The Builders and the Butchers

Death becomes them

Thursday, December 11th, 2008 | musiX, pdX | No Comments

Combining old-timey music with modern weirdness is nothing absolutely groundbreaking … but I wouldn’t tell that to Ryan Sollee for fear I’d end up at the bottom of Couch Lake. Sollee fronts Portland’s The Builders and the Butchers, a band that makes its living playing murder ballads with the intensity of a Southern Baptist preacher whose soul has been swallowed by Beelzebub. And by all accounts, it’s an absolute blast live.

Sollee moved to Portland from Anchorage, Alaska in 2003 and began writing songs that more resembled funeral dirges than the post-punk songs he had been writing with his previous band. All the chilling imagery was there—murder, coal mines and those stagnant bodies of water where some unfortunate souls eventually turn up.

Onstage is where the notion of simply being quirky goes to die. Nowadays The Builders and the Butchers are a road-worn five-piece, playing rowdy shows that often end up outside the venue, where audiences clap, stomp and play call-and-response to Sollee’s megaphoned rock ‘n’ roll sermon. And it’s all acoustic—bass, mandolin, banjo, trumpet or any other thrift-shop noisemaker Sollee can get his mitts on. The group has been on the road with Dresden Dolls’ Amanda Palmer and will perform Friday, Dec. 12 at Wonder Ballroom. The Builders will, along with the Butchers, resume work with The Decemberists‘ Chris Funk to finish their sophomore record slated for release early next year. Oh to be a fly on the wall during that recording …

“When It Rains” - The Builders and the Butchers

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