Erik Visits an American Grave, Part 1,339
By This is the grave of Mark Sandman.
Born in 1952 in Newton, Massachusetts, Sandman grew up in a middle class Jewish family. He graduated from the University of Massachusetts and then moved to Boston and worked the kind of whatever jobs most of us do in our 20s. He had a good bit of tragedy during these years, including the death of two brothers. He also was nearly murdered during a robbery when he was driving a cab. But it’s hard to know how much all of this really affected him, as he was an extremely private person who did not divulge much in the way of personal details when he became a known figure. But what we can say is that he was a bit of a loner and a bit driftless. Those meaningless jobs of the 20s became his life in the 30s and there wasn’t much sign he was looking to succeed in any conventional way. He also liked rock and roll and played in various local Boston bands over the years, most notably Treat Her Right, which was locally popular in the late 80s.
In 1989, Sandman formed the band Morphine. He played the bass and sang in his noted low voice. He was a lot older than almost everyone else in this scene and was super sensitive about his age. He didn’t want to be the old guy. Like, he would yell at people who talked about his age. In any case, Morphine was a super interesting band for that time. Maybe because he was a little older, but as the frontman, he brought a lot of jazz influences into indie rock. Dana Colley played sax and Jerome Dupree was on drums. Moreover, Sandman’s bass was this weird one (later two) stringed instrument that he played with a slide. They released Good in 1991 and it got some positive notice. Cure for Pain in 1993 was actually a pretty big hit on its release, which probably surprised the band members as much as anyone else. After that, they got to do the whole world tour thing. Sure, they were still an indie band and they weren’t getting rich, but they were making money and getting to do the Rock Thing. Yes followed in 1995, Like Swimming in 1997, and The Night, set to come out in 2000. All of these albums were pretty good and had their fans, but this not a band that was going to really see mainstream success and that frustrated Sandman, who could see and taste it a bit. The band got nice slots in festivals, had their songs picked up for movies and cartoons, and was known. But there’s a huge step between indie darlings and Big Rock Band and a band featuring a sax and a weird bass was not exactly contemporary with much of anything and that was especially as the dregs of wannabe grunge bands in the late 90s started turning to the teeny pop of the early 00s.
On July 3, 1999, Morphine was playing a festival set at the Nel Nome del Rock Festival in Palestrina, Italy. While on stage, Sandman had a massive heart attack and died. He was 46 years old.
Let’s listen to some Morphine.
Mark Sandman is buried in Sharon Memorial Park, Sharon, Massachusetts.
If you would like this series to visit other dead rockers of the 90s, you can donate to cover the required expenses here. Chris Cornell is in Hollywood and Kristen Pfaff is in Buffalo, New York. Previous posts in this series are archived here and here.