Now that Craig Finn is finally getting the place in rock history he deserves with The Hold Steady, a fare amount of attention is ciculating online re: the reissues of Craig's first band Lifter Puller. So...in my best I TOLD YOU SO voice, and to validate the concept of this blog, here is a gem of an interview I did with Dan (Liftr Pllr's drummer) in 1999 for my friend's webzine and a pic of my copy of thier first (and only) 7 inch, which I assume is now worth like a bazillion dollars.
So whats the deal with the first album? I can't find it anywhere, so I'm assuming that it's either on some obscure label or it's out of print.
As far as I know it's still in print, the thing is that we're not terribly happy with it. Craig had started the band here (Minn) with a different drummer, I'm the drummer now, and another guy filling in on bass, the drummer's brother actually. So then he quit and uh(laughs), they got me to play bass, which I don't really know how to do. And then I think we recorded a single... I can't really remember that well it's all kind of convoluted.
When you guys start at the beginning of the song making process is it more or less just one person?
Oh, know it's completely... it's just whoever comes up with the riff.
Cool.
On some songs I'll be like here's the drum beat I want and they will just flow to it. Craig will come in with a song idea or part of a structure and everyone will learn parts that he's playing, but then he'll slowly stop playing the guitar. So it's starts out as something else but then the originator of the song just falls out. Actually, on a song we were doing last night Steve, the keyboard player, he had like a story. I mean it was like cowboys and indians he said "We're here in town and it's a stand off, and the Indians are winning". So sometimes we'll start writing them that way.
Wow, well can I make a suggestion for the next time you guys use a theme to kinda set the mood?
Sure.
...when I was drunk, someone stole my dirtbike.
(laughs) That really happened to you?
No. A friend of mine made a short film for a class he was taking and that's what it's called.
Thats funny cause Steve's transportation issues are often very interesting. We'll be like "How did you get to practice?" and he'll say "Oh, I had to walk", then we'll ask why and he'll say "Well I rode my bike but then I got drunk and left it somewhere. So in a way...more like I got drunk and forgot where my dirtbike is!(laughter)
OK, you know how you get mental pictures of how bands look before you see them play?
Yeah.
Well listening to Half Dead and Dynamite I started getting this image in my head of Craig looking like Denis Leary, like wearing an overcoat and smoking nonstop while he kind of mouths off. Then, your going to laugh, but the first time I saw a picture of you guys was that clip from the Jenny Jones show on your website, and I was completely going... "Thats what he looks like?"
Someone else said he's got kind of a Dwayne Alman vibe.
His lyrical style kinda reminds me of Bukowski, in that you can get as much or as little as you want out of the words.
No, I don't know what he's reading. A lot of the stuff just comes from working though, and sometimes from college, he went to a very normal school so the people around... you know how some people get freaked out about being normal and then end up way more messed up in life because they have no outlet. Its kind of like this underbelly you know, that like, to coin a stupid phrase, never let their freak flags fly and then end up getting twice as twisted as your average...
Yeah, I got a friend up in Santa Cruz, which is a stupid scene, and he has this side project along with another band he's in called Howdy Partner. And when they play sometimes they'll just yell at everyone "OK, whoever wants to be in Howdy Partner you're in so come on up and lets rock!" so needless to say their shows are terrible but I think it might be his outlet.
Thats definitely something we try to encourage, I mean once we got to the point where it wasn't like we had to take ever show we could get, cuz it's kind of hard to get shows you know, we definitely wanted them interesting. I mean everyone has gone and seen shows at some bar somewhere where their just standing there.
Have you ever seen At The Drive In? I was blown away by their singer's stage presence when I saw them play. He gets a total connection with the crowd going. I think you guys probably have a different kind of aesthetic though.
Well, when Tad plays he'll have a mic even though he doesn't sing or anything on the records cause it's like Craig's already doing so much already, like more lyrics per minute than...whatever you know, so it's like he's got enough as it is with that and the guitar.
So Tad handles a bit of the crowd control aspect?
