The Brothers Comatose Bio and Press Page

bio:

Ben Morrison and Alex Morrison are brothers. They have been making music together from birth. Ben's first word was 'front-man' and Alex's was 'moustache' (see band photo). Joe Pacini and Gio Benedetti met Ben and Alex in high school. They shared many a living room jam session, many a raucous music party, many a front-stoop hoedown, but there was no band.

After years of studying, vision quests in far off lands, moving about, relocating, and the occasional intermittent music party, the young and now much hairier fellows found themselves in San Francisco with Alex, Ben and Joe living in a vibe-steeped flat on Haight Street, playing music (Ben on guitar, Alex on Banjo - both of them singing - and Joe on mandolin and cigarette breaks) at parties and open mics across the fair city. They needed a bassist. Gio happened to be a bassist. He also happened to live nearby.

The, now, quartet continued their tradition of stoop-and-living-room-esque performances, but moved them public. The dive bars of San Francisco became inspired, momentary homes, as friends, fans and music lovers rallied around the snug honesty of the band's barroom shows. All they lacked was a brilliant fiddler with tremendous soloing skills, and with feet and soul firmly planted in the legacy of Old-Time, Bluegrass musics. Oh where, oh where could such a person be?

Philip Brezina - graduate student in classical violin at the nearby Conservatory and recent transplant from Pennsylvania - knew good roots music, knew how to play it and, best of all, knew how to play it on the fiddle. He wandered into the quartet (answering an ad posted in the Conservatory halls), and the long lost Brother Comatose was found.

Doors began opening. Performances at such legendary places as San Francisco's Fillmore Poster Room, the Great American Music Hall, and the Hardly Strictly Bluegrass Festival followed, supporting such acts as The Devil Makes Three, Justin Townes Earl, Hillstomp, Greensky Bluegrass, John Doe and the Sadies, Yonder Mountain String Band and others.

Now touring in support of their recent debut full-length, Songs From The Stoop, The Brothers Comatose aim at converting the entire West Coast into their Living Room Music Party. Their shows exude a foot-stomping, shout-along, drink-along ease that was once a staple in every music-playing, front-stoop-possessing home in the land. Their shows can't help but remind folk that music is collective, is for dancing, is for sharing, and for whatever else you might do with friends and family in your own living room.

press quotes:

"In a nutshell, the Brothers Comatose have succeeded in putting out an album that brings the essence of living room, string-band jam sessions to the masses. This isn't a band to just sit back and relax to. It's time to put away your suit and tie and break out your whiskey jug because the Brothers Comatose aren't going to take no for an answer."
Performer Magazine

"Folksy, Americana, singer/songwriter, fiddle-burnin' and string pluckin' are The Brothers Comatose.
They are a music writer's adjective creatin' wet dream."
SF Gate

"The real charmers were the Brothers Comatose, who.. laid the twang on thick, with rhythmic mandolin and guitar, shredded banjo, and exceptional fiddle-fied violin and melodic upright bass. They were the honest gentleman's scuffed leather, an antidote to the shoe-polish show..."
Crawdaddy

"Frenetic and played with a lot of heart, this record is one to hunt down and listen to with pure pleasure... With an authentic sound and not one element of corporate tackiness in its DNA, albums like this should not go unnoticed by the general public. The more people that listen to this record the better, for songs like this should be celebrated by millions."
Maverick Magazine

"Each song is enjoyable in its particular way... After the modernistic "Trippin' on Down," which opens the album, you may be surprised -- I hope pleasantly, as I was -- that "Down to the River" (the sixth cut) recalls nothing less than the Kingston Trio, albeit in a cooler edition. Their "Ballad of Tommy Decker (Prince of Haight)" is akin to something Bob Dylan would write if he were writing something like bluegrass."
Rambles.net

"In Songs from the Stoop, the debut CD from The Brothers Comatose, the band has captured much of the joie de vivre of their live shows on a studio recording. This is a band that doesn't fit into a handy category like bluegrass, country or rockabilly but it is definitely Americana. Footstompabilly perhaps?"
Hicks with Sticks

"'Songs From the Stoop' is Jeff's Pick for best full length album for road trips in 2010. 'Swamp Jam' is Jeff's Pick for best way to end a perfect album in 2010. 'Dead Flowers' is Jeff's Pick for best cover of 2010, and best cover of 'Dead Flowers' ever, straight up (take a hike New Riders)."
Dirty Hippy Radio

"The tracks bow down before the altar of late night jams. They are the stuff of musicians and music having fun. Handclaps and harmonies are as much a part of the album as fiddles, banjos and rhythms. The sound is mountain, the style is community, the results are infectious."
www.thealternateroot.com

"Twangy and soulful goodness is what's on the Brothers Comatose debut album, Songs From the Stoop."
KRCB Radio's "Our Roots Are Showing"

"Everything about this disc is, well, honest. Whether raucous, snarky, rave-up, or just happily boogy be-boppin' from track to track, what you hear is exactly what the Brothers Comatose are... Ben and Alex Morrison really are birth brothers and have been musicians since the post-embryo days. It took a while to find the right complements to their work, but, as of the last most inclusion of classically trained Phil Brezina, who knows how to shuck Paganini at a moment's notice, everything settled into the right configuration and began bringing San Francisco a mean mess of good-time roots music."
www.acousticmusic.com

"They present themselves as a homogeneous team which has explored new boundaries and made a stylistic niche into a whole entity. Rousing, lively, unpredictable and yet familiar."
www.countryjukebox.de

"I'm betting that seeing this band perform live would add so much more to the music. I could definitely see myself settling in and thoroughly enjoying myself throughout the entire set. In short, if you like your Americana with acoustic and modern bluegrass music you will enjoy Songs from the Stoop. The Brothers Comatose show a lot of promise and I expect to hear from them in the future."
icmdb.com

"Everyone whom traditional music a warm heart bears will appreciate these link automatically. These friends annexed family link played their roots floated music initially only on street angles, in house chambers and during nocturnal jam sessions. Enthusiastic responses did choose the men for more serious ambitions."
www.altcountryforum.nl (as translated by yahoo babel fish)