MOTR Pub Presents:
JOELTON MAYFIELD (Bloodshot Records) and HIDERS
w/ AJ YORIO
THURSDAY, AUGUST 6
MOTR Pub | 1345 Main St. Cincinnati, OH 45202
7:30 doors (pay-to-stay), 8 show
21+
Cost: $10 advance at MOTR Pub (in person), $10-$20 sliding scale at the door
MORE INFO: https://www.motrpub.com/shows/joelton-mayfield-bloodshot-records-w-hiders-and-aj-yorio
***
About JOELTON MAYFIELD:
By the winter of 2021, Joelton Mayfield had done nearly a decade of work to prepare his debut LP, Crowd Pleaser. As a teenager, he’d toiled for years as the music director of his Texas church, despite extreme doubts about Christianity’s role in his life and his role in Christian life. He’d then shipped off to Nashville, hoping to earn a music business degree in the city where they seem to be factory-made. He’d instead switched to English, studied the more mature songwriters around him, joined a series of college bands, and drifted into the edges of the city’s indie rock and alt-country enclaves, building a patchwork of players he trusted.
And that February, he’d driven two trailers and several carloads of gear to a farm near Alabama’s Mobile Bay, turning the family barn of a bandmate friend into an ad hoc studio. He’d trucked a Hammond organ from Nashville and his grandmother’s century-old vibraphone from Texas, even buying a stack of area rugs to absorb the sound bouncing from the barn’s concrete floors. And then, just days before Mayfield was set to make his first full-length testimonial, the love of his young life--and the person set to co-produce the album, no less--dumped him.
So Mayfield and a band that sometimes numbered nearly a dozen rendered these 10 songs with radical urgency, the bummer feelings that had first led to them reanimated by sudden rejection. Mayfield clung to his own words, like a life preserver or guardrail or any piece of art that simply reminds someone that this world can always change for worse but especially better. Indebted to traditions of incisive Southern storytellers and country-rock bands interested in upending their forms, Crowd Pleaser squares up to the difficulties and betrayals of Mayfield’s first quarter-century and makes the absolute most of them--10 compelling affirmations for the rest of us.
Raised outside of a small central Texas city, surrounded by open farm fields and dirt roads, Mayfield was a “miracle baby,” the child his parents never truly expected after decades of trying. His family was religious and musical, two disciplines forever intertwined in their lives, both at home and at their Pentecostal church. As a kid, Mayfield won awards in the Royal Rangers, a conservative Boy Scouts alternative, for his ability to recite Bible verses; as a teenager, he began leading Wednesday night worship services for people much older than him and eventually even helming the church’s music ministry. Outside of oil-slick Contemporary Christian Music, he heard only some classic country, scant Texas blues, and the Gaithers, a family institution that was in turn a family favorite. There was no household internet, and television was censored by a draconian device called TV Guardian.
In 2024, a year before Crowd Pleaser was even ready for release, Mayfield opened several shows for two heroes--John Darnielle, of the aforementioned Mountain Goats, and John Moreland. Both have used songwriting to stare into personal voids, to stand at the edge of some never-ending abyss and tell the truth about what they’ve seen down there. Mayfield is a new member of that tradition, having put some of the most difficult lessons he’s learned in life to paper and then gathering his friends to help animate them, to turn them into these songs meant to be shared like communion. “God’s children never grow up,” goes that refrain. Yes, some of them just grow into something unexpected: songwriters able to relay the good news that can exist in passing through the hardest of times and emerging on another side, able to sing about it.
CHECK OUT this official video for "Blame": https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dYOLeXrHzSA
***
About THE HIDERS:
Formed officially in the early days of the 21st century in Cincinnati, Ohio, The Hiders 2006 debut Valentine was met enthusiastically in the realm of Americana. Their sound, described often as an intriguing mix of folk, rock, and psychedelia, filled the remaining open spaces between the likes of Neil Young and Sparklehorse, or even the twilight separating Gillian Welch and Black Sabbath.
Over the course of eight albums members have come and gone so The Hiders act informally as a duo, featuring founder and vocalist/guitarist Billy Alletzhauser and long time co-vocalist Beth Harris, bringing in musicians as needed. The two met performing together in a production of Hedwig and the Angry Inch and have never looked back. Their vocals blend together seamlessly, less a duet and more one voice, and is the bedrock of their sound.
As of 2021, The Hiders record, mix, and produce their own music almost exclusively, giving an even more unique twist to their robust yet ethereal brand of roots inspired rock.
The Hiders most recent LP Forever at the End was released June 2021.
The Hiders will also be celebrating their 20th anniversary this year and are hard at work on material for their 9th studio album. Stay tuned!
CHECK OUT this live performance from October, 2023: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UUNZVKKVumY&list=PLI5BneSOx4O_msMs02h-Tpncpi41LX4Wh
***
About AJ YORIO:
AJ Yorio is a Cincinnati-based singer-songwriter, multi-instrumentalist, and designer. He first gained recognition as the guitarist and founder of the alt-rock band The Heavy Hours. Transitioning to a solo career and notable collaborative songwriting—including co-writing the viral hit "Scared to Start" with Michael Marcagi—he continues to release independent music, run his own studio, and host songwriting workshops.
***
More about:
JOELTON MAYFIELD:
joeltonmayfield.com
https://www.instagram.com/joeltonmayfield
THE HIDERS: https://thehiders.com
AJ YORIO: https://ajyorio.com
MOTR PUB: http://www.motrpub.com
TICKETS / INFO
