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Email to friend R.I.P. March 10, 2004
UPDATE: Dave Blood committed suicide yesterday. I'm fairly certain that the following email exchange, conducted in late December 2003, was the last interview he ever gave. We began a friendly correspondence afterwards, and had discussed getting together in NYC tomorrow night to see Jon Wurster and some band with whom he's touring. In fact, I still have two voicemail messages on my machine that he left a week and a half ago; obviously, I won't be erasing them. It's difficult to explain how guilty I feel at the moment for not realizing how sad he was. But he never sounded depressed! I guess I should just feel lucky that I was able to enjoy a couple of long phone conversations with him and learn some things I never knew about one of my favorite bands (here are some revelations: "KKSUCK2" was the phone number of a friend, "Jellyfish Heaven" is a musical joke about how so many bands rip off the same Velvet Underground riff, "I Against Osbourne" was built around a jokey bass riff he used to brag was his "hardcore" riff, the "Hey, there's a big airplane going by!" joke on Metaphysical Graffiti was a result of the band passing Hammer Of The Gods around on the tour bus, that's Dave shouting "He's alright!" in "Dean's Dream," one of the few songs Dave wrote ALL the lyrics to was "I Can't Stay Awake"). Although I'm not close enough to the situation to know what exactly pushed him over the edge, I do feel strongly that if he had been able to make it back to Serbia, he wouldn't have done this horrible thing.
But please let me say something important here, because I never got the chance to say it to Dave: Death is going to get you in the end anyway. No matter what you do to avoid it, you will die. But it's absolutely incredible that you are alive. Do you realize how many minor incidents throughout history had to go just perfectly so that you are alive today? And if you're absolutely miserable, CHANGE YOUR LIFE. Save up to move somewhere else. See a psychiatrist. Get a divorce. Adopt a puppy. Make friends in chat rooms. Take up drinking. If somebody purposely abuses or hurts you, HURT THEM BACK. Do whatever you have to do to stay alive (without harming any innocent people, if possible). Try to create something. Drop out of school, live on a floor and join a band. If you're feeling suicidal, say to yourself, "What the hell - life's just going to kill me in the end anyway. I'd might as well go see a movie or hire a prostitute while waiting for it to happen." Whatever - it's your only life. If you feel trapped, escape into another aspect of life. The world is enormous, and there are lots of places to go, people to meet and things to do. Just DON'T GIVE UP. Because believe it or not, people will miss you. Try to squeeze every possible morsel of happiness out of life that you can in this limited time you have, because you WILL be dead some day, but you will NEVER be alive again (most likely). Please think about this, reader person, the next time you feel like calling it a day. Here then is my original introduction and the interview. Dave Blood was the bass player for Philadelphia's phinest rock combo of the day, The
Dead Milkmen. He's been up to all sorts of craziness lately, but took the time to answer
about a hundred thousand email questions I sent him in late December. If you don't own
any Dead Milkmen records, there is no time like the present! If I were talking about the
Moody Blues, I could actually say, "There's no album like The Present!" and
we would enjoy a hearty laugh together, you and I. But the Dead Milkmen never
released an album called The Present, so we're pretty much fucked in the clever
wordplay department. Please thank Dave Blood for finally agreeing to be the fourth and
final Dead Milkman interviewed for www.markprindle.com (or fifth and final, if you
count Jon Wurster). He's a good solid American man, and should be informed of this
situation! My questions are in bold; Dave's answers are in tiny.
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Do you still write and play music?
I don't play bass anymore. During the last few years I was playing with the band I developed a nasty case of tendonitis in both hands. It was quite painful and required me to get cortisone shots in my hands when the pain got to be too much to bear. the condition also required me to have to do a bunch of other stuff before and after each show that I won't even go into. Suffice it to say, my pain and hand problems went away when I stopped playing bass on a regular basis. So, every time I even start to consider picking up the four-stringed love axe again, I hear this voice in the back of my head asking me, "Do you really want to have to take Darvocets in order to be able to tie your shoe laces or twist the lids off of juice bottles?"
Album name association: What quick memory, impression, opinion, etc. would you make about each of your records?
