I had never seen nor even heard of Damion Suomi & the Minor Prophets, but they reminded me of my first time seeing The Builders and the Butchers; with no mics or amps, they shouted, banged, and stomped from the middle of a dance floor while a small crowd surrounded them and hollered every word. Tuesday night was my sixth time seeing the Builders and the Butchers, and that was like… seeing The Builders and the Butchers for the sixth time. The energy was misplaced. I showed up to see The Builders and went home wishing that Damion Suomi had played longer and that the Builders would have just unplugged and played amidst the crowd. Then again, maybe Suomi did the best thing a band just passing through town can do: open for bigger acts with bigger followings and pack every ounce of energy into a thirty-minute set that leaves the audience deaf, whiplashed, and wanting more.
Damion Suomi & the Minor Prophets played pitch-perfect alt-country with the familiar melodies of traditional bluegrass and the belligerent, stompy, happy energy of Irish pub songs. Suomi’s lyrics were self-aware and with the subdued anger of a character in a Cormac Macarthy novel, he professed his disbelief in God (“There is no God!”), disappointment in culture, run-ins with heartbreak, and faith in oneself (“Nobody’s gonna save your ass except for you”). Their live show glossed over the poetry and storytelling that is the unmistakable crux of their records and replaced it with the more appropriate live-performance element of kicking ass. Three songs into their set, all of the members were dripping with sweat (pretty fit dudes, too). They performed with the energy of a gutter-punk band; one of the drummers used his entire body as momentum to whack a one-off kick-drum during the first two songs. Another member switched instruments at least three times during the relatively short set, from a mandolin to a banjo to a lap-steel to a trumpet and then back to the mandolin. They exhumed confidence and expressed genuine delight in visiting Portland, saluting the city before their last song and plugging their new record due out in April. I indeed hope to see them as many times as I’ve been able to see the Builders.
The Builders and the Butchers played next, of course (Or, according to one perceptive tourist outside the venue: The Bakers and the Butchers). No mystery or grand entrance shrouded these familiar faces. During set-up, they spent so much time milling about on stage dealing with technical snafus that once they actually started playing, their energy felt a bit forced, and the audience was apparently drained from both Suomi and all the waiting around. ‘Twas unfortunate and a bit strange for a band notorious for their highly energetic, anthem-call-and-response approach, but the boys stuck it out even through the “whale humping” episode where a string of feedback shrieked through the speakers for several minutes. Frontman Ryan Solee charmed everyone, whose ears were otherwise being assaulted, with some coy humor until the “humping,” as he deemed it, stopped. They played a few hits: “Black Dresses”, “Bottom of the Lake,” and “In the Branches,” but the boys were eager to get folks familiar with new material from Dead Reckoning, their highly anticipated third album due out Februrary 22nd. Most notable from the new batch was a smooth jam called "Out of the Mountain," where mandolin/banjo player Harvey Tumbleson summoned the eerie loneliness of the old West with a lap-steel while Sollee pondered the elements: “I’ve set fire to the earth and I’ve come to watch it grow … I walk the world with a black heart, and I’m here to make the cold wind blow … The way you make it rain … I will keep the rain.” They finished with "Lullabye," which I predict will be their next most loved sing-a-long anthem, wearily declaring, “Killing is better than living if you are making pennies for a living …if you are alone.”
And, hey! Speaking of killing, Murder by Death closed the night out with a set very much contoured for the longtime fan. They began with “Kentucky Bourbon” and “You Won’t Miss Twice…”, a couple newly minted tracks from their 2010 release, Good Morning, Magpie. But front-man Adam Turla promised to retreat back to their dusty old-album goodies soon enough. In the interim, a fight broke out between two ladies in the front row, one of whom received an undue punch to the face (thank you to Kendra for the fact-checking). There were also two things that stood out to me (from my infantile stage of MBD fandom) while watching this band: 1. Cellist Sarah Balliet looks like she’s humping the chair when she plays; which is both gross and (I have to imagine she is at least somewhat conscious of the sexual nature of her gestures) paradoxically titillating. 2. Adam Turla burns at least ten calories per syllable due to his insistence on playing “air drums” with his forehead. I will buffer that vaguely critical statement by saying that said singer is a very skilled air drummer. But chair humping and air drumming only go so far. The nostalgia I strongly associated with MBD’s music gradually crumbled as I watched them play. Turla and Balliet both looked relatively young, at least nowhere near the age I imagined them to be. Their music so accurately depicts a battered and sinister old-West atmosphere that, without even realizing, I had hoped to see the songs coughed out by an equally battered, sinister old man. The same thing happens with reading a book and then seeing the movie version, and I’m certain Mr. Turla would understand completely; often just the story and some imagination are more sufficient than any actors’ portrayal.
