I just love how random an IPOD can make life. You put it on shuffle and let it choose one of five thousand songs. One recent shuffle landed on a band I hadn’t thought about in ten years: Morphine.
When they came out in the 90’s, they took over the college live music scene. Their smoky and minimal live sets (sax, bass and tribal drums — with an otherworldly vocal) caused sweaty crowd frenzies. Their records would sit now nicely with Bob Dylan’s Modern Times, John Mayer or even the Pulp Fiction Sountrack. They were way before their time.
Mark Sandman, their sax blower and lead howler gave a part of himself every time to performed. You can hear it on all the Morphine recordings. He died on stage during a live show in Italy in 1999. He and his band aren’t talked about much in these emo punk wanna sound like nirvana days — but he should be.
Check out this record and let it change your life:
Read up their history on Wikipedia.