Yeah kinda, cause something breaks at every show with all the flying around. We just played this Halloween show at this warehouse and we dressed up as pirates. We had a rope on the stage that we could use to swing into the crowd and stuff, musically it wasn't our best show...
That totally doesn't matter if you guys are dressed up like pirates!
..no but I'm sitting there playing and all of a sudden I look up and Steve is laying on top of every drum except the kick the snare and the high hat(laughs) I mean it's funny cause I mean we've gotten to this point where even if we play really well, unless something really chaotic happens, or you know some kind of thing that takes away from it being just us playing, then we feel like it wasn't a great show, which is kind of setting us up for problems. The theory is if the ship is already going down then we should just light it on fire. It's all about entertainment you know, we don't really take ourselves too seriously.
Thats a good thing.
Tad is the only one who has an extensive knowledge of like...notes...I guess.
You mean music theory and that kind of shit?
Yeah you know like is it a major chord or a minor chord and that kind of thing, for everyone else it's just all made up from off the top of our heads, we sure never took any kind of lessons.
Well you guys have been getting some good press in your area right?
Yeah things have been going really well.
And there is a new album on the way?
Yeah the new one is being put out by Self Starter, which is a label out of Pennsylvania, and French Kiss, another label run by one of the guys in Les Savy Fav. We were watching them play once and commenting on the kind of strange disregard for personal safety that goes on, I mean things come really close, but never hit you know, it's just a really amazing thing to watch.
Do you guys record with a certain engineer or at some place in specific or do you kind of change it up?
I live in this weird old building where you share a bathroom with the person across the hall.
I bet your girlfriend loves you for that.
It makes for some interesting situations. But Dave Gardner is a great engineer who lives right across the hall and he records us with this other guy named Eric. Their both also in bands. Daves in a band called the Selby Tigers, and Eric is in a crazy band called Arson Welles.
It sounds like the scene there is really over the top, but in a good way...
Yeah I think the mentality is like we've all been in lame bands, and so now you know... I mean everyone takes music seriously in that they love it, but it's not like I'm up here being a dork, I'm up here because it's a blast.
Awesome. So what other kinds of things are you into?
Both Tad and I photo assist for a living, and shoot as well.
Have you heard that there making those Lomo cameras again?
Are those the plastic cameras like the Holga?
I don't know I just read some article in Details that said that tons of famous people really like this camera, therefore we should like it to.
There is a series of plastic cameras, like the Holga and the Diana, that work pretty much on the same theory which deals with the shutter speed. I've messed around with a Holga. Yeah, but Steve has also got this crazy side project going called Hawaii where he records these insane...like synth pop tunes onto a DAT in his basement and then they will go out in costume and play characters to the songs. It's funny too because we'll get a call from someone from a paper and we'll be thinking they want a Lifter Puller interview and then they'll say "yeah we want to talk to someone about Hawaii".
Wow that sounds really fucking great! Does he have a lot of old synths?
No, he just has Casios. Like the majority of the keyboards we play on the album and live are just $90 Target Casios.
From this point on the tape got recorded over, but if I remember correctly it ended with Dan telling the story of a great show they played where they had bottle rockets taped on the equipment and lit them off for the big finish. For my big finish I just want to tell everyone out there that Lifter Puller is touring the east coast right now and will hopefully make it over to the west coast sometime in May. Check back with us for dates.
Oh Frodus...what would the world be without you? Worse off.
Your MySpace page cites you as Hardcore/Punk/Indie. I agree. But can I add genius?
I was never into the screamy thing. In fact, I see it mainly as an attention stunt, utilized by subpar musicians to distract from their lack of tasteful arrangements. But from the moment needle touched groove on the Frodus/Atomic Fireball spilt 7" you had me captivated with your vocal racket, along with the sound barrage of bass, guitar, and drum.
Then whole concept album Conglomerate International. Like a Chomsky mini book on 7 Stories Press, but fun. You were light years ahead of your time.
What AllMusic says: "Sick of the cheeky pop sounds of Green Day and the monumental success of mid-'90s post-grunge, the indie punk trio Frodus wanted to revisit the attitude that went with the punk of the '70s."
