It\u2019s early 1998, and at Fort Apache recording studio in Massachusetts, Mark Sandman, the suave frontman of Morphine, is nearing breaking point. Morphine\u2019s four enigmatic and blackly humorous albums have won critical acclaim and, lately, unexpected commercial success considering their uncompromising creative vision. After the excesses of grunge, Sandman considered their idiosyncratic blend of sophisticated storytelling, prowling slide-bass and Dana Colley\u2019s atmospheric saxophone a kind of \u201cpalate cleanser\u201d.<\/p>\n
In 1997 Morphine had signed to DreamWorks Records, founded by industry bigwigs David Geffen and Mo Ostin. Now, working on Morphine\u2019s first LP for his new paymasters \u2013 a batch of songs finally seeing release almost three decades later \u2013 Sandman was consumed by doubt over their direction. \u201cFor the first time, Morphine were trying to please someone other than just ourselves,\u201d remembers Colley.<\/p>\n
Rootsy \u2026 The pre-Morphine band Treat Her Right in 1989, from left: Jim Fitting, Dave Champagne, Billy Conway and Mark Sandman. Photograph: Jim Steinfeldt\/Getty Images<\/p>\n
\u201cDreamWorks wanted to make the \u2018big Morphine record\u2019,\u201d says Paul Q Kolderie, who had produced all of Morphine\u2019s albums and was overseeing the sessions. \u201cBut the label didn\u2019t know what they wanted. And Mark didn\u2019t know what he wanted. He wasn\u2019t happy.\u201d<\/p>\n
The pressure built until DreamWorks ho-hummed over the latest demos, and Sandman had \u201ca particularly bad fight\u201d with Kolderie, ditching the producer and Fort Apache. Soon, he would write and self-produce a whole new batch of songs, later released as Morphine\u2019s fifth album, The Night. But by the time it hit the shelves in February 2000, Sandman was dead.<\/p>\n
Though only 46 when he died, Sandman was \u201ca guy who lived nine lives\u201d, says Kolderie. \u201cThis was not his first go-round \u2013 he was an old soul.\u201d His partner, Sabine Hrechdakian, says Sandman \u201cwas not someone who liked to dwell on the past\u201d. No Reason<\/a>, a 1989 track by his rootsy pre-Morphine vehicle Treat Her Right, saw him indulge in uncharacteristic autobiography. Describing foundational real-life losses and near-death experiences, Sandman concluded: \u201cThere\u2019s no reason in this life \/ someone lives and someone dies.\u201d<\/p>\n A rebel \u2026 Sandman live in 1994. Photograph: Marie Le Mauf<\/p>\n Raised in a middle-class home in Massachusetts, Sandman was a rebel whose parents were \u201clovely people, but they just didn\u2019t understand their bohemian, rule-breaking son\u201d, says Hrechdakian. At 18 he left for Alaska where he worked as a fisher. His travels ended after an early brush with death: having contracted kidney-damaging intestinal problems, Sandman flew home for urgent treatment and recuperation.<\/p>\n He returned at a dark time for his family. His youngest brother Roger, who had cerebral palsy, had died in 1978; 16 months later, his brother Jon died after falling from a window at a party. Sandman was distraught, and while he would rarely discuss it, Hrechdakian says these losses acted as \u201ca call to action, to live the life he wanted and pursue it with determination. Mark knew how temporary life was.\u201d<\/p>\n double quotation markMy theory is, somewhere inside he knew he was not well<\/p>\n Kolderie met Sandman in the early 80s, on Boston\u2019s music scene. \u201cMark had a great time. He was completely nocturnal \u2013 all he wanted was to hang out and make music with friends.\u201d Sandman also worked in construction and catering, and drove a cab, until \u2013 in another near-death experience \u2013 he was stabbed in the chest by muggers and left for dead.<\/p>\n His next close shave set Morphine in motion. Treat Her Right were splitting up, Sandman having realised he needed to \u201cbe the leader and have a band that followed his vision\u201d, Kolderie says. As Sandman drove home after a farewell show, a car crashed into his Chevrolet Corvair. He ended up in hospital but won a $20,000 settlement and quit work to focus on his next project. \u201cHis material suddenly got much better,\u201d says Kolderie, \u201cmarrying introspective, thoughtful songwriting to these cool grooves.\u201d<\/p>\n Colley had befriended Sandman when his previous band supported Treat Her Right. \u201cMark invited me to his loft because he had this one-string bass he\u2019d been working with,\u201d says Colley. \u201cWe jammed, and it was like a lightbulb went on for Mark. We got a drummer, Jerome Deupree, and immediately started recording Morphine\u2019s debut album.\u201d<\/p>\n Ineffable cool \u2026 Morphine\u2019s Sandman (left), Conway and Colley (right) in 1995. Photograph: Bob Berg\/Getty Images<\/p>\n Morphine arrived fully formed on their debut, 1992\u2019s Good, calling their sound \u201clow rock\u201d. Sandman\u2019s murmured voice injected his beat poetics, noirish intrigue and blackly comedic stories with ineffable cool. It seduced everyone who heard it \u2013 like Rykodisc president Don Rose, who signed Morphine for their second album, 1993\u2019s Cure for Pain. After their debut appearance on Late Night with Conan O\u2019Brien<\/a>, Colley says, \u201cevery show we played sold out, until our very last gig,\u201d while Morphine\u2019s music added sulphurous mystery to movies including Get Shorty and Wild Things, plus an early episode of Sex and the City<\/a>. Being some years older than the typical indie-rocker \u2013 Sandman was 40 when Cure for Pain dropped \u2013 the success hardly went to their heads. \u201cWe weren\u2019t throwing televisions out of hotel windows,\u201d says Colley. \u201cWe loved what we were doing, and didn\u2019t take it for granted.