Cody Brooks

Wednesday, July 5th, 2023 7pm Doors  $10 ADV / $12 DOS Cody Brooks

Gutbucket  blues. Gypsy jazz. Back porch rock & roll. Cody Brooks plays it  all, whipping up a raw, rootsy racket with help from a 1929 B&J  Victoria parlor guitar and a voice that's as wild and roughhewn as the  Tennessee backwoods.

The music all started 20 minutes outside  of Nashville, where Brooks' childhood home was filled with the sounds  of the nearby Marrowbone Creek and his parents' 78 rpm record  collection. He listened to it all: Tommy Dorsey, Robert Johnson, Hank  Snow, Son House, Jimmy Hendrix. Brooks picked up the guitar as a  teenager and began traveling, too, spending time in Oregon and the  southwest before Nashville's music scene lured him back home. There,  before he could legally drink, he started playing gigs at the blues bars  downtown, tossing in his own songs between covers by R&B singers  and Delta legends.

It was during one of those bar gigs that  Brooks met Ken Coomer, an A-list session drummer and producer who'd cut  his teeth keeping time for Uncle Tupelo and Wilco. Halfway through the  set, Brooks asked the audience if anyone wanted to hop behind the drum  kit. Coomer volunteered, kicking off a friendship that continued for  years, eventually taking the two from the stage to the studio.

The  result of those studio sessions are soon to be heard. Filled with  overdriven slide guitar and industrialized drumbeats, it's a record that  tips its hat to the past while still looking forward. Brooks' songs  spin stories of revenge, anger, dirty love, clean breaks and the  infamous time that a baby copperhead snake bit him on the arm, resulting  in a three-day fever dream (and inspired songwriting session) while he  lay in bed and sweated out the poison. Although still in his 20s, Brooks  has lived the sort of life that's more typical of someone from the  previous century — a life of restlessness, of travel, of baths in creek  water and makeshift beds in barns — and

Cody embraces that  old-world vibe, updating its sound with the sneer of punk rock and the  swagger of hip-hop. It's music for Saturday night sinners, delivered  with the sort of fire-and-brimstone fury that'll attract a few Sunday  morning holy rollers, too.

"We wanted this record to shake the  jaded," says Brooks, who — along with Coomer — plays nearly every  instrument on the record . "We didn't want to sound safe. We'd run a  cheap blues guitar through a hot amp to get an overblown sound, and we'd  shake Ken's entire trunk of percussion instruments to make this  incredibly aggressive, trashy drum sound. We were embracing the songs,  and we were embracing noise, too."

In parts of the  Bible Belt, most friendships still start off with a handshake. This is  Brooks' handshake, his grand introduction to the public. He's happy to  meet you. You'll be seeing more of him soon.