Minneapolis, MN

Minneapolis art-punks Lifter Puller first took shape on the campus of Boston College when singer/guitarist Craig Finn began teaching roommate Steve Barone to play guitar. After graduating the duo relocated to the Twin Cities, recruiting bassist Tommy Roach and drummer Dan Monick to form Lifter Puller in 1994; the group's debut LP, Half Dead and Dynamite, followed on the No Alternative label four years later. After Roach found the pressures of juggling music and grad school too intense, he opted out of Lifter Puller, and on Halloween 1998 new bassist Tad Kubler made his live debut; an EP, The Entertainment and Arts, followed on the group's own Threatening Letters label a few months later. Their second LP, Fiestas and Fiascos, appeared in early 2000; Lifter Puller dissolved that same summer. ~ Jason Ankeny