What Joe Koski on Amazon says: "i saw these guys on tour with roadside monument a few years ago. roadside couldnt make the show but frodus showed up, and played one of the most high energy, spazztic shows i have ever seen to about 8 people. i was immediately a fan.
What Ryan says: "This is what bass - drums - and guitar together in a series, should appropriately be deemed as a "POWER TRIO. It’s the efficiency of Unwound, meets the intensity of Discordance Axis with true punk ethos and genuine emotion. The day I found my copy of “Love Letter” in the used LP bin was one of the best days in my life – I would have happily shelled out $25 on eBay.”
While the Pittsburgh-based duo Zombi have been giving the horror beat genre a much needed kick in the testicals, and kids in Brooklyn and L.A. continue to argue about what exactly Italo-disco is, I'd like to take this blog post to reintroduce a lost gem of electronic album genius: that is the work of Bernard Szajner's "Some Deaths Take Forever."
Now apparently this dude was a lighting technician for Magma, the ferverently original and prolific French prog outfit that made up their own language and music that still sounds completely out of this world today. And, when he wasn't inventing LAZER HARPS(!!!) he was making kick ass long-players chalk full of synth goodness that rival that of any kraut.
"Some Deaths Take Forever" is an evolved concept album around the life of someone waiting on a death sentence (cheery I know) and it was composed by Szajner in 1980 after Amnesty International contacted him to make a short piece to draw attention to their cause. Proceeds of the album went to Amnesty International as well, although I doubt they saw much, and I know they didn't get anything when I spotted this bad boy in the used bin at Amoeba on Telegraph. I did make a contribution over the Internet in following weeks after listening however. So long live concept albums and AWESOME synth work!
What Allmusic says:
"Some Deaths Take Forever is a concept album that is dark, brooding, and futuristic; an inventive album firmly rooted in rock, much like other quirky recordings of the era by Gary Numan, Jean-Michel Jarre, Robert Fripp, and pre-ambient Brian Eno."
What Rev Rob Dobbs says via Amazon review:
"Bernard Szajner is clearly one of the most original and talented electronic musicians of the 20th century. 'Some Death Forever' is, in my opinion, the greatest electronic/progressive/industrial works that I own (electronic music lovers: if you haven't heard it, you certainly should!) and features a host of great musicians (Pierre Chereze, Marc Geoffroy, Klaus Blasquiz, Bernard Paganotti, Michael Quartermain, Alain Agius, Michael Rabinowitz)."
What Ryan says:
"Synth arpeggio lines with sparse drum machine patterns a la Drumulator and Roland boxes with wood paneling, spaced out chanting interruptions with a slight Zeuhl freak out flare, and guitar work as exciting as Hillage or Gottsching make this an imperative must own for fans of Zombi, Goblin, Cluster etc."
Good luck finding yours though ;)
Down in San Jose there use to be a record store called Radio Free Records. Ethan, the shop owner, was one of those rare cats that was sooooo fucking cool, and had the best taste in music, and yet, was one of the warmest human beings, and nicest guys. Last I heard, his shop relocated to Chapel Hill where his shit was broken into, and he didn't have insurance. I really hope that last part isn't true. But anyway:
The year is 1998, I stumble into a live show at Radio Free with a friend, and we were expecting some Braid rip off. What we saw...The Wicked Farley's...was soooo much better.
If I had to describe the Farleys to someone now -- which I guess is the point of these posts -- I would say, "Think like one of those lame, super music theory-y college bands, like Piglet, that heard Don Cab once, and then made some really amazing music from an arrangement standpoint, BUT the Farleys were PUNK at the same time, and have really cool stand out vocals."
So yeah...whatever happened to these guys? That show at Radio Free was totally one of those turn-to-your-friend outside like "Man what we just saw was so great and unexpected." And go home all fucking inspired about music.
Never listened to the 2nd album. And I kind of don't want to. But if you don't have Sentinel & Enterprise. I feel sorry for you.
