“Pretty Bird” - Jenny Lewis Live at Meany Hall ::: courtesy of Youtube user: bebeblu.

… most of them don’t usually involve appearing on stage alone in front of a nearly capacity 1200 seat theater. “I’ve never done this before,” Jenny Lewis confessed last Wednesday to the crowd after playing her first solo song, “Rabbit Fur Coat” all alone on a dark stage. To a cheer of encouraging applause she introduced the next song “It’s A Hit” noting “I wrote this next song about a guy who lost his job in Washington yesterday.” Three cheers for that indeed. Way to start strong.

As we heard on a recent NPR podcast, Lewis has been collaborating quite a bit with her current boyfriend Jonathan Rice, and brought him along to play some of the songs he helped to write on her latest album Acid Tongue. After a few songs alone, Lewis invited Rice out to join on a song he helped write called “Carpetbaggers,” a song that Lewis convinced Elvis Costello to duet with her for the album version. After Lewis noted “Carpetbaggers” was about treacherous women, Rice jokingly asked if it was autobiographical. She only raised an amused eyebrow in answer before launching into the song.

The set list consisted of the complete range of Lewis’ solo material and some covers, yet even with only a couple Rilo Kiley songs in the mix, a larger point of view quickly emerged. Quite a few of the songs chosen for this evening seemed to reflect the experience of conflicted and drama prone women, cougar moms and disaffected daughters and fragile girlfriends alike. Midway through the set Rice and Lewis dueted on the oft covered “Love Hurts,” a song which Lewis referred to in an earlier interview as “a perfect love song.” Right. Somehow that sounds exactly like something she would say. Rice’s jibe had legs.

Not having paid proper attention to Lewis’ latest release, many of the new songs I’d heard only once, and so was pleasantly surprised. She’s really singing with confidence now, and it’s sounding good. Notable songs for me were “Pretty Bird,” “Silver Lining,” and the Rilo Kiley number “You Are What you Love.” To be perfectly honest, I doubt this entire set could have been any better. (Reading the last two sentence’s over I now realize how much of a pussy I must sound. I’m a bearded dude! Oh well.)

“I was afraid Meany Hall was a beer hall or something,” Lewis confided to the crowd near the end of the night. “With beer nuts.” Funny. Considering this is where the small orchestra’s usually play on campus and the closest beer nut was probably up the Ave a ways, Lewis had nothing to worry about. Starting a three song encore with “Godspeed,” Lewis took to the piano, an instrument that until this point had remained untouched. She then brought out opener’s Norfolk and Western to harmonize on “Acid Tongue,” and finished the night with a song all alone on stage that I would have to identify as new.

You can listen and watch low-res versions of much of the night on Youtube at c2weber’s youtube channel.

A Rough Setlist from memory after the fold.
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In terms of my Capitol Hill Block Party recommendations from last week, none was higher than my push for our loyal readers to head towards The Builders and the Butchers’ Saturday afternoon set.  Though, for reasons I’m still trying to piece together I missed the recommended set, I caught The Builders’ impressive live show earlier this year down in Portland, and absolutely couldn’t believe my eyes or ears.  Now, many months and many, many spins of their debut LP later, they’ve quickly elevated to the small group of bands I tenatively deem “favorites”.

Ryan Sollee, lead singer and guitarist for the motley, sometimes-fivesome was nice enough to give some solid answers to a few of my more burning questions on the more literary aspects of the Portland music scene, where the darkness in his music comes from, and oh so much more.

Enjoy.

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Ryan Sollee :: Photo by kirstiecat

SOUND ON THE SOUND: First of all, where exactly does the name The Builders and The Butchers come from?

Ryan Sollee: It took us about 6 months to come up with the name, originally the band was called The Funeral Band, but we knew we needed another name. I think it’s this way with most bands, it’s the only name nobody hated.

SOTS: How did The Builders and The Butchers come together originally?

RS: My friend Adrienne (Autopilot is for Lovers) and I wanted to start writing darkly themed songs to be played acoustic for people at large gatherings. I think the original idea for the band and what it has become is very different, we had a handfull of songs written and started played one night at the house where the rest of the guys live. From there we practiced for about a month and played our first shows at Halloween house parties and outside a Bob Log III show.

SOTS: How did you decided upon your onstage set-up? I saw you guys at The Willamette Week Best New Band Showcase and was blown away by the usage of two auxiliary percussionists?

RS: Since our first shows we’ve had the two drummers, it wasn’t ever talked about, one day Paul just put the bass drum on its side and there it was. We bought an old field snare for Ray at a thrift store. Other percussion has slowly been added to try to mix things up. I like the idea of two people essentially playing one drum kit.

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