About Orchestra Morphine

Within a year of Sandman's death, Colley and Conway created Orchestra Morphine, a group of Sandman's friends and colleagues who toured to celebrate the music of the band and to raise funds for the Mark Sandman Music Education Fund. Orchestra Morphine mostly performed music from The Night, but also included some Hypnosonics material as well. Later, singer and guitarist Laurie Sargent, a member of Orchestra Morphine and former vocalist for the band Face to Face, would join Colley and Conway in their first post-Morphine musical endeavour, Twinemen. Conway and Colley also officially formed the Hi-n-Dry independent record label and studio, converting Sandman's workspace into a commercial enterprise. The label's roster includes a number of their friends, colleagues and other Boston-area musicians. Orchestra Morphine still reunites on occasion but no longer tours. Jerome Deupree continues to record with various jazz musicians and later became a member of the group Bourbon Princess. In 2006, Dana Colley formed the band A.K.A.C.O.D. with Monique Ortiz (former leader of Bourbon Princess). Their debut album Happiness was released in 2007, and the band will tour in 2008. July 3rd of 1999, Morphine's Mark Sandman, 46, died of a massive heart he suffered on-stage while playing in Italy, leaving surviving members Dana Coley (sax) and Billy Conway (drums) with an unreleased album back home in Sandman's home-studio, Hard Luck Music. Returning home to Boston, Conway and Coley laid low only breifly before deciding to play a series of fundraisers for the purpose of founding the Mark Sandman Music Education Fund. Sandman's sister taught music and once a year, the avant garde bassist/vocalist would teach a class on the importance of breaking the rules. 'It would end with five strings broken off the guitar. The kids loved it,' said Coley. In 2000, Coley and Conway put an ensemble together called Moveable Bubble with strings and a female vocalist, performing re-tooled versions songs from the still unreleased album 'The Night'. When the album came out this February, Coley and Conway took the name Orchestra Morphine and played a limited American tour, basically to say goodbye to Sandman and Morphine's devoted fans outside of Boston. Along with Sandman, Coley and Conway had played on the B'Town's underground rock scene since the 1980's. Dana Coley started off with Mark Sandman in Treat Her Right, and Conway played bass for the Collars before joining Morphine in 1995.