e-mail
Bow Down to the Lifter Puller:
Dan, Steve, Craig, and Tom
story by Tim Scanlin
"I think most of us would say that anyone who's connected to that period is washed up and/or retro. It's almost like more of a negative reaction at this point." Craig Finn, singer/guitarist for Minneapolis' Lifter Puller is ruminating on what it's like to be an indie rocker in the post-Husker/Replacements/Soul Asylum era of the Twin Cities.
"The Amphetamine Reptile thing did a lot to erase that, too," chimes in drummer Dan Monick. Well, if the Amerindie stars of old Minneapolis are all faded away then Lifter Puller has assumed their place in the sky, shining like a fuckin' supernova.
In '97 it's Lifter Puller, which also includes guitarist Steve Barone and bassist Tommy Roach, that gets my vote for the band most likely to come out of nowhere and knock the jaded indie rock community on it's collective, cords-clad ass. Craig Finn has more lyrical prowess in his left thumbnail than an army of Alternative Whiners. His words smack of borderline brilliance, a giant "fuck you" to the obtuse ramblings of so many cooler-than-thou slobs. "I'm consciously, 100% of the time, into specific-type lyrics," explains Finn. "I had a problem with Bob Mould, for instance, because he's never written a specific lyric in his life. Grant Hart would always write very specific lyrics and I always liked his songs. That's also why I like Jawbreaker. I'm totally into Blake's lyrics."
Lifter Puller sneak up behind you. They eschew indie rock conventions, things like huge, multi-tracked guitars, lots of screaming and vague lyrical stabs. Their sound is gritty and alive. Their songs are made up of (relatively) clean guitars, simple bass, a steady beat and above all, Finn's amazing lyrics, delivered in what can only be described as a magnificent croak. While the band's members all claim a hearty enthusiasm for things like Girls Against Boys, Guided By Voices and Lou Barlow, they don't sound like anybody I've ever heard before.
They came together slowly. Craig, a Minneapolis native, and Steve were roommates at Boston College. "I'm the one who taught Steve how to play guitar," says Craig. "To get chicks," interjects his former (and current) roomie. "Yeah, to get chicks. In fact, sometimes about 1:30 in the morning we'd have a 5 minute cram session, with me whispering, 'D...G...C." It was in Beantown that they met up with Dan - at a birthday party for Tom. Still, their collaboration was a ways off.
After graduation, Craig sat around for a spell, wondering what to do. "I was sick of Boston," he says, "I was planning on staying but I hadn't found an apartment. Dave, my roommate and the drummer I'd been playing with, was moving back [to Minneapolis] and kept saying, 'Just come to Minneapolis - we'll play rock.' And I really had nothing going on in Boston that was as enticing as playing rock. So I just said, 'What the fuck.'" As fate would have it, Craig once again met up with Dan - at another party back in Minneapolis. "I was playing in Saucer and this band, Guitarded," explains Dan. "I had bought a bass for the fuck of it and Craig just said, 'You wanna come down and play with us tomorrow?' and I said, 'Sure, I'll play.'" In late 1995, when Dave the drummer quit, Dan assumed the roll and Tom, having also returned from Boston, took over on bass. The current line-up of Lifter Puller was born. "As our debut we opened for June of '44 at the [7th Street] Entry and it went down as the most moves you've ever seen by one guy. Steve marched about 500 miles that night."
Craig is, of course, referring to Steve's legendary on-stage choreography, a flurry of finger-points, splits and lots and lots of marching. "It originated because the parts I was playing weren't that hard," shrugs Steve. "I HAD to do something else 'cause I just shoegazed. It was like, 'This guy is laaame.' I had to compensate for that. At first it was overboard. I had to tone it down a bit." Craig defends his buddy's schtick: "When Steve started playing with us I was into [his dance moves]. The whole indie rock thing of standing up there looking depressed is just stupid. Steve adds a cool visual element."
The band's self-titled, full-length debut, soon to be released on Skene!, was recorded by Liz Phair-knob-twiddler Casey Rice at Idful Studios in Chicago. Finn says that most of it was written in the year following his graduation from college and fittingly, many of his lyrics on the record deal with themes of post-graduation angst. "There's a little bit of depression in there," he says. "I'm essentially an optimist but that was the one time in my life that I thought I was fooling myself." The songs are also full of East Coast references, specifically the seedy underbelly of the Ivy League and its inhabitants. Take a song like "Star Wars Hips," for instance, with it's opening salvo of "Here's what happened in the back of the restaurant/A couple debutantes/A hundred bottles of wine/Walked into the walk-in cooler/The cops caught him with a pocket-full of powder", or "I detest the Midwest/All these greasers are creeps/Throwing rocks at my Jeep" (from "Bruce Bender"). "Steely Dan totally nails that vibe," says Dan. "All those songs about East Coast college shit. I identified all their songs with people I knew then."
The band will be doing an East Coast tour in March followed by their first West Coast tour in June. Don't miss them - Steve's moves are worth the price of admission alone.
back to articles
|