Big Lizard In My Backyard - Took me till a few years ago to realize why
people like this one so much.
Eat Your Paisley - My favorite DM recording. one of the best album covers
ever.You should get a vinyl copy of the recording just to see how good it really looks.
Bucky Fellini - The first of the TEXAS TRILOGY with Brian
Beelzebubba - PR Girl, hell. Now "Life is Shit"..dat dere's da real shit
Smokin' Banana Peels - Glad we got all those old songs down on tape before
we forgot how to play them
Metaphysical Graffiti - The strangest and maybe the most interesting DM
recording
Soul Rotation - The only one I didn't enjoy recording. The demos were fun to
record and sounded better to me. yielded one of my all time fave songs to play live.
"All Around the World"
Not Richard But Dick - The last real DM recording. "Leggo My Ego"
positively smokes . We really showed how well we could play on this CD..
Chaos Rules: Live at the Trocadero - Wished we never released it. The
recorded sound is horrible.
Stoney's Extra Stout (Pig) - Recording an album (CD) when you know the
band has ended its run. bad idea
Who are your favorite bands, both from the past and right now?
Mott the Hoople/Ian Hunter-Mick Ronson Band
Thin White Rope
Paul Kelly and the Colored Girls/Messengers
Rory Gallagher Band
Dow Jones and the Industrials
Van Der Graaf Generator
Midnight Oil
Was Disney oppressive when you were on Hollywood Records?
More like clueless! They gave us a bucketload of money to record Soul Rotation, and then did absolutely squat to promote it. There was only one guy, Wesley Hein, at the company that seemed to "get us" or even have a clue about bands that didn't have dead or dying lead singers. Naturally, the boys at Mickey's Records didn't seem to want to listen to any of his advice.
I don't care if they ARE your children - name your favorite three Dead Milkmen songs! Name `em! (Please.) And perhaps a brief reason for each, if anything comes to mind.
"All Around the World" - Gave me goose bumps, and a weird euphoria every time we played it. It took me to a place I learned about from Phillip K Dick and a girl I know who is electric-far-away
"Life is Shit" - Superb lyrics, powerful music and David Wildman
"I Hear Your Name" - Joe wrote beautiful lyrics to the music. the first time I was able to express something spiritual in music
Favorite bassists? You're a bassist; that's why I ask.
Mike Mills (REM) - He writes beautiful melodic bass parts that sound like singing.
Johnny B Gayden (Albert Collins Band)- I saw Albert Collins "a ton a" times, and yet I could never get over how solid this guy's playing was. Of course, he made it look soooo easy.
Charles Mingus - Everything changed after Mingus.especially the changes! Without him there is no Jaco Pastorius.
Rodney told me that you were "great at analyzing the hidden aspects of any news event." Saddam was just captured - GO! What does it mean???
Look where they finally caught old Snagglepuss.on a farm near his hometown. Hello!!! I can't believe that they didn't know where this guy was the whole time. and don't `cha know right when Bush's poll numbers were dipping dangerously low. and the public is starting to realize that the boys from Osama's gang are ready for business due to the failure of the Bush administration to get cooperation to conduct an effective worldwide campaign against terrorism. and the casualty numbers from Iraq are increasing at an increasing rate... and people on the street are starting to understand what the crew of looters in the White House are doing to our environment. and the disaster that is Afghanistan is about to make it back above the fold on the NY Times and the Washington Post.. The Thanksgiving trip to Iraq didn't budge the poll numbers.so let's roll out the heavy ammo to stop the bleeding before any of the Democrats can make hay of the situation. Hey, it might just work. The boys on Pennsylvania Avenue have convinced a whole lot of the public that What's His Whiskers had something to do with 9/11. Stay tuned.
What in Sam Hill are you doing (or planning to do) in Yugoslavia? And why are you so anxious to get the hell out of the United States?
