"Nassau Coliseum" is the most emo Lifter Puller song and it's my favorite. Am I wrong?
― Sonny A. (Keiko), Saturday, 28 June 2003 03:29 (twenty years ago) link
Fucking A. If Sam Cooke's "If It's Alright" and Rod Stewart's "Found a Reason to Believe" aren't the two greatest songs in the world I don't know what they could be. (and yes I realize Sam and Rod are the same person, only different hues)(and yes I realize this is LP thread. whatev)
― Yanc3y (ystrickler), Saturday, 28 June 2003 03:31 (twenty years ago) link
I love "Assassination on Xmas Eve" though I'll take "Harnessed in Slums" myself
Yanc3y's comment got me thinking: one thing about Lifter Puller that I realize smacks of fanboyism, progthink, and other kinds of brainwash, but is nevertheless true, is that in order to understand them completely you have to hear a lot of them. There's individual tracks that stand up great on their own ("Space Humping $19.99" and "Nassau Coliseum"* and "To Live and Die in LBI" are my top three) but it's the overall effect of the songs--the way they reuse and slightly alter the same lines ("She said my name's Juanita but you can call me L.L. Cool J") not to mention the recurring characters/situations/places--that kills me.
Also it should be noted that I wasn't offended by yr crack, Diamond, just puzzled; your post cleared it up (I sort of suspected it but wasn't sure). I think the film is based on Susan Orlean's New Yorker piece, which is pretty good--definitely the best thing I've read on the band, though
*As soon as I typed this I realized I was sort of wrong earlier. "Nassau Coliseum" is a six-minute song in which Craig Finn does sort of whine over vaguely mathy guitars at a dragging tempo. Thing is, it's one of the funniest breakup songs** ever written: "Didn't think that you'd dis me/Did you sleep with that hippie?" Tone is all: he's more bemused than pissed off and so loghorreic that you get caught up in his narcoleptic singsong flow. If Mr. Diamond were to download this one song, probably their best, for your intro, it would totally confirm his suspicions about them, but it's still a great, great song.
**except it's not actually a breakup song; Craig Finn wrote it after/about a riot at a Grateful Dead show
― M Matos (M Matos), Saturday, 28 June 2003 03:35 (twenty years ago) link
― M Matos (M Matos), Saturday, 28 June 2003 03:37 (twenty years ago) link
Thank you!! I always thought this was like the most mysterious song ever written. I was picturing Kent State or something. Is there an internet go-to place for finding information like this? A fan site, maybe?
― Sonny A. (Keiko), Saturday, 28 June 2003 03:42 (twenty years ago) link
I found out about that from my friend Kate Silver, Sonny, who posts on ILx sometimes. I think she got it from Craig himself, but don't quote me
― M Matos (M Matos), Saturday, 28 June 2003 03:43 (twenty years ago) link
― Yanc3y (ystrickler), Saturday, 28 June 2003 03:47 (twenty years ago) link
― Mr. Diamond (diamond), Saturday, 28 June 2003 03:49 (twenty years ago) link
― Yanc3y (ystrickler), Saturday, 28 June 2003 03:52 (twenty years ago) link
― Mr. Diamond (diamond), Saturday, 28 June 2003 03:58 (twenty years ago) link
― Yanc3y (ystrickler), Saturday, 28 June 2003 03:59 (twenty years ago) link
― Mr. Diamond (diamond), Saturday, 28 June 2003 04:11 (twenty years ago) link
― Ben Boyer, Saturday, 28 June 2003 15:20 (twenty years ago) link
'romanticizing': trying to make the gutter seem appealing _because of_ its idealized baseness. (hard-boiled style is regularly in the service of a romanticized view of its subject matter, isn't it?)
you say they're an immersion band - immersing yourself in that squalid lifestyle. now, it seems to me common sense that you wouldn't WANT to do that UNLESS it had been romanticized some, as per above. (imagine I give you a pile of trash, and I tell you to roll around in it. you say no - of course. but then I tell you a story about how really fucking awesome it is to be caught up in just how awful it is to roll around in trash, and then you jump right in.)
there's something to do here with one strain of rock music's image of itself, I think. what I don't understand is why people who are presumably aware of it would be so happy to buy in and pretend as if old rock myths and cliches are true after all.
