Mark Sandman

Indie rock musician, lead singer for band Morphine

Mark Sandman (September 24, 1952 – July 3, 1999) was an American singer, songwriter, musical instrument inventor, multi instrumentalist and comic writer. Sandman possessed a distinctive, deep bass baritone voice and a mysterious demeanour. He was an indie rock icon and longtime fixture in the Boston/Cambridge music scene, best known as the lead singer and slide bass player of the band Morphine. Sandman was also a member of the blues rock band Treat Her Right and founder of Hi n Dry, a recording studio and independent record label. On July 3, 1999, he suffered a heart attack during a concert in Italy and died instantly. He was highly regarded by many other bass players for his unique "slow and murky" style, with Les Claypool, Mike Watt, and Josh Homme all citing Sandman as an influence.

Mark Sandman was born into a Jewish American family in Newton, Massachusetts. He graduated from the University of Massachusetts, then worked a variety of blue collar jobs, including construction, taxi driving, and commercial fishing. Sandman once noted he would often earn considerable overtime pay, which allowed him to take leave of work and travel outside of New England to places such as rural Colorado—the setting for a number of Treat Her Right and Morphine songs penned by Sandman, including "Thursday," "The Jury," and "I Think She Likes Me." Two tragic events affected Sandman's life and would later influence his music: he was robbed and stabbed in the chest during a robbery in his cab, and his two brothers died. These events would later be recounted in the Treat Her Right song "No Reason." His mother, Guitelle Sandman, later self published Four Minus Three: A Mother's Story, a book about the loss of her three sons. Few details are publicly known about Sandman's personal life. Fans have often speculated that many of Sandman's songs were autobiographical, which to this day remains unconfirmed. Although Sandman served as an unofficial spokesman for Morphine, he avoided answering questions about his personal life or his professional experiences outside of the music business. Sandman was reported to have been particularly secretive about his age, becoming angry with any reporter who expressed an interest in revealing it publicly, perhaps because he was 10 to 20 years older than most of his indie rock contemporaries. As a lyricist, Sandman was influenced by pulp fiction writer Jim Thompson, crime writer James Ellroy, and Beat poet/novelist Jack Kerouac. During Morphine's active years, the band released five albums and one B sides compilation. They toured extensively, both domestically and internationally, and became the second act signed to Dreamworks Records. During the 1990s, Sandman continued to expand his Cambridge based home recording studio with second hand instruments and equipment, calling the studio Hi n Dry. Hi n Dry became Morphine's unofficial home and they recorded many of their signature tracks using Sandman's unique homegrown production methods.

In addition to his work as a musician, Sandman was also an amateur photographer and artist. He created a comic titled The Twinemen, starring three anthropomorphic balls of twine who form a band, become successful, break up, and later reunite. The Twinemen comic also showcased Sandman's signature technique of combining a simple pen or pencil drawing with watercolor paints. Sandman's art and photographs were showcased on the official Morphine website and later featured in a DVD released with the Sandbox box set. Colley, Treat Her Right and Morphine drummer Billy Conway, and singer Laurie Sargent would later adopt the Twinemen moniker for their own band as an homage to Sandman.

Sandman collapsed on stage on July 3, 1999, at the Giardini del Principe in Palestrina, Lazio, Italy while performing with Morphine. His death, at the age of 46, was the result of a heart attack. His death has been attributed to heavy stress and the temperature of over on the night of his death. Unreliable source: date=September 2021 Morphine disbanded following his death, although the surviving members briefly toured with other musicians as Orchestra Morphine, a tribute to Sandman and in support of the posthumous release, The Night. Following Sandman's death, Hi n Dry became a commercial record label and studio, dedicated to recording and releasing work by Boston area artists. The label and studio is managed by Sandman's former Morphine bandmate Dana Colley and, until his death in 2021, Billy Conway. Hi n Dry issued a retrospective box set of Sandman's music called Sandbox in 2004. Another four disc Morphine box set has been compiled but has not been released due to the sale of former Morphine label, Rykodisc, to Warner Brothers. In 2009, Colley, Deupree, and Boston musician Jeremy Lyons formed the group Vapors of Morphine. The band regularly performs in Boston and New Orleans.

"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."