Lifter Puller, Rock and Roll!

< /matos>

the idea that lp "romanticize" anything is completely fucking laughable unless you have a kneejerk response to anything involving "rock lifestyle" lyrics. it's pretty obvious that craig finn is singing in character, about several characters; he's telling stories inna hard-boiled-novelist stylee about (in lp songs) a seedy underbelly underworld w/recurring characters/situations/settings. lots of very deliberate grotesquerie, and the hyperreality appeals (to me, to j0hn, to others) for its detail, its hyperactivity, its playfulness, its style. also, the band fucking rocks.

Don't get me wrong - you can hate the Shaggs all you want! I'm not trying to claim them as some sort of underground badge. I love pop music too, and hell one can probably find that Shaggs cd on Rounder at any damn Tower Records store anyway. But that's just it isn't it? Why would you not have at least a natural curiousity about this group that a lot of people seem to be interested in? After all, you're a professional critic aren't you? I like your writing bunches, your one of the best I've read in terms of evocative descriptions and really being able to convey what makes a piece of music work. (and this is one of my favorite styles of music writing when - thank god - someone can actually DO IT). but in your tastes you also strike me as a bit of an unadventurous listener, someone who really isn't interested in much beyond what's happening now. This is probably due to your career/job position I know, but it's sort of disappointing, is all.

ok, ok, on-topic: everything I've read about Lifter Puller leads me to believe they are like everything I can't stand about rock music. This kind of simpering emo boy blathering on with his "narratives", right? Over vaguely prog/math inflected guitar-oriented backing? Please fucking shoot me now. But like I say, I've never heard them.

But hey, I love the fact that you're here! ANd I can communicate with you just like this! Unlike when I was growing up in the 80's reading say Rolling Stone or Spin and finding similar irritants in some of the writing.

OK, how about this: Archers of Loaf is quite frankly the worst horseshit I've ever heard in my life.

but i'll still take archers' "assassination on xmas eve" over any LP trax.

And, I feel you on the whole Shaggs deal; I hate that when stuff I feel has a real kernel of musical interest gets reappropriated or misrepresented or whatever. I just really think that - yes, as untutored, amateurish, and goofy as they were - there was a really singular accident in that Shaggs stuff. Where the three girls all kind of became of one mind and forged this crazy alternate rhythmic base for their odd little songs. I mean, it really does work! It's fun, and it makes you sort of enthusiastic about the ability of people to express themselves and enjoy themselves and so on (yeah, cliches, etc). These are all perceptions gleaned from the music; I know nothing of the personal history of this family, supposedly to be addressed in this film...

"Nassau Coliseum" is the most emo Lifter Puller song and it's my favorite. Am I wrong?

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)

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

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?

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

'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.

I think gff said above that their records sound anemic. from the one I've heard I couldn't agree more.

he’s referring specifically to them vs. their live shows, but either way, Magnetic Fields to thread!

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

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.

I realize that I am eerily like ned here insofar as I get tired of him hating on superfans elsewhere.