Next week...where Radiohead steals beats from!
And yes that was a conscious, thought-out decision.
Some interesting reading for those of you yuppies with the dough to imbibe in these outdoor music EXTRAVAGANZAS
http://www.eastbayexpress.com/news/gregg_perloff_is_the_new_bill_graham/Content?oid=807397
http://www.spin.com/articles/visit-dell-dome-outside-lands-weekend
Also...Spin had a fornt-of-the-book item on VIP package and "exclusive tents" at music festivals and how the music industry is banking on them this Summer.
Super lame....
Can someone please watch this and tell me if anything interesting ever happens? Also, what's up with Kim Deal not knowing how to work a record player? Dust cover off!
These are posts that I am doing to rediscover bands in my collection. It is an exercise in memory, and a way to compare what I’ve always thought about these awesome bands to shit that is online, which is sad, but where everyone spends there time musically these days.
Post Two. Loftus
What Amazon User B Helfton or “Fugazi48” Says:
“I really miss the days of Red Red Meat, June of 44, and Rex. This album really brings back some of that warm feeling. There are 1 or two tracks that are a little to improvisational but the majority of this side project album is well crafted and beautiful. If you like Califone, you need this record in your collection. The cover appears to be hand made. There is sandpaper glued to the front and the jaw is screen printed onto it. The cover is of a fine paper. Perisable records really puts an effort into packaging.”
What Allmusic Says:
Side project record that was recorded by Bundy K. Brown (ex-Tortoise, Directions) and Brian Deck (Red Red Meet) after a 1995 tour with Red Red Meat, Rex, and the Grifters had a bunch of them sitting in on each others sets…sounding awesome.
What Ryan Says:
Dear Fugazi48,
I really miss the days of Red Red Meat, Rex, and June of 44 too! And yes the cover of this CD is hand made with carved sandpaper emblem and its always been one of my favorite CD packaging jobs. Why can’t these derivative Canadian indie bands learn to do packaging on this level? And why will the musicianship and recording aesthetic of visionaries like Deck and Brown continue to be unmatched? Hmmm…I guess people just lack taste and forget about magnificent achievements in sound like this album. And dude…too improvisational? WTF?
Califone and Calexico may get put in movie soundtracks and get a lot of love from the indie elite these days – but respect the architect people! And if you do not own this. I feel sorry for you.
This is so great!
Walking up to grab lunch today gave me my first Kyte video post series. First I took some footage of all the hippies and hipsters crashing their bikes on the ground for attention and the cops that had to deal with them. I think this was some sort of anti-war rally, but they weren't very organized with the presentation so it was hard to tell...
Then when I got into the mall to get my Chinese food, guess who was playing?? That's right, Skunkweed Junction. Wow, what a mall. What a performance. What a antithesis. Sing for peace Skunkweed! (Click on the player. Then click on icon towards the left to advance backwards. Weird. I know)
Ok, so The Boredoms show last night was insane. I've uploaded this picture I took of the layout. Again, they played in circular formation with the audience around them, which I guess is called "in the round," and I'm not sure who came up with that but I hope it's a lost in translation thing.
The Boredoms put out a lot of crap, and their live show is sometimes a little overwhelming. However, there were moments last night (particularly during the first song -- anyone who was there back me up here!) where I was watching three drummers playing in syncopation, and Eye beating the shit out of like a Trident made of electirc guitars (see behind him in pic) and then the bass hits from his synth and I have to say I can't not love them for getting away with this shit. It is so over the top and amazing.
So my friend helped my buy one of their rare releases last not on vinyl (Rebore remix from UNKLE) and I realized that I only have their two best recordings (Super AR, and Vision Creation Newsun) on CD.
This needs to change, so I'm enlisting the help of TokyoMango blogger Lisa Katayama, to help me track down at least one of these on vinyl through a source other than eBay. I was banned on eBay. I can't remember if that was for inappropriate chat, or for something else, but I like can't buy stuff there anymore which is lame.
In any case, maybe we'll find a great used record webstore in Japan!
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