I know this is all contentious but I don't think it's at all knee-jerk.
I think gff said above that their records sound anemic. from the one I've heard I couldn't agree more.
― Josh (Josh), Saturday, 28 June 2003 16:35 (twenty years ago) link
― Sonny A. (Keiko), Saturday, 28 June 2003 17:09 (twenty years ago) link
― James Blount (James Blount), Saturday, 28 June 2003 23:39 (twenty years ago) link
he’s referring specifically to them vs. their live shows, but either way, Magnetic Fields to thread!
― M Matos (M Matos), Saturday, 28 June 2003 23:44 (twenty years ago) link
no one said you had to; I was explaining the group’s m.o.
you say they're an immersion band - immersing yourself in that squalid lifestyle
no, immersing yourself in their stories of that lifestyle. Probably should’ve made that a little plainer
Sonny A is otm about the characters being ravers, not rockers
― M Matos (M Matos), Saturday, 28 June 2003 23:47 (twenty years ago) link
― M Matos (M Matos), Saturday, 28 June 2003 23:49 (twenty years ago) link
― James Blount (James Blount), Saturday, 28 June 2003 23:52 (twenty years ago) link
I certainly didn't mean the actual lifestyle. I was talking about just what you go on to say: 'we as listeners go through that with them'.
I question whether it IS like people liking the sopranos - typically it seems as if there's a much greater degree of identification with the world made by music. or at least, it happens more often. maybe that's not happening here - I can't tell from the way people praise the band.
if it's just some kind of narrative/dramatic deal (say like cathartic crime drama) - well, the reason I'm making these posts is that I just don't like the tone of the band's fans. crazy superfandom is fine, but there's something about 'criminally ignored', that kind of thing, that riles me. so I want to hear more about what it is I suspect could be a critical blind spot - a plenty good reason that people could just not want to hear lifter puller, despite whatever rhythmic etc etc or dramatic yadda yadda. (put the short way: 'storytelling', big deal - what if you don't care about what the stories are about?)
I certainly sympathize with not being able to write about what you love most - but I find it interesting how little lifter puller fans seem to talk about what the songs are about. (I also recognize how the style of the lyrics might make this hard.) but then what does john talk about in his lptj review? a drug song. hmm.
I'm talking about what's evoked, in the background, called upon, leaned on, gestured at, whatever. 'seedy underbelly' set to music.
― Josh (Josh), Saturday, 28 June 2003 23:56 (twenty years ago) link
― M Matos (M Matos), Saturday, 28 June 2003 23:58 (twenty years ago) link
― Josh (Josh), Sunday, 29 June 2003 00:00 (twenty years ago) link
― James Blount (James Blount), Sunday, 29 June 2003 00:02 (twenty years ago) link
― M Matos (M Matos), Sunday, 29 June 2003 00:09 (twenty years ago) link
I realize that I am eerily like ned here insofar as I get tired of him hating on superfans elsewhere.
― Josh (Josh), Sunday, 29 June 2003 00:09 (twenty years ago) link
fair enough. I think the sopranos comparison is pretty good but quite inexact, because as much as I extol Finn's narrative sense he's also not writing straight-line stories a lot of the time--re: the reoccurring lines/phrases thing I mention above, he'll often revisit certain settings and situations and tweak them a little. you can basically play the songs in any order and they'll make sense as a microcosm rather than a straight-up narrative. it's more like an altman movie.
