Benzos 'Morning Stanzas' album

"Side effects may include...Elation. Chills. Dancing. Welcome to the rocktronica world of Benzos." — Boston Metro. Growing up in a musical family on the outskirts of New York City, Celaya and Ortega started playing together in an indie rock band in their early teens.

After breaking up their band to attend college, Celaya and Ortega ended up taking somewhat divergent musical paths. Ortega abandoned rock music altogether for the New York underground drum n’ bass scene. Celaya, on the other hand, continued playing in rock bands. At the same time, however, Celaya was developing an interest in house music and rave culture. Sharing Celaya’s deepening fascination with the house music scene was Brian Joyce, a New School jazz program graduate and brother of one of Celaya’s band mates in a rock outfit in which Celaya was then playing. In the course of collaborating on house tracks and hitting up raves together, Celaya and Joyce conceived of a musical project that would combine a DJ element of cross-fading pieces of music with more traditional rock musical forms, to create a more viscerally powerful rock experience. Celaya co-opted Ortega, at a family Thanksgiving dinner, for this new musical enterprise, and, in early 2003, Celaya, Joyce and Ortega holed up in Ortega’s Tribeca apartment for six months to record an initial collection of demo recordings, with the assistance of their friend and Celaya’s former music conservatory professor Eric Helmuth. The trio dubbed their embryonic project "Benzos", perceiving in the name a fitting evocation of both the euphoria and urban paranoia that the band’s music conjures.

With their initial round of demos in the can, Celaya, Joyce and Ortega embarked on the challenge of finding the ideal rhythm section to realize Benzos’ complex musical vision. Enter Steve Bryant, a drum n’ bass-obsessed jazz drummer who had attended music conservatory with Celaya, and Eiko Peck, another music conservatory classmate who was then playing in a drum n’ bass-cum-jazz improv band with Bryant. With this formidable line-up of accomplished musicians in place, Benzos quickly began to cultivate a devoted following in New York City, playing to consistently sold out houses at premiere venues, including with such venerable acts as Blonde Redhead, Phoenix, The Dears and Elefant. In addition, Benzos already have garnered radio play on commercial rock stations such as 92.3 KRock New York and Q101 Chicago. Morning Stanzas will be released on Stinky Records in May of 2005, with extensive touring planned around the album’s release.

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Tracklisting

Benzos - Morning Stanzas