The Bowdoin Orient

This interview was conducted with Portland-based singer-songwriter Aly Spaltro, a.k.a. Lady Lamb the Beekeeper. Spaltro, who Bowdoin students may know from her years of employment at Brunswick Bart and Greg's DVD Explosion! is planning to further her music career come December, first with a move to Cambridge, Mass. and then to New York.

Where did you play your first real gig?

My first performance ever was down on Pleasant St. at Sweet Leaves Tea House in February of 2008, and shortly after that was when I decided to start playing [in] Portland.

A girl at Sweet Leaves was like, "you would kill it if you played open mike [in] Portland."

So I went, and it was at this place called Slainte.

I played the last set of the night, and was on stage until 1 a.m. I was really well received, and after the show someone came up to me and was like, "Who are you? Where did you come from?"

Shortly after that, I started getting legit shows in Portland, and now I've played pretty much every Portland venue.

How do you feel about Portland's music scene?

There is without a doubt no other scene in the country that I would have liked to be a part of first. People there listen, and they long for good music. They seek it out, and they go to good shows. All the bands in Portland are really tight-knit. It's just supportive.

Everyone loves everyone else's music, even if it's so far from their own. My experience was just of people being so encouraging and just supportive.

One day there'd be 10 people at my show, and the next time there'd be 20, because those people who came the first time would go out and get their friends to come.

I'm so excited to go out into the world and represent Portland. No one knows how special Portland is. We're at the top of the country and no huge blogs or websites really talk about Portland.

When you go on stage to perform, what goes through your head?

I just give my entire self to the audience every single time. Usually that means that I delve so deeply into what I'm doing that I lose where I am. I really let it go.

After a performance I tend to be exhausted, and have to decompress. I want everyone in the room to feel like they're experiencing with me what I'm experiencing.

And whatever I'm experiencing is always powerful. Another thing I like to do is look out into the crowd and make eye contact with someone and sing to them.

Everywhere I've performed, there's this really special thing that can happen if your performance is aligned and its as though everyone trusts everyone, and we're all there together, and we've all been brought together in that one space, for one night, so that every stress is on hold for an hour.

And we're just there, in the present. I have problems with either living in the past, or in the future. But to have that hour where we're all in the present is so special. It really is just the human connection—just that feeling of love that you can have with a stranger just by sharing your true emotions with them.

Spaltro's album, "Samples for Handsome Animals," is available on iTunes.