As much as music was my passion for most of my life, since the mid 1990's my heart and soul have been taken by "all things Serbian". The more that I learned about this fascinating country and about these wonderful people, the stronger I was driven to spend the rest of my life devoted to studying their history, their literature, and their culture. After some formal study at Indiana University under the guidance of my good friend, Professor Bogdan Rakic', I decided in 1998 to go to live and to work in Yugoslavia (now called Serbia and Montenegro). The time I spent there (August 1998 to April 1999). to use a shopworn phrase. those were the best days of my life. I felt a great joy and excitement in my life for the first time in years. probably because I was living out my dream and it was more fantastic than I could have ever imagined it to be. Within a short time after my arrival, I secured a place at Matica Srpska, the Serbian cultural society. This gave me a great place to study and provided me access to a library of interesting books and manuscripts. Within two weeks, I had secured a decent apartment (I had been staying with a friends until I landed a place of my own) in the center of Novi Sad, a beautiful town on the Danube River. Soon after that I landed a job that paid a decent wage. Most important though, I was productive creatively again, and in new ways. During my time in Yugoslavia I penned two works of historical fiction, a poem based on a historical theme, and an article on my experiences in Novi Sad, all of which I was able to get published. I had never lived so fully in my life as I did during those days. Sure, day-to-day life was tricky. My language skills were not superb, and, of course, living in a country under international sanctions did lead to some..hmmm. let me say, hardships when it came to creature comforts. But the only reason that I left Yugoslavia was because the NATO bombing made my daily existence problematic. Sure, I was able to manage well enough (although my job kinda went "south" once the war started), and was certainly willing to "ride it out" and deal with the privations of living "under the bombs" but. my friends were (as all Serbs are), in my estimation, too willing to help me out even if it put them to some disadvantage. I could foresee a time in the future (if the bombing went on for months. which it did) where I might be an imposition on them. I had no intention to do any such thing to people who had been so good to me, so I left the country (which is a rather interesting story in itself) and returned to the US, after being there for about 10 days of the bombing. The NATO attack ravaged the country and the economy, and so for that reason (and some personal and financial reasons), I haven't been able to go back since I left in 1999. Fortunately, it now looks as if things are finally starting to turn around in Yugoslavia. Therefore, I am now in the process of attempting to secure a situation where I can go back and continue living and working (and learning) there. It is not so much that I want to get OUT of the US. This is certainly a nice place to live, but I am really, really drawn TO Serbia for emotional and intellectual reasons. It is where I need to be to continue my life.
Talk about this new DVD and/or "Now We Are 30" CD! What's the lowdown?
Since the band decided in 1994 to cease touring and producing new material, all four of us have moved on to do other interesting things with our lives. The DVD and CD projects are, to me, a nice way to say a proper good-bye to all the people who have been with us over the years. The process of putting the DVD and the CD together was great fun, because it provided a good excuse for the four of us to make time to get together again. I am especially pleased with the end result of these two projects. In my mind, it is certainly much nicer to end on a high note rather than on a Stout Pig.
Are there any directions you would have liked the band to have gone that were vetoed or just never gotten around to?
When it came to the music that we produced, I am pretty happy with what we did. In the band there were no "off limits" areas when it came to songs. If the song was good, we worked on it. If it stayed good, then it got recorded. I have no regrets insofar as the scope or the quality of the songs that we wrote and recorded.
The only regrets I had were:
1. we didn't do videos for "Stuart," "Life is Shit," "Dollar Signs in Her Eyes," and "All
Around the World"
2. there was no tour of Australia
3. we never systematically documented our shows (i.e. dates, places, times, set lists,
other bands on the bill, guest lists, etc)
Did you ever feel like the band wasn't taken seriously enough because of the humorous aspect?
I never worried about that. You can't control how you are perceived, and you are a fool if you waste any energy trying to do so. Vanity will get you nowhere.
Were you pals with the other band members before the band started? If so, did being in the band with them affect the friendships at all? Are you still pals?
