2 new albums bring back Hypnosonics’ singular sound
If you were a fan of Boston rock legend Mark Sandman, you’ll remember the Hypnosonics. But you may not remember them too clearly, because you were probably too busy dancing.
A part-time band for nearly 15 years, the Hypnosonics are a lost part of Sandman’s musical history: They’d get together and play some shows, usually to packed houses at the Lizard Lounge or the Plough and Stars, whenever his regular band Morphine was off the road. They never got around to releasing anything other than a few compilation tracks.
But 22 years after Sandman’s death, two full Hypnosonics albums are now set for release. The two albums, “Someone Stole My Shoes” and “Drums Were Beating” were made at separate sessions — the latter at one of WFNX’s free lunchtime concerts in 1996 — and both
bring a stack of long-unheard material to light.
The band’s lineup was changeable, and all three of Morphine’s founding members — Sandman, drummer Jerome Deupree and saxman Dana Colley — were in at
one time or another. But saxophonist Russ Gershon was there from start to finish. Gershon was leading the adventurous jazz band Either/Orchestra, which continues to this day, when Sandman first approached
him in 1985.
“He said, ‘I want to sing with your band.’ And I said, ‘OK, anybody with the nerve to ask that deserves a shot.’ ”
Unlike most of the players who came into the Hypnosonics, Sandman didn’t have a jazz background or Berklee training — but there was still common ground. “All of us were huge funk fans. And one thing people don’t understand about Mark is that he was identifying himself as a taller Prince. But his voice was so different that people don’t make that connection.”
Sandman didn’t bring his famous two-string bass from Morphine into the Hypnosonics, instead playing guitar and keyboards. But he did continue messing with instrumental lineups: Drummer Billy Conway, a reggae expert, was instructed not to play reggae. “Mark asked him to use a wood block instead of a hi-hat and to leave his toms at home, so that gave him a different style. He was good at getting people to give up what they were used to doing. The horn parts that Tom and I came up with were often repetitive and simple, that gave us an opportunity to groove with the rhythm section. The band really flourished when we took it way out there.”
The band played its last gig at the Lizard in 1999, just weeks before Sandman collapsed onstage during a Morphine tour. Bassist Mike Rivard kept the Hypnosonics tapes on his shelf, and finally unearthed them while working out a deal for his other band, Club d’Elf. The surviving Hypnosonics are now thinking about playing live shows with different singers, as the Morphine members have done over the years.
“It would be nice, since I haven’t played a show in a year,” said Gershon, who went through a six-week bout with COVID-19 last summer. “I think the sensible thing would be to reconvene some Orchestra Morphinelike aggregation and play the Hypnosonics tunes. Of course nobody’s that optimistic about club shows for awhile. But we all love each other in the Mark circle and we’ve all been in touch.”