Cure For Pain

Cure For Pain was formed in 2003 by Jon Monck after months of listening obsessively to the music of Morphine, a band from Cambridge, MA that achieved huge cult status throughout the 90s.(Sadly, Jon's appreciation for Morphine developed too late for him to see the band live, as Morphine's founder Mark Sandman died onstage in June of 1999.) As a bass player, he was intrigued by Mark's techniques using a two-string slide bass, among other self-created instruments. Jon was unable to learn these songs properly on a regular bass, (he started by first wedging chopsticks under the two highest strings of his bass with little success) so he constructed his own two-string bass and taught himself the various tunings used in some of the songs. He enlisted the help of drummer/percussionist/industrialist B Scott Morris, (his longtime friend and musical collaborator in the Warehouse Riddim Section) then turned to professional woodwind artist and instructor Matt Hetzler to complete the band. (All three members had played together years before in the Delaware third-wave Ska sensation, the Scatologists!, so Jon knew Matt had sufficient skills to do the difficult job of playing the only melody instrument in the band, baritone sax.) The original drummer for Morphine, Jerome Deupree, was approached by a friend of Cure For Pain at a drum seminar and told of their existence. He said, "Oh, yeah...THAT BAND FROM DELAWARE!"