\u201d<\/p>\n Sandman, meanwhile, had just met the love of his life. \u201cHe saw me one night and Cupid drew his arrow,\u201d Hrechdakian laughs. Fourteen years younger than Sandman, she bartended at Boston venue the Middle East, where he \u201cwould make puppy-dog eyes at me. He was lovestruck, very driven; he pursued me for months. I wasn\u2019t playing hard to get, I just didn\u2019t feel an immediate \u2026 \u201d She tails off. But one night Hrechdakian heard Sandman singing No Reason in her living room. \u201cI don\u2019t know if it was hearing his vulnerability, but I was like, \u2018Oh my God \u2013 I think I\u2019m in love with this man.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n<\/p>\n Much of their early relationship would be conducted via fax machine: Sandman was always touring, Hrechdakian pursuing her master\u2019s in environmental studies. \u201cWe could not have lived more opposite lives. But in 1997 I decided, \u2018this sucks\u2019, and moved in with him.\u201d They shared Sandman\u2019s loft, where he had built his studio, Hi-N-Dry. \u201cThat was his cocoon.\u201d<\/p>\n He began work on Morphine\u2019s fifth album in an experimental mood. Deupree, who had left during the Cure for Pain sessions due to an injury, returned to play alongside his replacement, Billy Conway. The new material was strong, but the label\u2019s lack of enthusiasm got under Sandman\u2019s skin. His mood continued to plummet after they relocated to Fort Apache, where Kolderie had recorded Radiohead\u2019s Pablo Honey and Hole\u2019s Live Through This. \u201cHe would zone out during sessions,\u201d says Kolderie. \u201cHis health did not seem good. People would ask me, \u2018Is Mark OK? He looks grey.\u2019 He was the heaviest smoker I ever knew. And it took its toll.\u201d<\/p>\n After splitting from Fort Apache, Sandman returned to the loft and self-produced The Night, Morphine\u2019s fifth album, expanding the lineup to include more bass, violin and cello. \u201cMy theory is, somewhere inside he knew he was not well,\u201d says Hrechdakian. \u201cThe Night is an album of him saying goodbye.\u201d<\/p>\n \u2018Oh my God \u2013 I think I\u2019m in love with this man.\u2019 \u2026 Hrechdakian on Sandman. Photograph: Mark Sandman<\/p>\n Sandman signed off The Night in summer 1999 and Morphine readied for dates in Europe. Two weeks before the tour, however, Sandman suffered what Hrechdakian realises now was \u201cthe warning\u201d: a minor heart attack. \u201cHis arm went numb. The colour drained from his face. I said, \u2018Please let\u2019s go to the emergency room\u2019. He refused. So what did I do? I went to fucking Blockbuster to get videos and a pint of ice-cream.\u201d<\/p>\n Morphine arrived in Europe in July during a debilitating heatwave. At the first show in Lisbon, Colley remembers \u201cthe air coming through my instrument into my lungs felt like a furnace\u201d. The second date was at a festival near Rome. The heat remained intense, but Colley remembers \u201ca beautiful evening, shining faces looking back at us. Seven songs in, we were playing Super Sex and Mark buckled at the knee and fell down. I could hear his bass ringing out, and put my horns down and ran to him. They took him to the emergency room down the street, but he was already gone.\u201d<\/p>\n Sandman in 1994 in his native Massachusetts. Photograph: MediaMedium\/Alamy<\/p>\n After Sandman\u2019s death, Colley \u201cwasn\u2019t sure I\u2019d ever play again\u201d. Over the years since, however, he\u2019s kept Sandman\u2019s music alive via various live projects. Sandman\u2019s estate fell into the control of his father, who \u201cdidn\u2019t have any idea what to do with it,\u201d says Kolderie. \u201cHe was an ornery cuss. Nike would try to license Morphine songs for an ad and he\u2019d say, \u2018Nah, that\u2019s not enough money.\u2019\u201d A posthumous box set of unreleased material, Sandbox, was stymied by an ultimately unsuccessful lawsuit from Rykodisc that nonetheless smothered momentum.<\/p>\n Hrechdakian and Morphine\u2019s manager, Deborah Klein, took over the estate after Sandman\u2019s father died, and Hrechdakian began sorting through a huge storage space of Sandman\u2019s artwork, music and correspondence. She contacted Kolderie for help preserving the tapes and realised that the 1998 loft demos that preceded the Fort Apache sessions were a goldmine. \u201cThere\u2019s a looseness,\u201d Hrechdakian says. Those excellent recordings are now set to be released (with new sax parts from Colley) as Cocoon. \u201cYou can hear him laughing, his fingers on the strings \u2026 I sobbed for a while, listening to it.\u201d<\/p>\n Everyone involved with the project calls it a \u201chealing\u201d experience. Hrechdakian says she \u201cdidn\u2019t fully understand the depth of his love for me until after he was gone. Putting Cocoon together feels like a love story, like we\u2019re communicating across time and space. It\u2019s like Mark has come back to life for everyone who hears it, and he has for me as well.\u201d<\/p>\n Cocoon is released via Partisan on 4 December<\/p>\n This article was updated on 29 October to correct details in Sandman\u2019s biography: his brand of car, where he worked as a fisher, and where Hrechdakian heard him play No Reason.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"It\u2019s early 1998, and at Fort Apache recording studio in Massachusetts, Mark Sandman, the suave frontman of Morphine,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":817886,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[96,59,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-817885","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-entertainment","tag-entertainment","tag-gb","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/817885","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=817885"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/817885\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/817886"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=817885"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=817885"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=817885"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}