Musical Morphine Strange Facts

There was a band called Morphine that existed almost solely within the 90's decade (from '89-'99) lead by a chap named Mark Sandman. They were a power trio, but not in the typical rock and roll guitar-bass-drums fashion. Think more altered bass-sax-drums. I say 'altered' because leader Mark Sandman would often play a two stringed electric bass, even so with a slide.  Morphine members would dabble with some other instruments such as banjos or dobros, organs and piano, usually dubbed over for color on studio albums. The music as they liked to call it was 'low rock'...as in 'low down, groovy, dirty yet smooth, funky, jazzy.' That kinda thing. The more bland term is alternative rock. Either way, their sound was unique. Now here are some interesting further facts:

• Mark Sandman has once quoted: "The word 'Morphine' comes from the word 'Morpheus,' who is the god of dreams, and that kind appealed to us as a concept...I've heard there's a drug called 'morphine' but that's not where we're coming from...we were dreaming, Morpheus comes into our dreams...and we woke up and started this band...we're all wrapped up in these dream messages, and we were compelled to start this band." Interestingly enough, in some popular folklore, the 'Sandman' is the one who brings us to the realm of sleep and dreams, sharing the connection with Morpheus. 

The Sandman of folklore, not to be confused with the Spiderman villain, but sharing some definite characteristics with Metallica's 'Enter Sandman', Neil Gaiman's Sandman, and of course Mark Sandman!

• Saxophonist Dana Colley would usually play tenor or baritone sax (sometimes bass sax!) and sometimes even play two saxes at once!

• Mark Sandman experimented with some other homemade instrument combos aside from just a 2 stringed electric bass. Sometimes he'd use one bass string and/or add a guitar string or two to make weird bass/guitar combo instruments such as the 'bassitar', 'tritar', or 'guitbass'. The band 'Presidents of the U.S.A.' were known to use these weird hybrids and consequently were friends with Morphine!

• Les Claypool of Primus is also an admirer of Sandman and Morphine, and he is a pretty experimental bassist himself.

•  Sandman had his own home built recording studio called Hi-N-Dry, which Morphine adopted as their sort of HQ. Hi-N-Dry still exists as a sort of studio/label rolled into one, dedicated to releasing output from local Boston area independent musicians (the area is Morphine's home so to speak). 

• Morphine had great impact on many and a fair bit of success, but Sandman's life in particular was marred by tragedy. He worked a bunch of blue collar jobs before music, one of them being cabbie. He stabbed in the chest by a robber during this time, but survived. Two of his brothers died in other incidents. When he was just 46 he died of a heart attack in Italy while performing. It is said is was a combination of stress, cigarettes and heat that did him in. R.I.P. Sandman!       

• This is no official band statement or anything, just something I noticed. It appears all Morphine albums follow a sort of 'elemental' sequence of earth, air, fire, water, and void/ether/other: