Eddie 9V
July 19, 2023
8:00 PM
Doors Open: 7:00 PM
Doors Open: 7:00 PM
More Information
TICKET PRICES CURRENTLY AVAILABLE
GA - STANDING: $15.00
TICKET SALE DATES
GA - STANDING Public Onsale: May 5, 2023 10:00 AM to July 18, 2023 11:59 PM
GA - STANDING: $15.00
TICKET SALE DATES
GA - STANDING Public Onsale: May 5, 2023 10:00 AM to July 18, 2023 11:59 PM
Magic City Blues and The Pub Station Present Eddie 9V
A fan favorite from last year's festival is coming back to Billings!
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."
Likewise, Capricorn is an album of thrilling musical contrasts. Bob Dylan’s “Down Along the Cove” is a pugnacious blues-rocker, followed by Khristie French's gossamer lead vocal on the spiritual Mary Don't You Weep. Mellow Missouri is dusty as a great lost soul session, while brass punches through the glassy chords of “I'm Lonely”. Finally, the album ends with Eddie's laughter as he realizes he has no more to give: "I gotta come out of this room...!"
Never meet your heroes, they say, and many young artists have been overwhelmed by walking the holy ground of their dream studios. At Capricorn, Eddie 9V breathed in the history – but the album he spat out is worthy of sharing the name, standing shoulder-to-shoulder with the studio's greatest hits and taking music back to the golden age. "We made this record," he considers, "the way they would have done in 1969..."
A fan favorite from last year's festival is coming back to Billings!
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."
Likewise, Capricorn is an album of thrilling musical contrasts. Bob Dylan’s “Down Along the Cove” is a pugnacious blues-rocker, followed by Khristie French's gossamer lead vocal on the spiritual Mary Don't You Weep. Mellow Missouri is dusty as a great lost soul session, while brass punches through the glassy chords of “I'm Lonely”. Finally, the album ends with Eddie's laughter as he realizes he has no more to give: "I gotta come out of this room...!"
Never meet your heroes, they say, and many young artists have been overwhelmed by walking the holy ground of their dream studios. At Capricorn, Eddie 9V breathed in the history – but the album he spat out is worthy of sharing the name, standing shoulder-to-shoulder with the studio's greatest hits and taking music back to the golden age. "We made this record," he considers, "the way they would have done in 1969..."