I met Joe through my brother, Joe, in 1981. We became friends through writing songs together. I met Rodney a short time afterward, after Joe and I had moved into a house together (to make it easier to work on writing music together). Rodney came around often and the three of us (and our other housemates) had a great time listening to music, drinking beer and annoying the neighbors. Rodney brought us lyrics that he had been working on, which was great because it gave Joe and I even more stuff (in addition to the ones Joe and I had been putting to paper) to turn into songs. Joe and Rodney already knew Dean before he "auditioned" for our band. Frankly I felt like we were auditioning for him, because he had already been in a band that had played in Philly clubs. We were just three guys with attitude, too many ideas, sloppy equipment (Dean had nice drums with professional-looking cases and everything!) and a vague idea how to play our songs. Again, it was a gradual process. We became friends as we became a band. Our friendship evolved as the band evolved. It had its ups and downs, but it was mostly ups for the four of us. We got along well almost all of the time. Hey! We liked each other and we still do. We are all very different, but I think that everybody in the group appreciates that fact because, in reality, that was the strength of our relationship. We all brought different things to the process. Some people might call it synergy. Maybe that's what it is, but it worked well for us right up until the end of the band thing. It never got ugly, although it got a bit strange at times.
I'm told you're an economics wiz. Any idea what might finally end this recession/depression that resulted in me getting laid off six months ago? And do you think they're being honest when they say that employment numbers are going up?
Economics is called "the dismal science" for good reason - nothing good has come of it so far. Economics is often used as an excuse for exploiting the average Joe. "we must have free (not fair, mind you) markets" .. "the efficiency of market mechanisms require sacrifices from all of us (not the rich, just us poor slugs)".. You hear nonsense/double-talk like this tossed out in the press by so-called "leading" economists. While most economists are either failed mathematicians or bloated windbags, there are actually a few good ones. Paul Krugman is a pretty straight shooter. I read his NY Times columns faithfully. You see, I know enough to know that I don't know enough. But there is one thing that I have learned from having studied economics (not answering the question is one thing!) and it is that economics is NOT a science- it is an art. Approach economic advice with that caveat and you'll be fine. So you still want my economic advice? The Bush administration blew it in 2000 when they imposed their first tax cut program. A tax cut was the right move; unfortunately they picked the wrong kind of tax cut. President Blood would have put together a program that gave tax relief to wage earners (not the dividend-collecting, coupon-cashing, good-for-nothing inherited wealth crowd) with incomes below $150k. I would have doubled the earned income tax credit. All this would have likely caused an immediate sharp rise in consumer spending. The increased demand for goods and services would have put pressure on business to produce more.. yada, yadda, yadda. once they chewed down inventories they would have needed to hire on more folks to supply this increased demand for their products. Small and medium-sized businesses have been dorked by the last few administrations. These economic entities supply most of the technological innovation that makes the US a world leader and they also provide the largest share of the jobs generated in our economy each year. Unlike large companies, small and medium enterprises tend to create jobs here in the US. Some small and medium-sized firms do a small bit of outsourcing overseas, but in the great majority of cases when they expand operations, they add jobs domestically. I would put together a package that would help them with their tax situation (i.e. quicker depreciation write-offs on capital equipment, new tax credits for employee healthcare costs, increased tax credits for new capital investment, etc) and with their ability to secure low cost guaranteed loans. To pay for this I would take a long hard look at so-called "corporate welfare" programs with the aim of abolishing any of them that do not pay for themselves or contribute significantly to domestic job growth. I would also jack up the rate on the top income tax bracket by 3%. Additionally, I would fund a massive program to rebuild and expand our infrastructure, including a significant investment in public transportation. Without getting into too much detail, my overall strategy would be to stem the tide of redistribution of income upward (a trend that has been accelerating since the Reagan administration) and replace it with some good old FDR-like redistribution of income downward with the aim of restoring a vibrant middle class (like we had in the 1960's). Putting the largest amount of the wealth of a society in the greatest number of hands produces the largest pool of consumers. Henry Ford had this in mind when he had the outrageous idea of paying his workers high wages. He knew that by creating a large middle class he was also setting into motion the creation of a large market for his product. Would you get your job back? Not right away, but most high-tech firms are precisely the sort of small-to-medium-sized businesses that would benefit from the program that I just outlined. This plan is, of course, not some original idea I cooked up myself, but simply what you would learn from a good basic college course in Macroeconomics and a bit of this and that from articles by folks (like Paul Krugman) I have been reading over the past few years.
What one thing do you want the world to know about Mr. Dave Blood?
I played in a band called the Dead Milkmen, and, strange as it may seem, I AM allergic to dairy products.
