Tragic News - Dominic Hawken - RIP

Yesterday, news that Dominic Hawken  passed away after a short illness, was announced by his wife Sofia (aka Mrs Wiggly) via Facebook.

We're all devastated. Dom was a one in a million person. A wonderful, generous, positive man. You may remember him as a regular valued guest on our Sonic TALK podcast, he was a consummate presenter always bringing humour and positivity to any show. He was also the only person to ever host the show, covering for Nick during a family bereavement. But he was also so much more than that, he lived several lives worth of achievements compared to most of us.

During the 90s Dom was a session keyboard player and musician working with Boy George and Marilyn, he also co-wrote East 17's "stay Another Day" which went on to be a global Christmas hit - the holy grail of pop success - he was nominated for two Ivor Novellos. He went on to work with Danny Rampling and remix team Boilerhouse Boys to produce a number of UK hits.

Dom was a self taught coder and worked on a Sky Broadcasting radio playout system, Royal Bank of Scotland's website and was involved in various successful business ventures  including buying an ex nuclear bunker for secure data hosting (TALK #665), development of  a digital agency which was later  sold to William Hill and as a founder/investor in Pop Bitch - the irreverent and highly successful  UK gossip newsletter. 

Then there's the Deluxe Corporation, providing technical consultancy to creative industries, Snuggle Sounds - an iOS based sleep app and developer of the Incinerator plug-in under the Mr Wiggly name - which he also used for his weekly shows featuring Mrs Wiggly and his daughter Loullamae. As well as a very important show on mental health. He also very kindly provided some coding for the Sonic TALK back end system.

Last November he performed as Mr Wiggly at our first EMOM (electronic open mic night) in Bath - it was only the 3rd time we'd personally met and as it turned out, the last. 

He went down a storm, where he not only performed an powerful monologue on refugees in our society, but uttered the immortal words "That ain't no kick drum.... THATS a kick drum" which indeed it was.

You might think that because of his achievements, he'd be too busy to chat, but Dom was quite the opposite - an extremely open, positive and generous soul, always willing to help, everyone who met him would comment on what great guy he was.

He leaves an enormous gap in the community and will be missed by many.

Dom passed away at home with his family on February 6th from an aggressive pancreatic cancer.

Our condolences go out to Sofia his wife and daughter Loullamae, his friends and family. Dom was taken too soon.

Dominic Hawken 1967 - Feb 6th 2023