In my never ending quest to make fonts with the greatest and most influential recording artists of the decade, I'm wetting myself with gleeful waters as I introduce my latest Rockstar Font by Mark Sandman of Morphine.

During my five years as art director and editor of music magazine CAKE, I was exposed to thousands of bands. I listened to new records every day, and I learned a lot from what I heard. I learned that some bands write good songs. Some make good albums. Some bands can create a unique studio sound. Not many can do all three. Morphine can. Morphine consistently applies their trademark sound to catchy songs to make memorable albums. Any Morphine album sounds just as good blasted on a Friday afternoon as it does when played softly at three in the morning.

But even if a band can prove their musical aptitude through a string of four consistent, classic-in-the-making records (like Morphine has), more often than not, when that band goes into the live music arena the image they created in the studio falls flat on its face. I can count on my two hands the number of bands in existence that put on a truly engaging live show, a performance that can not only make you move your butt and dance a bit, but also make you stare in amazement at the natural embodiment of the music being presented on stage.

Morphine doesn't use comedic flash like Parliament, or the unbridled enthusiasm of Tito Puente. They don't put out anthemic calls to action like Fugazi, or wallow in their bohemian artsiness like Sonic Youth. Morphine is just cool. After a Morphine show, you're left scratching your head, trying to figure out how so much soul can ooze out of three white guys from Boston.

Morphine's music is the heartbeat of the urban hipster. It's smokey and it swings. Billy Conway's drumming lays a foundation as solid as a Boston brick road. Dana Colley's baritone sax is the smoke that tickles your nose as you walk past the neighborhood pub. Mark Sandman's two-string bass is the Strut of the Local — the brisk but never-rushed gait of the fearless guide who's travelled Beantown's chaotically-mapped streets before and knows where to turn at each 5-corner intersection. Mark's voice is a soulful croon as he walks you around the block, whispering of the thousand other times he's made that revolution.

As a music editor buried under an avalanche of uninspired and derivative new musical releases, I was always grateful that a band like Morphine exsisted. They were one of a small handful of bands that was always there to remind me that music could have soul. I'm honored and excited to present a new font drawn by the band's frontman Mark Sandman, a man whose admiration of the alphabet blossomed in his former day job as a typewriter repairman and continues to bloom today in the form of the elegant lyrics he spins for Morphine's songs.

Sandman's font comes to Computers/Internet via the modem of 19-year-old font-scout TeA Calcium of Taunton, Massachussetts. TeA recently saw Morphine play a free concert in Providence. After the show he went up to the booth where Mark was signing autographs. Pen in hand, and last in line, TeA waited out the flood of fans and asked Sandman if he would draw an alphabet for the Rockstar Font Project. Luckily, I had already contacted Mark about doing a font, so TeA didn't have much explaining to do. Mark quickly scrawled "The quick fox jumped over the lazy brown dog" and a set of numbers, and dubbed the freshly-inked font "Sharpie Stylie."

TeA took the change in his pocket and rushed to the nearest Kinko's where he made Mark's alphabet into a font and e-mailed it to me. I added a few finishing touches and bulked up the character set. Now I pass it on to you.

Enjoy this font and use it often.