So Long, David Mills

I was thrilled to see the back cover of the New Yorker advertising the upcoming HBO show Treme but quickly sobered by the news that David Mills died yesterday.

Treme is David Simon's followup to The Wire and David Mills was a longtime writing collaborator with Simon and a prolific blogger on music, culture and politics. It will take years still for me to catch up on all the information in his Undercover Black Man blogspot, where he devoted a lot of space to streaming rare and interesting music.


I probably first heard David Mills' name on a Wire audio commentary track, but I eventually had the privilege of exchanging a few emails with him about our shared interests in writing, poker and Funkadelic. In one correspondence he told me about a journey to Eddie Hazel's funeral, where he broke down sobbing in reaction to Hazel's mother "wailing 'that's my baby's music'" when they played the original "Maggot Brain" during the service. In another email, David mentioned that one of the first things he did with his "Hollywood money" was buy some original artwork from Pedro Bell.

So long, David, and thanks.