Now why did Morphine's frontman have to go and die?

July 3, so sayeth the wikipedia.

oh nm, i think i know what you're trying to say.

20 years.

they were touring with Soul Coughing at the time right? there's got to be an alternate universe where Doughty overdosed and Sandman got healthy

That's rather grim.

His band Treat Her Right had a semi-hit, I Think She Likes Me, which used to be played often on New York FM radio.

yeah how about no ods?

maybe this is silly but ... just finished the new twin peaks and got damn they would have been a good roadhouse band

also, relevantly, there’s no evidence he actually od’d

I liked Morphine just fine but even at the time it felt like they had two basic songs, the quiet slow burner and the churning, menacing uptempo one. Mind you that is kind of Lynch’s wheelhouse so they would have been a good fit.

I saw them with Soul Coughing’s “funky” drummer as a sub and it was not good

most bands don't have one good song

they just had a really appealing sound, sonically just a very cool atmosphere

I think they’d be a better musical fit for Tarantino/Rodriguez than Lynch.

Rip

I feel like "Yes" was a better album than "Cure for Pain" ... anyway ... I listen to both on the regular.

they just had a really appealing sound, sonically just a very cool atmosphere

― Blues Guitar Solo Heatmap (Free Download) (upper mississippi sh@kedown), Wednesday, July 3, 2019 5:11 PM (yesterday)

Yeah! ... that's a good way to describe it, esp. on songs like Supersex and Free Love

I never saw them be less than great live. In fact, I loved the tour they did without him behind the final album, that was great too.

On Cure for Pain, Fort Apache (production place right?) achieved a perfect slightly overdriven tone for the sax. Love the harmonies on the “shiela” solo for example

The album sounds great.

Several years ago a band I was in played Minneapolis. Grant Hart and Mark Sandman were just hanging around - separately - and I thought that was so cool.

several years ago?

Many?

20?

The band in heaven ?

I think they’d be a better musical fit for Tarantino/Rodriguez than Lynch

House band for a 80s Jarmusch joint

That's rather grim.

well, yeah. Doughty talks about it a bit in his autobiography - seeing what happened to Sandman basically laid his fate out before him

morphine was one of the first bands i discovered through the internet (i can't remember the mp3 blog, but it was the title track of "the night").

i've never seen images of sandman or the rest of morphine, but i'm fine with the version i have in my head - the smoky, 2 beers deep atmosphere

That's a good question, I have no idea how I first heard the band. I know I didn't hear "Good" when it came out, but I certainly owned and listened to a lot of "Cure for Pain." But I have no idea how I was introduced to the band. It could be as simple as Ryko having a strong roster at the time and me just checking it out.

The OG CfP CD in the emerald green Ryko case was a thing of beauty , sonically and aesthetically

i listened to them first on bernard lenoir's radio show on france inter.

honestly surprised at the outpouring of appreciation for this band from ilxors, would not have predicted that

I first heard them when they played at my college in ‘93 or ‘94. They then became the first band I ever attempted to contact via the Internet (email).

I have no idea how I first heard the band.

I heard/played "Honey White" on the radio when it was a hit in 1994? 1995?

they were all over indie radio when I was in college

oh duh, they had songs on the Spanking the Monkey soundtrack! That might have been my first awareness

I discovered them via the liner notes on a dEUS album.

"Cure For Pain" was prominently featured on an episode of Homicide.

Heard them on the long forgotten about Volume CD magazine, I think it was a version of Sharks Patrol These Waters, then picked up Yes a little later and that got me into them, saw them a couple of times in London, still love 'em greatly.

Nobody else has mentioned Thursday yet, so. Fun little noir mini-story.

been thinking of them a lot, too, given my newfound obsession with Bohren & der Club of Gore.

was very deep into them the first year of college (2003-2004) and then let it drop off. i remember hearing "Honey White" on one of the CDs that came with CMJ back in the day, the April 1995 issue. blew my mind, of course, but had a hard time following up on it cuz i was only ten (yes, i was precocious). then i got into punk in 96 and all the indie stuff faded until i was in high school.