Amongst forward-thinking relevant liberals who do not completely and utterly fail to rock, there should now be proclaimed the triumvirate of Jello Biafra, Dave Blood, and Michael Moore (who, I am aware is in no music group, but does like Pearl Jam and early U2 alot, and he kicks lots of neo-conservative ass and therefore rocks).
Anyway, everything Dave said is spot on, and if everyone out there reading the site (both of you) agree with him, you should check out Mr. Moore's book "Dude, Where's My Country?". It may have made me angry enough to register to vote! Or to {the following stamenting is merely satire; I HAVE NO INTENTION OF ACTUALLY DOING WHAT I WILL FURTHER DISCUSS, CIA!!!} just fucking KILL MAIM AND DESTROY that fucking fake-ass fucking Shrubby-Stumpy-Impotent-GODDAMN-Bush-The-Second. Shoot him and every other neo-conservative on the god-damn planet in the skull, including your Nice Uncle Roy who thinks everyone on unemployment is a bum and that fucking faggot-hating talk-show host Rick Savage. Actually I think a hate-monger such as himself might deserve something slower and more painful, more like Hitler's death: burned to death, in a ditch, covered in petrol-fuel. Of course, if I actually tried to do any of this, (WHICH I'M NOT GOING ! TO DO, CIA!!!), I'd be dead-meat. They'd arrest me before I got out of my house, because they're reading Mark's website right not. (Just like everybody else.) But the world might be better off without those kinds of fucks. (If you're wondering how much better it might be, think "all of the freedoms and cool shit about Canada {soft drugs without fear of life in prison, gay marriage, universal health care} but not quite as cold".)
It's always REALLY sad whenever you hear about anybody committing suicide because like you so eloquintly said:
"we'll all be dead in a hundred years anyway, so what's the hurry?"
...but I've one question that doesn't seemed to be answered... nobody has said HOW Dave did himself in?
2nd hand smoke? Over-eating? C'mon, somebody tell us the whole story.
Our universe has lost a great spirit. Sad, really sad. RIP Dave.
: (
I wish I had known about them sooner. Being all the way on the west coast, they didn't get out here very often. I think I saw them 3 or 4 times. I remember one show Possum Dixon (anyone remember them?) was opening for them and I was driving back from a basketball game. I had tried to buy advance tickets but they weren''t selling any. I sped back after the game in another city and by the time I got there it was sold out. The tickets had only been five dollars. I tried to get the guy on the door to let me in. I even tried to bribe him with fifty bucks. I finally left because I didn't want to get him into trouble. It really sucked missing that show.
I will now travel over to Serbia in the next year just on his say so. I live in Europe so it's easy enough but I still plan to make it to Philadelphia just to see what soup made The Dead Milkmen! Tourism advise from The Dead Milkmen what a strange world I have grown up in.
Dave Blood the only Dead Milkman so does that really make him Double Dead Milkman or Live Milkman (2 negatives make a positive!). There could be a comic book character out of that!
There will never be another Dave Blood.
Their music played an important part during my formitable teenage years. While my other friends were off listening to heavy metal and hardcore rap. I actually first came across the Dead Milkmen when I found "Big Lizard in my Backyard" at the local library and checked it out along with a couple of books. (Gotta love those tax dollars at work).
Anyhow, I was hooked and over time on worked my way back listening to their music and digging the sarcastic lyrics and groovy guitar licks that make up their music. I liked the fact they made their music the way they wanted to regardless of what others may have thought, or if it sold 10 million copies.
It convinced me to do what I wanted to do the way I wanted to do it at a time in my life when teachers and other assorted adults were filling my head with what they thought I should do. Four guys singing about "Taking Retards to the Zoo" and some strange guy named "Stuart"? Heck, if they could make a living doing that then I will chase my dreams and do what I want.
I often listen to my old CD's just to kind of go back and recapture that feeling that I had when I first came across the Dead Milkmen and to remind myself not to take life to seriously. I think I will listen one for time just for Dave. You had a good run while you were here. I hope it's better where you are. Thanks for everything.
-thanks for your article Mark
don't know you, but i do hope you are well
I enjoy your writing, may you find solace in your travels.
