Benni - I & II (Goner)

Hailing from an H Class planet far across the cosmic highways, Bênní makes “hi-NRG New Age” music. A pivotal member of bands Wizzard Sleeve / Gary Wrong Group, Heavy Lids, Roman Gabriel Todd’s Beast Rising Up Out Of The Sea, and many more, Bênní was born from Benny Divine’s personal need for new music to listen to while driving his space craft long distances. Tired of Van Halen’s 5150 and Zebra’s self-titled album on his journeys, he began creating sci-fi landscapes and ethereal soundtracks of his own. Often times primitive, the music can go from Vangelis to John Carpenter, to ’80s dungeon electro band Warning and into vintage arcade game circuitry within the blink of an eye. “The thing to me that has always kinda set the Memphis / New Orleans punk scenes apart from other places is that music and musicianship always outweighs high concept or the typical sneering “fuck you” attitude of other places. Benny Divine is a musician with a capitol M and its no accident that within a year of his coming to New Orleans (from less than an hour up the Gulf), he began to influence the local landscape as much as any of us who had been here and doing it for decades. Benny is special, especially for a young dude. He never overplays; he always listens; he’s funky as a church lady; and his memory for parts and complicated song structure is unmatched in anyone I have ever worked with.... Plus he’s chill as fuck. There is a reason that he is in almost every good band in the entire city right now. So yeah... if any of you Memphis bitches get funny ideas about stealing him away from us, there will be a straight-up lazy drunken army riding up the river to forcibly take him back.” —Quintron