When Sunny War (a.k.a. Sydney Ward) moved into her late father’s house in Chattanooga, she thought the place was haunted. “I spent the winter seeing things and hearing things,” she says. “The house is 100 years old, and I was in there by myself. I could hear people walking around and talking, but when I jumped out of bed with my machete, there was nobody there. I assumed it was my dad, and I started writing about the ghosts that I was living with.” One of those songs, simply titled “Ghosts,” anchors her latest album, Armageddon in a Summer Dress. A kind of slithering blues, driven by her spidery guitarwork and haunted by disembodied voices dopplering in and out as the song fades, it’s a wise-yet-confused meditation on what it means to live with your memories of the dead and the lost. Following the release of her 2022 breakthrough, Anarchist Gospel, Sunny spent less and less time at her not-haunted house and more and more time on the road, opening for Bonnie Raitt, Mitski, Iron & Wine, and Sarah Shook & the Disarmers, among others. When she was back in Chattanooga, she did her best to stay busy, lest she lapse back into the drinking that almost killed her. “If I’m home and not touring, either I’m going to play music all day or I’m going to get drunk. It’s really one or the other. I’m just obsessively trying to work on something so that I’m making healthier decisions that day.” Presented by Townhouse Venice. This is a 21+ event