We couldn't be more thrilled to welcome Seth Walker & Goodnight Moonshine back to West Art. They've both passed this way before with their rich musical tapestries, but this time the stars aligned for them to be here together! It's going to be folksy, bluesy, jazzy, and absolutely lovely- an evening of songs & stories full of heart & soul.
Both Seth Walker & Goodnight Moonshine are prolific and dedicated musicians, honing their craft over decades & garnering well-deserved national attention along the way. It's a real treat to have them here in this beautiful setting. Grab a friend, get your tickets, and join us! Tickets HERE!
What to expect at the show:
>> Doors will open at 7. The show will start at 7:30.
>> Tickets are $20 in advance, and $25 at the door if not sold out. As always, we’re proud to present an all-ages show with discounted tickets available for students. Tickets HERE!
>> Parking may be available in the small lot across the street. Beyond that, there’s parking available around Buchanan Park and F&M College in the blocks surrounding West Art.
>> Seating: This will be a mostly seated show. Our space is ADA accessible, and we will do our best to accommodate any specific needs.
>> Please note that all ticket sales are final. Thank you for supporting great music!
Tickets HERE!
Artist Bios:
Seth Walker is often cited as one of the most prolific Americana artists on the scene today. He’s a multi-dimensional talent who combines a gift for melody and lyric alongside a rich, Gospel-drenched, Southern-inflected voice with a true blue knack for getting around on the guitar. His latest studio album, I Hope I Know, produced by Jano Rix of The Wood Brothers, and a series of singles entitled Blueprints featuring renditions of songs by Al Green, James Taylor, Bobby Charles and more, further build upon this reputation.
Walker also added published author to his oeuvre with his first memoir, ‘Your Van Is On Fire.’ A riotous and charming melange of a touring musician’s life, the book is comprised of many short essays, poems and paintings he’d accumulated over a near 30-year career. Written during the pandemic lockdown, Walker offers a first hand account of an artist in perpetual motion who’s dedicated his life to chasing the muse wherever it may lead.
Growing up on a commune in rural North Carolina, the son of classically trained musicians, Seth Walker played cello long before discovering the guitar in his 20s. When his introduction to the blues came via his Uncle Landon Walker, who was both a musician and disc jockey, his fate was forever sealed. Instantaneously, Seth was looking to artists like T-Bone Walker, Snooks Eaglin, and B.B. King as a wellspring of endless inspiration.
The rest is history. He’s released ten albums, broken into the Top 20 of the Americana Radio Charts, reached No. 2 on the Billboard Blues Album Chart and received praise from NPR, American Songwriter, No Depression and Relix, among others.
Alongside his extensive songwriting and recording pursuits, Seth is consistently touring and performing at venues and festivals around the world. Along with headline shows, he has been invited to open for The Mavericks, Marc Broussard, The Wood Brothers, Raul Malo, Paul Thorn and Ruthie Foster, among others. Seth Walker is currently based in Asheville, NC after previously residing in Austin, New Orleans, and Nashville. He’s used those experiences wisely, soaking up the sounds and absorbing the musical lineage of these varied places. With a bluesman’s respect for roots and tradition, coupled with an appreciation for—and successful melding of—contemporary songwriting, Seth sublimely incorporates a range of styles with warmth and grace. Perhaps Country Standard Time said it best: “If you subscribe to the Big Tent theory of Americana, then Seth Walker –with his blend of blues, gospel, pop, R&B, rock, and a dash country—just might be your poster boy.”
“…an accomplished guitarist and an even better singer, distilling the soul of Ray Charles, the Southern boy roots charm of Delbert McClinton, and an uptown blues turn of phrase (à la Percy Mayfield) into his own distinct voice”
– The Vinyl District
“Walker’s brilliantly nuanced vocals are as natural, clear, sharp, and as effortlessly elegant as his guitar playing”
– All Music
“It’s a welcome thing that Seth Walker’s chosen to pitch his tent in Americana…Walker has a way with smooth and swinging phrasing and makes classically accessible up-front pleas”
– Nashville Scene
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Goodnight Moonshine is a guitar and vocal duet, and a musical marriage in all senses. The Duo combines the evocative voice and songwriting of Molly Venter, with Eben Pariser’s adventurous guitar playing. The result is folk music with a depth of improvisation and tonal subtlety usually reserved for jazz.
Molly is well known for her sublime singing in the prominent female-vocal-group Red Molly, while Eben cut his teeth as a street performer in New York City, playing guttural music of New Orleans with his band Roosevelt Dime.
Molly’s enviable voice, which can be called both “biker-chick smoky” (New Haven Register), and “like silk” (American Songwriter Magazine), has taken her career to highlights including Tønder Festival in Denmark, Kate Wolf Fest in CA, and multiple placements on television and film. In Goodnight Moonshine she is in full force as a songwriter. Her trance-induced stream-of-consciousness writing style results in compositions that probe the depths of her inner experience. Her hit song “Hold It All”, recorded with Red Molly and performed regularly with Goodnight Moonshine, questions the meaning of life, and grapples with acceptance, with honesty and heart usually reserved for literary writers- which she also is- she writes a weekly column on Patreon.com
Starting as a blues guitarist in his teens, Eben’s imagination was quickly captured by classic jazz, which he studied at the Oberlin Conservatory. “Pariser’s harmonic sensibilities are wide, imaginative” (NPR), and his career has involved singing lead and playing bass with Roosevelt Dime, playing drums and being musical director of Red Molly- but it is his love of guitar and improvising on display in Goodnight Moonshine. A natural producer, Eben has 8 studio records under his belt for himself and other artists. He conceived of and launched the record label, Equitone Records in 2023. He is currently building a progressive guitar driven jazz trio with Ryan Sands (Christian Sands) and Austin Phillips.After cutting several records, and experimenting with limitless creative possibilities of studio production, Goodnight Moonshine is now thrilling audiences as an acoustic guitar duo. The format allows them to focus entirely on each other's gifts, and enter a hypnotic trance, a cycle of responsive vocal inspiration and guitar improvisation that deepens throughout the show. It is a main-line of the very best that both artists have to offer, and perhaps why their single-mike show has become an unlikely festival act- in 2023 they played Arts And Ideas (CT), Red Ants Pants (MT), and Sisters Folk Fest (OR). They have gone on to wow festival audiences at Black Bear Americana Fest (CT), Musikfest (PA), and Falcon Ridge Folk Fest (CT), and played to sold out audiences in New Haven, CT, and Rockport MA in 2024.
Guitar and vocal duos are rare and few come to mind, but the ones that do, such as Gillian Welch and Dave Rawlings, and The Milk Carton Kids, have achieved and integration between singular talents in a format that is both genre-less and grounded in the commonness of two guitars, two voices. Goodnight Moonshine is taking their own stab at this unusual and deeply personal approach. Their show is punctuated by songs and banter that openly explore the complexities of their relationship to each other, the Creator, birth, life, death, and what happens when, “the honeymoon ends?” For Molly and Eben, It is the way they make space for each other while staying true to themselves that defines this music, and marriage.
Goodnight Moonshine is on the cusp of releasing their third studio record tentatively titled "Business Unusual"- 11 magical live takes selected from 30 days of recording, spiced with subtle and sophisticated accouterment including shimmering drumming from Ryan Sands, and 1000 ton bass by Adam Chilenski. They have two previous studio records; their self-titled debut album Goodnight Moonshine (2013), and I’m The Only One Who Will Tell You Your Bad (2018), as well as three singles; Harder Than It Should Be (2021), and What Do You Wanna Know (2022), and My Sister Evangeline (2024) all produced by Pariser.
Tickets HERE!