I walked into the newly renovated and expanded Mississippi Studios just as the Builders and the Butchers finished setting up. The floor was packed. Of course, even expanded, the Portland venue is still intimate and the space fills up quickly. I caught the first of two concerts that evening. Apparently, the Builders and the Butchers were playing entirely different sets and recording the results. I am not sure what they could have played for the late set because I heard almost all my favorites in the first.
I had heard great things about their live performances, but was a little worried that they wouldn’t pull out all the stops for the early show, knowing that they had a whole second show to do. However, the band sounded great as they ripped through an hour’s worth of their Gothic (in a literary sense, think Flannery O’Conner, not the Cure) roots rock. Ryan Solle held his guitar high and strummed frantically, belting out his grim tales of murder, doom, and watery deaths. For as dark as the lyrics were, the vocals and music rarely were anything less than spirited. Two drummers, splitting a drum kit and a handful of other percussion pieces, established a casual front porch beat. A rotating rock and roll banjo and mandolin filled out their sound and were passed back and forth between practically every other song.
The Builders and the Butchers started early with the audience participation, passing out shakers on their second song and then later passing out toy drums and throwing out more shakers to the people up in the balcony for a wild version of “Red Hands”. Solle stepped down into the audience after directing the crowd to shout along with the a chorus of whoa-oo’s the “Bottom of the Lake”. Towards the end of their set they were joined on stage by a friend from another local band, Federale. He added trumpet to a the “Sun Goes Down on Barcelona”, a song that I hadn’t heard before, but will definitely have to track down now. The set wound down with the gospel flavored “Find Me In The Air”. If I didn’t have places to go, I would have definitely caught their second set. I guess I’ll have to save that for another night.
The Builders and the Butchers can next be seen at Washington State’s Sasquatch Music Festival over Memorial Day weekend.
The Builders and the Butchers:Â myspace
Photo: Mel Brown