Not really, just the sad story of a cuck

i forgot about the double-sax-blowing

love this song so much
https://youtu.be/P9DsKatCiSM

I think it was a version of Sharks Patrol These Waters

Volume even named a best-of compilation after it!

https://www.discogs.com/Various-Sharks-Patrol-These-Waters-The-Best-Of-Volume-Part-2/release/590105

I found rips of all the Volumes on Slsk a year or so ago, a pretty formidable mapping of nineties music overall (and a lot of shite inevitably)

I loved Volume, and especially Trans Europe Express, the electronic-only sister magazine. The Volumes mostly just sit on the shelf these days tbh but I dig out some of the TEXes from time to time and they still mostly sound fresh - well, to my old ears, anyway. They got me into a lot of stuff. Didn't know the founder died in 2007, RIP.

And RIP Mark Sandman and Morphine too. I know "Cure For Pain" is the agreed classic but "Yes" was my first and I still love it the most.

I see on discogs there was a 2xLP reissue last year on Run Out Groove with bonus tracks; don't buy much vinyl these days but might have to make an exception for that. Anyone heard it? How does it sound and is the bonus stuff worth it?

to atone for my fairly stupid post upthread, this is a good read for fans

https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2019/07/how-the-internet-kept-my-favorite-musician-alive-20-years-later/

Wish Sandman had gone on to write a whole album like "Rope on Fire". Lots of unrealized rhythmic, melodic, thematic possibilities. He usually wrote cinematic noirs and thrillers, but it's a classic heist. Us against the world, with a paranoid doublecross or two.

First heard them on the Indiegestion sampler CD that came with my first ever issue of Alt Press, (#65 with MLWTTKK/Mazzy Star on the cover, ah, those days).

https://imgur.com/KI305FA

Got into a few bands from that but Morphine always felt like "my" band. Amid all those earnest, soul searching (and bong hoovering) nights of college radio, Tower Records, and venue crawling, they were so much of the soundtrack. I'm sure I used their music, their vibe, Sandman's presence, to cultivate an identity (to an embarrassing degree) but, as is usually the case with art we connect with, it felt like something that had already been inside me waiting to be lured out and articulated by, you know, skilled professionals. Like that Saliere line in Amadeus about Mozart's music sounding so pure and inevitable. That was Morphine for me (and no doubt for most of this thread).

No real anecdotes about them. I couldn't listen to their music for several years after Sandman died, and I'm not totally sure why. I remember eating french fries with pepper on the day he died, and then there was no Morphine for a long, long time. Weird. Been on a kick of theirs these last few weeks. Having to re-buy all their CDs because mine, either from the type of material used in their manufacture, or, more likely, because they spent most of their lifetimes slid behind the sun visor in my '92 Tercel for easy access, had the booklets melted and fused to the surface of the CDs.

I did see them once. Thank god. My favorite club in the universe, r.i.p. The Masquerade in Atlanta, a converted mill that smelled like clove cigarettes and had three levels -- Heaven, Purgatory, and Hell, the topmost of which had a floor that felt to be made of particle board and was ready to shake right from the walls and tumble into the underworld. I remember seeing a camera on a long mechanical arm swinging over the crowd, but this being 1996, it took like two decades for me to finally see the result. Ta-da.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xXOhnkRa3N0

The audio of the whole set is on YT if you search "Morphine Atlanta." Again, no stories of that night, because ... there wasn't much to it. Of course it felt transcendent to see the band whose music was encoded into my DNA. But it wasn't eventful apart from that. A very usual 90s sort of experience: me and a friend sat in my car passing a forty and a bowl in a Burger King parking lot, drove down the street to the club, saw Morphine, went home on a cloud.

Oh and yes, they did play in Heaven.

apparently I forgot how to use imgur, anyway here's the scan of that sampler CD via it discogs page

https://i.imgur.com/jbwUn7t.jpg

I fear I may have lost mine in a move; used to have a few. Sigh.

via its* and I'm done for this night

I'm sure I used their music, their vibe, Sandman's presence, to cultivate an identity (to an embarrassing degree) but, as is usually the case with art we connect with, it felt like something that had already been inside me waiting to be lured out and articulated by, you know, skilled professionals.

I love this band and at the time they encapsulated some 90's romanticization/commercialization of the 50's bohemian lifestyle and impetus.

Cool sampler!

Lilys, Morphine & The Nightblooms all definitely my favorites on there

First heard them on the Indiegestion sampler CD that came with my first ever issue of Alt Press, (#65 with MLWTTKK/Mazzy Star on the cover, ah, those days).

They were recommended to me by my 6th grade English teacher!