While I was still a gigging musician, in bands, dreaming of being semi-pro, I often thought that if I had to die early, I wanted to die like Mark Sandman did. I imagine it was uncomfortable having a heart attack on stage (as unpleasant as death can possibly be when it snatches you in that moment), but I could think of no more fitting place to have my last moment in front of a crowd. I romanticized it, but to an extent, that was Morphine — a band whose name completely matched its sound; languid, druggy, and in a haze of beat-style poetry.
Mark Sandman somehow decided stringing a bass guitar with two strings, playing it with a slide, and having Dana Colley’s sax and Billy Conway’s beats be the sole accompaniment was the way to go, labeling it “low rock”, when I would dare say it’s a logical extension of the Doors, only more coherent and without the pretension: capturing the space where the blues, jazz, and rock meet. Conway took the baton from original drummer Jerome Deupree, and expanded the tom-tom heavy sound. Colley had been a guitar player as a kid, but took up the sax in order to get a place on the bandstand, and in order to replicate some of the double-tracked tenor and baritone sax on the records, would do his best Rashaan Roland Kirk imitation on-stage.
As someone learning how to play jazz guitar in school, I was always told to listen to horn players — Dana Colley’s sax sound was a perfect way to start learning the transposition process before tackling players like Miles, Coltrane, Sonny Rollins, and other greats — it was the bridge to learning how to phrase, to imitate the horn, and by extension, the human breath, with my fingers.
An absolutely fierce live act (see Bootleg: Detroit for proof), Sandman, Colley, and Conway became aware of the limitations of their trio on record after recording Cure for Pain and Yes, and as soon as they were snapped up in major label land, they sought to find the ground between expanding the template and veering off the cliff — Sandman would add synths, guitars, and other elements on Like Swimming in order to find where the core trio were to go next, while the band’s basic sound never wavered. This is an admirable feat in and of itself. Whether due to novel instrumentation or dedication to the groove, the band is recognizable in its most stripped-down, simple songs (“You Look Like Rain”, from Good) all the way up to their most layered works (“Murder for the Money”).
Then, Mark Sandman had to leave this mortal coil on stage in Rome, leaving us with The Night, and a sad reminder with every track of just how far the sound could go with songs like the title track, “Souvenir”, and “Take Me With You.”
While Conway and Colley went on to make fine music with the Twinemen (and original drummer Jerome Deupree took his style to Bourbon Princess, whose leader Monique Ortiz owed a lot to Sandman), something was still missing, and many of the fans who saw the alternate path that alt-rock could take (as opposed to the self-pity of the passe Cobain imitators that ruled in the mid-90s) still lament his loss.
Three videos this time: “Buena,” “Super Sex,” and “Shame.”
Filed under: Vinyl Fetish, music | Tagged: Morphine
I missed a lot of my favorite bands in the ’90s. I never got to see Soundgarden, and I never got to see Kyuss (the latter because I hadn’t even heard of them until after they’d broken up) but I did get to see Morphine, in Austin, during the tour for Like Swimming.
It was easily in the top five of the best shows I’ve ever attended, and hearing Dana Colley play power chords on two saxophones was an experience unlike any other show I’ve seen before or since. And Billy Conway was sweating buckets on stage. Seriously — the guy was drenched.
Mark Sandman warned the crowd after sixty or seventy minutes, “If you’ve seen us before, then you know…we play a short set, but we do a lot of encores. So, goodnight, everybody!” and gave a wicked grin. They proceeded to return to the stage four or five times, adding another half-hour, forty minutes to the show — and soliciting roars of applause to bring them back out every single time. Pretty slick showmanship, I’ve always thought.
Their faster-paced tunes are generally the ones I prefer, like “Sharks” and “You Speak My Language” and “Mary Won’t You Call My Name?” but my actual favorite Morphine tune is a slow one: “Candy”, off Cure For Pain. Not sure why, but something about it has always grabbed me. Probably the vocals, where Sandman is at his honey-sweetest.
One of the greatest bands out there, and nobody I’ve heard since really does it quite like them. There are times when I get a bit of the same vibe from listening to the old Soul Coughing records (now there would’ve been an awesome double-bill!) but Mike Doughty’s a little more earnest and intellectual. Morphine was all about playing it cool, cool, cool. Which also makes it some of the best “gettin’ it on” music this side of Barry White. :)
— Ajax.
Morphine is the best band to come out of Boston in the 80’s/90’s. (Yeah, you heard me Bosstones.) I’ve longed for the song “Whisper” to be used in the darkest David Lynch-ian short for ages.
Really awesome personal perspective on Morphine.
EabZ0M comment1 ,
WHAT A LOSS / WHAT WE GAIN WHEN ARTISTS GIVE THERE SOUL TO THE MASSES IM FOREVER THANKFUL FOR THE SOUL OF MARK SANDMAN AS WELL AS THE REST OF THE MORPHINE TRIO. TO DIE DOING WHAT YOU WERE PUT HERE TO DO WOW!!!!!!!
IT MUST BE LIKE SWIMMING!
RAISE HELL AND THE BLUES IN THE AFTER LIFE
MR.SANDMAN
THANKS DONALD