Ashleigh Flynn & The Riveters w/ Mawlee Jones Band & Slutashia

Fri. 2/9/24 at The Ruins. Doors at 6pm. 21+.
Tickets are $15 in advance thru Ticket Tomato or $20 at the door.

(Please note: Advance purchase tickets stop being available at Midnight the night before the show and then are only available at the door on the day-of.)

With what Pop Matters describes as “tenacious swagger,” locally acclaimed solo artist Ashleigh Flynn, from Portland, OR, recently dialed up the volume and debuted an all-female rock band as a nod to the “Rosie the Riveter” archetype from WWII.
Flynn grew up in Kentucky and cut her teeth on local bluegrass music and Motown. A prolific songwriter and performer blessed with unbridled charisma, she arrived on the Americana scene in 2008 with the release of her third LP, American Dream, a poetic lament to the elusiveness of that national ethos. A Million Stars followed in 2013 – a rollicking journey celebrating the women pioneers of the American West.

Ashleigh Flynn & The Riveters’ inaugural LP hit the streets in 2018 featuring a sound that hearkens back to early Stones, ‘70s psychedelic country rock, and alternately charms like a Sunday afternoon front porch session. Produced by her longtime musical collaborator, Chris Funk of the Decemberists, the 10 original tracks feature Flynn’s soulful vocals and compelling brand of songwriting, amped-up and virtuously enveloped by the electric guitar work of Nancy Luca. Luca honed her style and skill playing with Tom Petty and Bo Diddley.

In 2023, Ashleigh Flynn & the Riveters (AF&TR) remain a musical homage to “Rosie the Riveter,” whose brand inspired a social movement for women to work in America. AF&TR released their first studio album in late 2018 to stellar reviews and a multitude of live performance opportunities until the COVID19 pandemic shut down the live music industry. The Riveters persevered with the release of a live album in 2020, followed by more glowing reviews and multiple major West Coast festival plays.
AF&TR continue to break boundaries – like the Rosie’s of the World War II production era. With a batch of new songs in their arsenal, AF&TR embarked on the production of Studio Album Number 2 with a queer female producer and engineer at the helm. While the band itself is making regional waves in a genre underrepresented by female and queer bands (Americana/Country/Rock); queer female engineers and producers are an anomaly in this genre (with the recent exception of Brandi Carlile!)

Reverberating raunchy tonk from the Pacific Northwest, The Mawlee Jones Band is rounding up delinquents with hootin’, tootin’, out-ball-country. This band of bizarre bandits have a twangy, swamp-witch sound that is punishably good— from belly-aching ballads to fruity cowboy rendezvous tales, they’re confessing the reality of backwoods queer love and eroticism.

The Origins Story of Mawlee Jones…
A gay adolescent is trapped in a conservative town called Bumfuck, Montana. Life as they know it is round-the-clock bigotry, fashion-crimes, and cow-tipping— The horror! They become tired of this mundanity, and long to not only take life by the balls, but slap them….maybe kiss them a little too? Mawlee Jones pulls themselves up by the hand-me-down bootstraps, and seizes the opportunity to find their tune. They journey through foreign land and vast country sky all by their lonesome, on the search for a new life. They face prejudice, heartbreak, and uncertainty; yet, they stop at nothing to reclaim their sovereignty…

Darn tootin’, Mawlee Jones is a concept— representing the trials and tribulations of the journey towards authenticity; they simultaneously navigate their fluid, complex internal landscape and the external trek, seeking the right environment to live and love freely. Written and performed by the queers, for the queers.

Slutashia is a multi-talented rapper and drag artist from Eugene Oregon. She possesses a modern-day hip-hop aura and delivers her original rhymes with strong power. She has had the pleasure of opening up for other queer artists such as God Des, Wreckno & Big Freedia.

(Please note: Advance purchase tickets stop being available at Midnight the night before the show and then are only available at the door on the day-of. No pets allowed.)