part of what impresses me about them most is that they deal with what in most hands IS very tired subject matter and inject it with a lot more vividness than you'd necessarily expect to hear. and because there's so many fucking words--finn-as-rapper isn't much of an exaggeration on that level--it becomes almost an all-or-nothing situation when you're writing about them; the temptation is to just quote and quote and quote, or else not quote at all and try and get at what they're doing yourself.
the reason I'm making these posts is that I just don't like the tone of the band's fans. crazy superfandom is fine, but there's something about 'criminally ignored', that kind of thing, that riles me.
what, you knee-jerk?
so are you asking for some kind of exegesis of something specific here? if so, happy to provide, just want to be sure
― M Matos (M Matos), Sunday, 29 June 2003 00:11 (twenty years ago) link
― M Matos (M Matos), Sunday, 29 June 2003 00:13 (twenty years ago) link
'knee jerk' is dismissive and unresponsive and that's why I don't care for the way you've been using it. the fact that my response is reactive, not very considered, doesn't immediately invalidate it. (I certainly didn't START with the tendency to have this kind of reaction, I think - it's developed over time, which is some kind of sign that I'm not just knee-jerking.)
I don't know what I want. I don't understand the sensibility I felt in the songs and I don't get why so many people who are in other ways not apparently very tied up in the rock-via-the-gutter mythos (I don't totally understand what I mean by that, either, but I keep hoping sterl will come along and recognize what I mean - and actually a review I remember but can't find of vollmann's 'the royal family' came to mind - the author made some kind of criticism like, vollmann is in love with the idea of degradation-as-salvation, redemption-in-misery whores-and-death kind of shit that has been old since rimbaud's time - and no I'm not saying the same thing about LP, it just came to mind) can go for it wholesale.
― Josh (Josh), Sunday, 29 June 2003 00:32 (twenty years ago) link
Zing. But as far as I'm concerned you could hate away about my MBV love and while I'll grouse a touch at most I won't do anything more (Calum's attempt to bait me there constantly was in retrospect hilarious), so I suppose it's all down to how one feels at the time. In this case I haven't heard anything by Lifter Puller yet so I'll just read the thread contemplatively.
― Ned Raggett (Ned), Sunday, 29 June 2003 01:15 (twenty years ago) link
― M Matos (M Matos), Sunday, 29 June 2003 01:17 (twenty years ago) link
― Josh (Josh), Sunday, 29 June 2003 01:20 (twenty years ago) link
― M Matos (M Matos), Sunday, 29 June 2003 01:21 (twenty years ago) link
― Josh (Josh), Sunday, 29 June 2003 01:22 (twenty years ago) link
― M Matos (M Matos), Sunday, 29 June 2003 01:28 (twenty years ago) link
― Josh (Josh), Sunday, 29 June 2003 01:47 (twenty years ago) link
I think I understand exactly what you mean by that mythos, Josh--you mean "why do smart people want to front like they're the morons in Please Kill Me?" what you seem to be saying is that therefore a story that contains those ignorant, non-self-reflexive elements (in the characters, usually) is somehow ITSELF ignorant and non-self-reflexive. How many species of bullshit is that? Answer: lots and lots. right now I'm reading Frank Owen's Clubland, the story of how NYC clubs in the mid-'90s were full of drugs and this yelping club kid named Michael Alig killed a drug dealer associate of his and lots of gangsters were involved and almost everyone who didn’t overdose or get whacked first went to jail. There are almost no likable people in this book. Yet it’s a really gripping read, because the characters are interesting and Owen makes the activities vivid. Does that mean I condone them? well, some of the drug parts--I like taking drugs sometimes--and the dancing in the clubs, yeah. but for the most part, no. but it’s a terrific book. Does it mean I have to buy into some lifestyle mythos in order to enjoy it? Of course not.
