Denver singer-songwriter and Gin Doctors co-founder died earlier this week at 34, an unexpected loss that plunged much of the Denver music community into mourning.
On Wednesday night, Despres’ friends gathered at Syntax Physic Opera to remember him, including musicians who played with him at the prominent open mic scene at the Meadowlark circa 2009-10 that launched the careers of acts like Nathaniel Rateliff and The Lumineers.
As , The Lumineers frontman Wesley Schultz, who was a friend of Despres, recommended him to take over a music teaching gig for a local family when the band began to gain momentum. As Lumineers percussionist Jeremiah Fraites referenced in an email, Despres even joined the band on electric guitar for gigs at venues like the Meadowlark and Fort Collins’ Everyday Joe’s.
Due to the demands of a worldwide tour, the band couldn’t be at Syntax on Wednesday. Despite that, Schultz and Lumineers pianist Stelth Ulvang took time out to offer these thoughts on his life in an email:
Stelth Ulvang:
Tyler and I lived together for years, sometimes sharing a room with a sheet for a wall.
Like a brother, we would get in meaningless conversations through these walls and he was so smart — a teacher — so smart, he could save the world slowly from the ground up… but with a grace and a humor, that maybe he could have saved the world like George Carlin, or Bill Hicks…
So sincerely funny, he could make you laugh with beautiful poetry or an accent or lyrics or a joke he made up. His lyrics were smart and funny, they can still slowly save the world. His music could be so good and you would never doubt the sincerity, even through a line that makes you smile and wonder.
“You coulda rode you shoulda rode the waves, you coulda walked yah you shoulda walked the beaches, but now you’re an angel floatin downstream — oh now you’re the cosmos in a beautiful beam”
A line of his I been thinking about — I dunno.
Wesley Schultz:
Tyler was incredibly talented, but never took himself too seriously. Right about time when your jaw hit the floor as Tyler finished playing some incredibly intricate song with that beautiful voice of his, he would crack some joke and make the room erupt in laughter.
Denver would have been a different place for me if it wasn’t for Tyler and Maria (Kohler)’s hosting of the Meadowlark open mic back in 2009.
He was so talented and great to be around, we even asked him to join us on the road in the band, which he turned down because of the many bands/projects he was already in like Science Partner and the Dualistics. We loved him and can’t believe he’s gone and we will miss him so much.
