#Mark Sandman
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That's the Day I Throw my Drugs Away
The Morphine album Cure for Pain came out 30 years ago, on September 14, 1993. A few years back, I was on this music review mailing list, where each member had to take a turn writing about an album of great importance to them. This was mine.
Ever since I was a kid, cities always held a fascination for me. I was not well-traveled, growing up in the middle of Michigan. The idea of being in some cosmopolitan, dense, East Coast metropolis was amazing to me, yet it took until well into college to even head out there, for a college television conference in Providence in 1996. We made the drive from Michigan State University, cut across Canada in the dead of night to spend a day in Boston, then head down to Providence in rush hour traffic. Checked into the hotel and one of the people in our group asked who was playing in town. Morphine at Lupo’s Heartbreak Hotel. A friend said we absolutely had to go, as the band was amazing. I’d never heard of them, but went along because, hey, a concert in an actual, real city and everything, you know?
A loud club with cheap beer. Lots of people crowded in. The band came on. It was one of those weird things you always remember. These guys were on stage- not young, one of them playing a bass with only two strings? The one guy playing two saxes at once? The lead singer going into some beat poetry? What was this? I’d never seen or heard anything like it. My mind exploded. The band, the crowd, everything was in sync. Leaving the club, being downtown in an old, established city- the whole weekend of experiencing something I’d built up for so long … it just cemented that I needed to be in a place like that. I needed to live somewhere with history, vitality.
We got back to East Lansing and one of the first things I did that week was go to Flat, Black and Circular (still one of the best record shops I’ve ever been lucky enough to shop) and pick up Cure for Pain. It wasn’t even the album they were touring for (Like Swimming). I think Cure for Pain was the first one I saw in the rack? But it grabbed me and entranced me and hooked me for life. I listened and listened and listened. This incredible, smooth, wonderful mix of I don’t know what- jazz? Rock? Stories of cheating and sleaziness and sadness and loss and regret?
It’s just a wonderful thing to just discover a band you had no idea existed and instantly be taken with them. To feel that connection you never knew was there and somehow know you’ll be listening to them for a good, long while. It’s almost like falling in love with someone, you know?
I just always associate the album with that time and it’s all smashed together in my head, making that absolutely certain decision that, someway, somehow, I was going to live on the East Coast, in an honest-to-god city where I could go to places like Lupo’s and see bands like Morphine for the first time.
Now, I live in Philadelphia and never go to shows!
Though the odd, strange miracle of the internet, I’m able to hear a bootleg of that very night, knowing that 21-year-old RJ is in that crowd somewhere, just happy and dumbfounded by what he is hearing and utterly enjoying being in that moment.
I don’t know if I can hear myself in there, though. That might be too strange, like thinking of the dead people in the repeated laugh tracks of old sitcoms.
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But, the record! Just a pleasure to listen to, front to back.
“Dawna” and “Buena” kicking it off… “I’m Free Now” as a sad, incredible post-breakup song where you feel like that terrible jerk who’s made a bad mistake (I'm free now to direct a movie/Sing a song or write a book about yours truly/How I'm so interesting I'm so great I'm really just a fuck-up/And It's such a waste to burn down these walls around me)... That delicate mandolin of “In Spite of Me”... The barrelling train of “Mary Won’t You Call My Name”... That jazzy, smoky rambling of “Let’s Take a Trip Together”... “Thursday” is almost a short film, with the wenching title track slamming you right after… all of it...
July 3 will mark the anniversary of Morphine frontman Mark Sandman’s death from a heart attack in the midst of a 1999 concert in Europe. If you could throw this (or anything from their wonderful catalog, really) on, I think that would be nice.
Anyway, that's why I love this 30-year-old record and this band. Listen to it wherever you can, it's a hell of a beautiful thing.
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I'm pretty sure this sound is playing at the gates of heaven
#morphine#morphine band#super sex#yes#1995#1990s#90s#low rock#fuck rock#Mark Sandman#Dana Colley#Jerome Deupree#Billy Conway#sax
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Morphine live @ Cultural Center, Charleston, West Virginia, Sep 1993
01 A Head With Wings
02 You Look Like Rain
03 Buena
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Sandman & Strummer
Reissues out now!
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Just one of those songs that clicks right away. Mark Sandman sings.
SONG OF THE DAY- January 22, 2023
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ok. one more morphine song. something about this recording with the chatter of the audience and the intimacy of the small venue – makes me feel as if i was there. and the song is touching
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Morphine ~ Let's Take a Trip Together
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She'd told me things about her life
She'd never told me she was someone's wife
The man with the gun says "Why'd you buy her a drink?"
I said "I think she likes me that's what I think"
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"Patience" by Mark Sandman
It was a journey to get to this song, but I'm glad that I did! I'll cut to the chase and link to the song before rambling about it.
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If you've heard of the indie rock band Morphine, you've heard Mark Sandman. He was the lead vocalist and songwriter who died far too young. As I learned a little while ago, Sandman died in 1999 from a heart attack while performing.
Radio Paradise played "Hombre" off of "Sandbox," a retrospective collection of Sandman's work, neither of which I'd known existed. Although "Hombre" is good if not my cup of tea, I decided to try other songs on the album. I'm glad I did!
"Patience" is upbeat and catchy with ironic lyrics. The song features Sandman's bass vocals, the baritone saxophone that Morphine is known for, and--are you ready for this?--mandolins.
It's weird but it works.
Apparently Sandman was a creative genius. I say this based on his music and what I read on his wikipedia page.
EDITED TO ADD: The "Sandbox" album is incredible. Recommended!
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#mark sandman#morphine#morphine band#90s#90s music#low rock#alternative rock#alternative#cure for pain#Spotify
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al things considered — when i post my masterpiece #1274
first posted in facebook february 24, 2024
shantel miller -- "lukewarm" (2019)
"experiencing a work of art is like meeting someone new. you're not going to know everything about them at first, with each encounter more information will be revealed to you" … shantel miller
"miller creates uncanny, color-saturated scenes of close-cropped intimacy, exquisitely framed and fragmented by interior architecture and the canvas’s edges. her paintings, layered with symbolism, are marked by intense absences, connections, and exploration of identity formed by faith traditions and black feminism" … daniel byers
"lying in a bathtub, holding to the sides
frozen in the steam and everything to hide
deep in the bathtub, make it good and hot
make it hot enough to wash everything off" … mark sandman
"i've been trying to reach you" … shantel miller
"(reach out) come on, girl, reach on out for me
(reach out) reach out for me
hah, i'll be there with a love that will shelter you
i'll be there with a love that will see you through" … eddie holland
"now can you please just hand me that towel?" … al janik
#shantel miller#lukewarm#meeting someone new#daniel byers#interior architecture#black feminism#mark sandman#bathtub#reach out i'll be there#the four tops#eddie holland#towel#shower#al things considered
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Odie playing some jazz rock music with his woman Candi
#fanart#garfield#odie#oc x canon#anthro art#anthro#moogle#vaporeon#hybrid#mark sandman#Morphine#Spotify
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Today my liner notes written for Light in the Attic's vinyl reissues of two classic Morphine LPs are available to read online. They are meant to be read together, in order, like so:
Like Swimming: https://bit.ly/3UloG8T
The Night; https://bit.ly/42rmYoK
I'm also making this Patreon post public where you can read a short thing I wrote that we didn't have room for in the packages. This is "The Night I Met Mark Sandman"
I hope you enjoy them.
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