Now I’ll fess up--and I’ve written about this before elsewhere--that LP grip me particularly hard because I recognize a lot of the milieu they write about--I’m from Minneapolis, worked at the nightclub First Avenue for 2 1/2 years, went to raves and basement parties for a long time. LP do romanticize nightlife, absolutely; they blow up its details to such extremes, while keeping things recognizable (“She says she’s waiting on the steady type/Then she disappears with the Eyepatch Guy,” sure, we’ve been there) and within the realm of possibility (there are a LOT of shady types running nightclubs, as Clubland attests), that they create a kind of hyperreal version of it. Degradation happens in the songs but it’s not all that happens, unless you happen to be the Moral Majority. And if you want to say I unthinkingly get off on degradation-in-itself, well, I'll happily call you an asshole right back.
― M Matos (M Matos), Sunday, 29 June 2003 01:50 (twenty years ago) link
― M Matos (M Matos), Sunday, 29 June 2003 01:55 (twenty years ago) link
Momus stole your girlfriend?
― Ned Raggett (Ned), Sunday, 29 June 2003 01:57 (twenty years ago) link
― M Matos (M Matos), Sunday, 29 June 2003 02:00 (twenty years ago) link
― Sterling Clover (s_clover), Sunday, 29 June 2003 02:00 (twenty years ago) link
― Ned Raggett (Ned), Sunday, 29 June 2003 02:00 (twenty years ago) link
― Ned Raggett (Ned), Sunday, 29 June 2003 02:01 (twenty years ago) link
― M Matos (M Matos), Sunday, 29 June 2003 02:02 (twenty years ago) link
― Josh (Josh), Sunday, 29 June 2003 02:06 (twenty years ago) link
― Sterling Clover (s_clover), Sunday, 29 June 2003 02:08 (twenty years ago) link
As far as I know, Craig is from a well off family, and met [gtr player] in college (Boston?) and they decided to start a punk band, so they came back to Mpls (I don't remember which of them was from here). I don't think it's possible to even BE IN a band and not have heavy heavy contact with the nighlife, even if you didn't want it.
Anyway, I think his day job is now in finance somewhere. So he stands in the same relation to the 'k-hole' (ie the gutter-rock-drug-sex-loser halfworld) as, I would think, Brian Wilson did to the 'beach,' ie always looking in no matter how in he gets.
And I think the connection btw those two is important; LP do a kind of loser-pastoral. It's a stretched connection bcz LP is so much more WORDY than the Beach Boys, lyrical content counts for much more of what LP were than what the BBs were, but it's the same artistic strategy: find a little corner and make the world out of it. (a good enough reason not to like Wilson either, really.)
And unlike Wilson the k-hole IS ridiculous (the beach is pretty ridiculous too, but less intentionally so), far too detailed and amplified to be read too seriously. I don't know how much of an 'indie-beaudelaire' act they were trying to do, they were always way too FUNNY. (one thing I don't like abt LP is how reliant their schtick is on schtick: their riffs often didn't stand up to the weight of the spiel)
(I don't think they ever made enough money to afford not being anemic on record. I guess that's still their 'fault,' I'm sure there are other cheap engineers out there who know how to mic a bass cabinet, but hey their uh historical record is imperfect.)
― g--ff c-nn-n (gcannon), Sunday, 29 June 2003 02:14 (twenty years ago) link
I'm not saying that. but suppose it's something like what you describe in that book. the way you put it, it's sort of like, 'this really held my interest and was enjoyable'. I can understand reasons like that given that you talked about the vivid writing, etc. (bad people make for good characters, sure.) but people seem to talk about lifter puller a lot giving reasons like that, sort of music criticy, materials-of-songwriting and canons-of-rock kinds of things, while acting and sounding like they are far more committed to... something, I don't know what, thus my talk about myth, sensibility, etc. above - way more into something, more moved by it, whatever, than people tend to get by 'mere' good or innovative songcraft, etc. (I know it's not you, but: a guy with lftr pllr tatooed on his knuckles?)
― Josh (Josh), Sunday, 29 June 2003 02:19 (twenty years ago) link
― M Matos (M Matos), Sunday, 29 June 2003 02:20 (twenty years ago) link