MILFORD — A husband-and-wife folk duo from right up the road in Hamden is coming to the MAC Downtown. Goodnight Moonshine, the duo of Red Molly singer Molly Venter and guitarist and producer Eben Pariser, plays the Milford Arts Council’s Railroad Avenue stage on Friday, Nov. 6, at 7:30 p.m.
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The Milford Arts Council bills the night as “An Evening with Goodnight Moonshine feat. Molly Venter of Red Molly.” Doors open at 6:30 p.m., according to the MAC’s ticket page, and the show is scheduled to run until about 9:30.
Who they are
The MAC calls Goodnight Moonshine “a musical marriage,” and that’s literal. Venter and Pariser met in 2011 at Folk Alliance International in Memphis and married in 2014 in New Haven, according to the arts council’s event page. They live in Hamden with their three kids.
Venter is best known for her singing in Red Molly, the female vocal group. The New Haven Register once described her voice as “velvety smooth and biker-chick smoky,” a line the duo still quotes on its website. Pariser started as a blues guitarist, studied jazz at the Oberlin Conservatory, and cut his teeth as a street performer in New York City with his band Roosevelt Dime. He also played drums and served as musical director for Red Molly.
The result, as the duo describes it, is folk music “with a depth of improvisation and tonal subtlety usually reserved for jazz.” Pariser lists Django Reinhardt, Ry Cooder and Bill Frisell among the players he looks up to. The duo’s own tagline for him: “Doc Watson meets Bill Frisell.”
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The new record
Goodnight Moonshine is touring its third studio album, Business Unusual, which follows the self-titled 2013 debut and 2018’s I’m The Only One Who Will Tell You Your Bad. The MAC says the 11 songs were picked from 30 days of recording, with drummer Ryan Sands and bassist Adam Chilenski filling out the sound.
According to the duo’s press materials, the album grew out of the stretch after 2020, when live music stopped and the couple found themselves home raising three kids, including newborn twins. They describe it as “the sound of a life being radically restructured” and say the songs explore “having everything you once hoped for while feeling completely underwater.” Any parent in Milford can probably relate.
One song to listen for: “Hold It All,” which Venter first recorded with Red Molly and which the duo re-imagined for the new album.
Tickets
Advance tickets are $20 plus a $3 processing fee through the MAC’s online box office, and they’re sold until two hours before the show. Tickets at the door are $25. A child under 17 can get in for $5 with a paying adult; call the MAC office for that one. The MAC says there are no member discounts for this show and tickets aren’t refundable.
The arts council also warns buyers to purchase only through its own website, because tickets bought elsewhere won’t be honored. Questions go to the MAC box office at 203-878-6647, Tuesday through Friday from noon to 4 p.m.
GOODNIGHT MOONSHINE AT THE MAC
When: Friday, Nov. 6, 2026, 7:30 p.m. (doors 6:30)
Where: MAC Downtown, 40 Railroad Ave. S., Milford
Tickets: $20 advance + $3 fee; $25 at the door; under 17 $5 with a paying adult
Buy: milfordarts.org (Purchase Tickets on the event page)
Box office: 203-878-6647, Tue.–Fri. noon–4 p.m.
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