Review: Lifter-Puller

Lifter-Puller
“Soft Rock”
(The Self-Starter Foundation)

In a perfect world, Lifter Puller would have been on the first cover of Modern Fix.  That was my plan.

They were the hippest thing I had found in months at the time.  Then I found out they had just broken up a few months prior to the start of Modern Fix.  Since then, their “Fiestas + Fiascos” release has become a “classic” in my CD jukebox.  If for no other reason then there just isn’t a band like Lifter Puller.

Their singer is totally unique (which will put him the ‘love it’ or ‘hate it’ position with most people).  With a nasal charm and a club-geek sensibility, Craig Finn would spin genius, drug addled and alcohol-filtered sermons of life, love, death and the ecstasy in between.  The downward spiral of their friends in all their glorious beauty seemed to be the common theme.

The music was a smoking bowlful of indie-rock hipness.  Always clever and continuously mining guitar hooks to sell for crack; it was just fucking different and cool.  But they went away.  The Self-Starter Foundation was kind enough to release this 2-CD set featuring tracks off their hard to find 7″ and EP’s, as well as including all 11 tracks from “Half Dead and Dynamite”. Plus three unreleased tracks and that rounds out disk no.1!

Disk 2 is all 6 songs from “The Entertainment and Arts” EP in addition to their entire full length, self-titled first release.  Basically, you pretty much get their entire catalog except for the aforementioned “Fiestas+Fiascos”.  So buy that, and this, and you got it all baby.  Then beat yourself appropriately when you realize you missed the boat on this short-lived band.