What We're Missing

Remembering Dave Blood of The Dead Milkmen.

by Patrick Rapa | Photo by Andrew Chalfen

In some ways, we know exactly what we lost when Dave Schulthise took his own life last week. Dave Blood, as we knew him, played bass with The Dead Milkmen. He performed with a smile and a punker’s dedication, whether it was on a tiny stage in the back of Abe’s Steaks or at the Troc for the final show in 1994. After The Dead Milkmen split up, few fans knew he’d gone to live in Serbia for a while, that he’d longed to go back there, that intensely painful tendonitis forced him to give up the bass for good. Although he was an accessible man in an accessible band, few of us had the chance to know him personally.

"If there is one thing I'd like people to know about Dave it's that he was brilliant," says Dead Milkmen lead singer Rodney Anonymous. "He had a gifted mind for economics and was incredibly well-read. He didn't speak very often, but, when he did, you'd wish he'd talk forever. He was that interesting."

"He was a real prankster, too," says Jon Wurster, the Superchunk drummer immortalized in the DM song "Stuart." When a Milkmen video shoot called for one of the guys to ham it up in drag, Schulthise always got the job. "He was never self-conscious at all," says Wurster. "He seemed like an old soul to me, looking back at it that way."

"Seems like yesterday I was holding his Peavey bass amp at some big frat house," recalls Wurster, who says Schulthise and the band showed the friendly side of punk by taking a kid like him under its wing. "The crowd was getting completely insane and I had to sit behind his amp the whole show to keep it from getting knocked over."

"Dave was totally unpretentious, and filled with enthusiasm and encouragement for anyone who was trying to have fun playing punk rock," recalls Art Difuria of Photon Band. "I was just this scared kid in a new band, and we played a show out in West Philly. I thought we'd be eaten alive, but instead, at the end of the set, there's this skinny little dude bounding up to the stage to ask if I wanted to play a show with his band. I was like, "Sure, what's your band's name?' He said, "The Dead Milkmen.' I couldn't believe that one of the guys in the biggest band in Philly was also the nicest guy I had met so far."

"His passing leaves a huge gap in the lives of everyone who knew him," says Anonymous. "He survived the NATO bombing of Bosnia, 10 years on the road in a punk-rock band and a New Year's Eve where he and I were forced to watch Yes, Giorgio. His wit and genuine goodness helped him dodge the sadness of this world for many years before it finally caught up with him."