​Courtesy of Pitchfork, who dug up a live Lifter Puller set from 1997, originally broadcast on St. Cloud State University's Monday Night Live. Note the way LP frontman Craigh Finn keeps his head in the general vicinity of the microphone--something that kids who came up on Finn's subsequent band, the Hold Steady, might never have witnessed before. Lest you think the singer was merely worried about posterity, we direct you to the Hold Steady live album, A Positive Rage, on which Finn is quite audibly nowhere near the microphone, recording be damned. Maybe this is ultimately the elusive difference between indie-rock and bar-rock band? Or maybe Craig just got self-conscious in the ensuing decade:

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​A fantastic chat with Mr. Finn over at Vulture, on the occasion of the semi-famous, now-defunct Minnesota band's recent slate of retrospective activity. Much chatter about angry strippers, mono, and throwing up in cars. ("But it was really in her car.") Have fun.

​Robert Christgau's one-line review of long defunt Minneapolis quarter Lifter Puller's final bow, Fiestas and Fiascos: "Postpunk E Street for fuckups clocking e-dollars." Frankly, we blanch at adding all that much more than that--the Hold Steady's Tad Kubler played bass, and Craig Finn fronted the band, to predictably poignant results. They broke up in 2000, got a kind of greatest hits in 2002, and weirdly, have had all their records out of print since then--an incongruous situation for one of the best-loved indie outfits (if in retrospect) of the '90s. But the situation's about to be remedied. The Orchard will digitally release the band's entire catalog in December, Pitchfork reports. That's three full-length albums, a singles comp, one EP, and a bunch of bonus live tracks, of which one has already surfaced. Also pegged to the reissues is a book, Lifter Puller Vs. the End Of, co-authored by Finn and SOTC buddy Jessica Hopper. To which cumulative news we just kind of make a kind of stunned but happy face, and encourage you to look into doing the same.