When Blue passed in 2021, Dennis pointed me to the forums here and I saw the outpouring from the community and I thought the boards deserve to know about Dennis's passing as well.

I was hoping this thread could be a great place to share memories or stories if any of you met him at Song Fight events in the past.

I'll start with one story concerning two Song Fight legends: Blue and Dennis.

In 2009, we opened for Blue's band Booty Chesterfield Trio. After our band fell apart, Dennis decided to get Blue involved in a new project he wanted to pursue (or maybe Blue contacted him? I'm unsure.) Regardless, the line up was to be Dennis on guitar, Blue on bass and me on drums. "Yeah right" I told Dennis. "There's no fucking way I am playing drums for BLUE of all people." I hadn't played drums for a couple of years at that point. Dennis assured me I'd be fine. We crammed ourselves into a tiny room and I proceeded to be immediately intimidated by Blue's presence- not only were we polar opposites in drumming styles but I knew about the legend of Blue.

After some time fumbling around and getting my bearings, Blue opened up a laptop with some DAW on it and proceeded to force me to play to a click track. "A fucking click track!? I'm not gonna be able to do this, Blue." I tried my best but I can't be that rigid on drums. I gave it the ol' college try but I eventually caved and told him I can't do it. I was all over the place- rushing and dragging. I cracked under the pressure.

Literally as I am writing this out a memory just came to me concerning the Doobie Brothers at that session. Either we tried to cover the Doobie Brothers or we talked about them for far too long.

Anyway, I couldn't play to the click, and we fucked around the rest of the night. Blue ended up giving me a ride home that night and on that drive I apologized profusely for my inability to play to a click. "Sorry about that, Blue. I haven't played in a while and I was never good with a click." He was actually very nice about it, and certainly nothing like some of the reviews he dealt here!

The next day I asked Dennis if that was some sort of drummer hazing ritual because it sure felt like one.

Rest easy, Dennis.

You will be missed by more than you realize.

Thank you so much for sharing. Do you have any idea what happened and is it anything you can share? Not that it really matters in the end, I guess.

Unfortunately I don't have any information to share at the moment.

Thanks for sharing. If you have any details about services or whatever, I'd very much like to attend if I can.

I guess I've know Dennis 20+ years through Song Fight and Blue. I would separately run into Dennis occasionally at the Alameda Flea Market where he would sell stuff he picked up in his van while driving around for work. Dennis would also check in once in a while about possible venues to play. I probably saw sos live more than most and shared the stage with them as well. Dennis always struck me as quiet, kind, and warm. I re-watched the video Glenn Case posted of sonofsupercar playing at Expressions Recording School. I was at that show and it was a nice memory. Dennis's voice and playing was so good. The three of those guys knew how to play together. I always thought Dennis' strat with a pair of p90s was a cool guitar.

Not sure what else to say except this sucks and I miss those guys.

Thank you for sharing, Ken. Dennis was playing that Strat with P-90s when I first met him. He played it for a couple of years after that. Then back in November he told me "I’m a Gibson man first, mahogany and humbuckers of Japanese descent second. I don’t have a chronology of my guitars back then but it was predicated on whether the SG was being worked on -slowly- at the shop." That blew my mind. I guess because I met him with the Strat I assumed he was a Strat guy but he did start showing up to practice with the SG eventually. I guess I never asked.

Wow sorry to hear this. I met him a couple times through Blue and seeing SOS way back in the day. Last time I saw him was at the SF Live show a few years back in Berkeley. He was a good chap, and really talented guy. Pour one out for Dennis. "Winding your way up the food chain eating yourself alive...."

https://www.songfight.org/music/shreds/ ... shreds.mp3