The decade in local music: 2000
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It's December, and you know what that means: lists. But this isn't just the end of a year, it's the end of a decade, which means even bigger lists (and an even bigger chance of pissing people off by forgetting something). Over the next two weeks, The A.V. Club will roll out year-specific lists of our favorite local albums. Is it a best-of? Not quite. We thought it would be more interesting to make it a little looser in scope, the better to highlight both some of the most well-known albums and also the ones that we love even though they've gotten a little lost in the mists of time. We've limited each artist to one album for the entire decade, and limited ourselves to no more than six albums for each year. (We were originally shooting for five, but some years were just too good.) We hope you enjoy our lists and maybe remember a few albums you may have forgotten about over the years. And if we didn't include your favorite, please keep it to yourself. (No, just kidding—share it with us in the comments.)
Lifter Puller, Fiestas + Fiascos (Frenchkiss Records)
The band: Though sometimes dismissed as a mere precursor to The Hold Steady, Lifter Puller gained a fanatic following on the strength of its cinematic storytelling and punchy indie rock.
The album: Before breaking up in the summer of 2000, Lifter Puller enticed listeners to get mixed up with the wrong crowd: the dealers, junkies, and club kids who crawled the seedy, sinister Twin Cities underground. Fiestas + Fiascos is the climax of countless debauched nights, a blur of sex and drugs and violence set to tunes that slip between moods to match the fates of our beloved lowlifes. There’s prostitution and drug deals and the threat of arson. And then... the album closes with a cliffhanger. Leaving its denizens in limbo may have been a cruel tease, but some good came out of it: The uncertain end of Lifter Puller's sin-loving characters gave the The Hold Steady's a reason to seek salvation.
Sean Na Na, Dance 'Til Your Baby Is A Man (Troubleman Unlimited)
The artist: Between fronting hardcore band Calvin Krime and morphing into his R&B alter ego, Har Mar Superstar, Sean Tillman was a master of acoustic pop who occasionally treated crowds to R. Kelly covers.
The album: Opening line "I wanted to get on her" sounds like a Harold Martin come-on, but what follows is a tribute to the sort of bitter bad times Har Mar tries to vanquish with his free-love funk. This Tillman sometimes offers to light up the dance floor, but he’s just as likely to dance on your grave. Those who find the dude-with-an-acoustic-guitar genre boring (and those who deem the R&B act phony) should give this emotional rawness a listen. The singer’s frustration-fueled debut LP focuses on the many times he’s been wronged by others (and, sometimes, himself) but never sacrifices a good melody in favor of his angst. Still, he's jaded, defiant, and, when a line like "I'll write my own ticket" pops up, even a little prophetic.
Selby Tigers, Charm City (Hopeless Records)
The band: Formed by ex-members of Arm and Lefty Lucy, this now-defunct pop-punk band set itself apart with raucous sets inevitably stolen by Arzu Gokcen's beehive wigs and Dave Gardner's onstage persona, the jumpsuit-sporting, finger-gun-shooting, vaguely European Sammy G.
The album: It takes a talented bunch to pull off something as seemingly simple as the perfect under-three-minute punk song, and Selby Tigers' first full-length has 12 of them. Charm City's punch-in-the-face gems feature big, crunchy guitar riffs, judiciously used handclaps, and carefully placed "whoa-ohs." There are other words around those "whoa-ohs," traded between guitarist turned karaoke queen Arzu and her then-husband, Nate Grumdahl, and they're used to make Star Wars jokes, admit to skipping school, ridicule peewee hockey parents who live vicariously through their children, and rail against mandatory geometry classes. Oh, that's another requirement for perfect punk: the ability to portray a bratty, fun-loving teenager no matter what your age.
Smattering, Rajah Pink And Wading Pool Blue (self-released)
The band: Smattering rose from the ashes of indie-rock band Balloon Guy to make much quieter, lo-fi music.
The album: Low weren't the only Minnesota band playing slowcore around the turn of the century. Sparse but never stark, Smattering's layers of deliberately strummed guitars, drums both real and synthetic, and the occasional keyboard drift like clouds. They carry lyrics pieced together from thoughts on religion, bits of self-examination, and phrases borrowed from newspaper stories. Barely a full-length album, the disc features seven songs, plus a remix of the title track that jumbles and warps the original into something equally lovely and surreal. It draws attention to the fluid quality of all of the band's songs. Live, the gentle melodies lulled listeners into some very pleasant daydreams, only to be interrupted by frontman Matt Olson's hilarious, smartass stage banter.
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