Moe's Alley presents the return of Eddie 9V with special guests Alternative Zen Blues Trial!

Wednesday, August 2nd
Doors: 7pm / Show: 8pm
$15 in advance / $20 day of the show
21+

EDDIE 9V
As far back as he can remember, Capricorn Studios was calling Eddie 9V. As a kid scanning the sleeves of his favorite vinyl records, this fabled facility in Macon, Georgia, was always the secret ingredient, adding a little grit and honey to every song born on its floor. Capricorn and the bands who blew through it urged the Atlanta guitarist to ditch school at 15, play his fingers bloody throughout the south, and turn apathy into acclaim for early albums Left My Soul in Memphis (2019) and Little Black Flies (2021).

Eddie spent his first quarter-century admiring Capricorn from afar. But in December 2021, the 26-year-old finally put his thumbprint on the studio's mythology, corralling an eleven-strong group of the American South's best roots musicians to track his third album. "There was overwhelming excitement at being in such a legendary studio," he says. "But we hugged and got right to work. Everyone was joyous, loving, and flat-out playing their asses off."

You don't come to Capricorn Studios for polish. Frozen in time since its opening day in 1969, the mojo from sessions by giants like the Allman Brothers and Bonnie Bramlett still hangs in the air, while the recording philosophy remains gloriously raw. That suited Eddie, whose output has been celebrated for its warts-and-all snapshot of what went down. "In a world where everyone is trying to sound the best, I'm trying to sound like me," he reasons. "I always want the listener to feel like they're in the room with us. So I'd leave it in if a drum pedal squeaked or someone laughed during a take on the Capricorn album. It's our way of putting a stamp on the song." Eddie's old-school ethos goes way back. Born Brooks Mason in June 1996, he acquired his first guitar aged six, "One of those with the speaker in it – the most bang for your buck, y'know?", ignored the prevailing pop scene at Oak Grove High School in favor of local heroes like Sean Costello and studied "older cats" like Muddy Waters, Howlin' Wolf, Freddie King, and Rory Gallagher "to see what made them groove and tick." His shoot-from-the-lip lyrics adds Eddie came from family fish fries, where his Uncle Brian "taught me to make people laugh, how to hold an audience's attention."

ALTERNATIVE ZEN BLUES TRIAL
Comprised of Christopher Watkins (Preacher Boy), Etienne David Franc (Papiba & Friends / SambaDa) and drummer extraordinaire Zack Kirk Olsen (Slow Gherkin). These guys are doing something totally unique that has never seen before - and all original. Coast Road Records had this to say about their music - “The Alternative Zen Blues Trial is an improvisational power trio with a DNA string equal parts Band of Gypsys, R.L Burnside, and Johnny Winter. The band cooks down its telegraphic drum-bass-guitar musicality with rough-hewn vocals and a street-zen lyrical style to extract their signature brand of blackstrap funk.”