Late Morphine Frontman Honored with 3xCD Box

A box set dedicated to Mark Sandman, one of independent music's great tragic figures, is poised for release on November 16th. Sandbox spreads 31 songs across two compact discs to chart the legacy of Mark Sandman, who fronted a number of Boston-based combos-- most notably, Treat Her Right and Morphine. Sandman masterminded the concept of "low rock," the slide-bass/sax/drums/no-use-for-a-goddamn-guitar setup that scored Morphine a handful of minor modern rock radio hits back in the mid-90s, in addition to the time-honored bounty of critical acclaim, and oh yeah, an incredibly rabid fanbase.

The tunes featured on Sandbox, all of which are unreleased, are culled from a tremendous archive scavenger hunt fathered by Sandman's friends and bandmates after the singer/bassist's death from a heart attack onstage at a July 1999 Morphine show. The double-disc collection, to be released by Hi-N-Dry-- the label formed by surviving Morphine members Dana Colley and Billy Conway-- will come bundled with a DVD bearing rare and unseen footage, as well as additional material penned by the late guest of honor. Breakdown:

>> Disc One:
01 Double Stripper Double Sax
02 I Can Do That
03 Tomorrow
04 Patience
05 Cocoon
06 Imaginary Song
07 Not Like That
08 Jealous Dream
09 Justine
10 The Phone
11 Devil's Boots
12 Born Again
13 Wig
14 51%
15 Good Time

>> Disc Two:
01 Riley the Dog
02 Some Other Dog
03 Snow
04 Providence
05 Doreen
06 Get Along
07 Mona's Sister
08 Hombre
09 Hotel Room
10 Let's Not Talk
11 Bathtub 12 I Wanna Go Home
13 Deep Six
14 Livin' With U
15 They Bent Me
16 Middle East

Sandbox liner note penman (and fellow presence of the Boston underground) Ted Drozdowski suggests that more archived material may follow. "Even his friends Dana, Billy, and Jerome (who poured through the many hours of tapes that Mark left behind to compile Sandbox) had no idea how prolific he had been," Drozdowski writes. "This set just scratches the surface-- not only of the vast body of Mark's previously unrevealed work, but of a life richly lived on its own terms and done too soon."

In the meantime, Colley and Conway have just released their second full-length as The Twinemen with singer/guitarist Laurie Sargent. Titled Sideshow, the album follows the group's 2002 self-titled debut and, according to the band's website, "expands the already wide blend of genres and instrumentation that made their critically heralded debut so distinctive." The Twinemen are just wrapping up their North American tour, but they've still got a handful of performances left. Three, in fact:

10-25 Cleveland, OH - Beachland Ballroom
10-27 New York, NY - NYCD [in-store performance]
10-27 New York, NY - Mercury Lounge