On July 3rd, 1999, fans of the Massachusetts rock outfit Morphine were devastated with the news that frontman Mark Sandman collapsed and died onstage while performing in Italy.

An untimely end to an impressive musical legacy, it’s fair to say that few could have foreseen what the future held for the group’s members. Few could have expected that ten years later, founding members would reconvene as Vapors Of Morphine to perform at the same venue in which Sandman passed.

However, 16 years further on from their formation, even fewer could have expected the hassle that the likes of artificial intelligence would impact upon the band’s reach.

If you’re a dedicated fan of Morphine and its Vapors Of Morphine spin-off, the chances are good that you might be aware that the latter are performing in Australia in just a matter of weeks, bringing their unique blend of “low rock and unusual music” to the masses.

Announced in mid-February, the forthcoming tour will launch with an appearance at the Hunter Valley's Gumball Fest on April 27th, before visiting Sydney, Melbourne, Castlemaine, the Gold Coast, and wrapping up in Brisbane on May 4th.

It's a hectic schedule, with six shows in eight days, and with the band supported by guitarist Jeb Cardwell, it’s a tour that you’d expect to be promoted heavily. Well, that’s not what Meta think.

Upon its announcement just a few weeks ago, the tour’s promoters began to realise that the press release which had been sent out to the media had in fact been missed by the majority of outlets. The reason for this can be simply attributed to the band’s name.

See, while Morphine were named for the Greek god Morpheus, so too did German pharmacist Friedrich Sertürner name his discovery of the opiate morphine in kind.

But, with morphine being a controlled substance (and one therefore prone to abuse due to its effects on the human body), its name brings up some negative connotations, and (in the case of Vapors Of Morphine’s recent announcement) can lead to some excessively unnecessary spam filtering by inboxes the world over.

Social media, too has affected the group’s reach. In fact, if one was to try and search for Vapors Of Morphine’s very real Facebook page, Meta will detect the user’s attempts as one of procuring illicit substances. Here, give it a try.

“If you see the sale of drugs, please report it,” a message urges, instead of linking to the band’s page. “We remove content that doesn't follow our Community Standards. If you or someone you know struggles with substance misuse, free confidential treatment and information are available.”

A similar issue occurs on Instagram, where a message alerts users that their search “may be associated with the sale of drugs”.

In fact, to successfully find Vapors Of Morphine’s pages on Facebook and Instagram, you would need to stop short of searching the name, and instead use the suggested links that appear while writing their apparently-controversial moniker.

“For the past year or so, we have noticed that our band name is virtually unsearchable on meta platforms,” the group explained in a statement. “A wall is triggered by the word “m0rph1n3” (spelled as so here to avoid the idiotic AI block) which directs one to a message about drug abuse.

“Our band is not named after the drug m0rph1n3, but rather it is named after Morpheus, an Ancient Greek god of dreams,” they added. “We believe Meta is employing clumsy AI that allows the dissemination of sexual content, misleading fake images, and far right wing propaganda, but blocks common words that are used in medicine, psychiatry (the iconic hardcore band Suicidal Tendencies has had similar issues) and other vital parts of our culture.

“It is time to call these morons out for what they are doing – suppressing free speech, which is the cornerstone of a free society."

The censoring of certain band names can soon lead to an interesting point of discussion. It goes without saying there are plenty of controversial band names out there. Famously, the Austrian town of Fucking once held the Festival Of The Fuck Bands in 2009, where numerous groups named for the four-letter word (including Fucked Up, Holy Fuck, and the ever-concise Fuck) played on the same bill.

While many of them typically escape mainstream attention due to their monikers (Fucked Up did, however, win Canada’s Polaris Music Prize in 2009), many find themselves existing as underground successes.

On the Australian front, The Drones’ spin-off group Tropical Fuck Storm have managed to avoid censorship due to simply referring to themselves as Tropical F*ck Storm in almost every public instance. But still, even words that aren’t inherently offensive still find themselves caught up in similar circumstances.

One good example is Perth’s Psychedelic Porn Crumpets. In theory, there’s nothing wrong with the group’s name, given that all three parts of their moniker could be broadcast during a daytime TV discussion without issue, but the internet is a different story.

In 2015, members Jack McEwan and Luke Parish explained that their name was simply chosen on a whim. “We were jamming a few years ago and brainstorming a name and two suggestions were we should have a band with crumpets and we should have a band with Porn,” they explained. “I guess psychedelic sums us up a bit so that was the final ingredient.”

At the time, they likely hadn’t expected their albums to hit the national top ten, to garner ARIA nominations, and emblazon the marquees of venues the world over. But despite their impressive and continued successes, there have been a few moniker-related issues that the group have experienced over the years.

“We've definitely have felt the censorship of the band’s name falling foul of internet filters,” explains the band’s manager, Murray Curnow. “It's a difficult one, if we look at artists around us, in a similar genre, stature, we can see our social media numbers aren't necessarily indicative of where the band are at positionally.

“That can be both a blessing and a curse, on one hand we're not reaching our true fanbase, and on the other then it's always a nice surprise when we do sell out shows, for example.”

With sonic comparisons often made to the likes of Tame Impala and King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard, the question can arise as to how much bigger could Psychedelic Porn Crumpets be if their name was more conventional? Maybe they could take a leaf out of US folk-punk band Andrew Jackson Jihad’s book and rebrand as the initials PPC, or maybe the stories of their rejections could simply be used as proof of the impact they’re making?

“I've heard stories from our US plugger that some radio stations (notably in the southern states) have chosen not to play the band due to the band’s name potentially upsetting their religious listeners,” Curnow continued. “In the UK, we did have a sync opportunity for a football show where the name prevented it's usage, due to it being a pre-12pm show.

“Our mailers, even with PPC, still go into junk, as do my emails sometimes when I have the band’s name in them,” he added. “On YouTube, you can't auto-populate search the bands name, with ‘Psychedelic Popcorn Crumpets' becoming the next available search term. This is probably the biggest platform that we've had this happen on.”

There are also examples of music festivals (such as the Netherlands’ Best Kept Secret festival), where the likes of Cumgirl8 appear without issue, yet the Perth outfit were included as ‘Psychedelic Prn Crumpets’ to avoid controversy. Maybe this too is why Sweden’s Viagra Boys (and fellow PPC festival-mates) have named their upcoming album viagr aboys?

While it remains to be seen whether or not Meta and its associated services will somehow make an exception for the likes of Vapors Of Morphine, the fact remains that the band will indeed be going ahead with their Australian tour without issue.

Maybe now is the time to buy up any posters of the show lest they be censored down the line? Just don’t try and sell them on Facebook Marketplace.

Tickets to Vapors Of Morphine’s Australian tour are on sale now.

Vapors Of Morphine Australian Tour 2025

Sunday, April 27th – Gumball Fest, Hunter Valley, NSW
Wednesday, April 30th – Crowbar, Sydney, NSW
Thursday, May 1st – Northcote Social Club, Melbourne, VIC
Friday, May 2nd – Theatre Royal, Castlemaine, VIC
Saturday, May 3rd – Vinnies Dive Bar, Gold Coast, QLD
Sunday, May 4th – Crowbar, Brisbane, QLD