Latest news with #MJLenderman
Chicago Tribune
19-06-2025
- Entertainment
- Chicago Tribune
MJ Lenderman at Salt Shed: Perfecting the art of malaise
Its only a handful of years into his acclaimed career but to say MJ Lenderman sounds like the second coming of Neil Young has already become tired, however true, and, considering that Young himself is still alive and touring, even kind of blasphemous. Yet, sorry, but it's hard to unhear this: There is the same weary warble tuned to permanent heartbreak, and that trudging pace that suggests the band is seconds away from resting their heads on pillows, and here are the grinding hurricanes of feedback that summon images of western plains and mesas, and a little Sonic Youth. Watching Lenderman at the Salt Shed on Wednesday was to be reminded of the curious power of exhaustion. It's a beautiful, humid, rickety sound. You can hear in it why the sighs of Neil Young became inextricable from Watergate-era malaise, and how Lenderman, 50 years later, sounds like both a throwback to strung-out singer-songwriters of the '70s and very much of his own time. His muse is fading expectations. He sang, 'Every day is a miracle, not to mention a threat.' He sang, 'We sat under a half-mast McDonald's flag.' He sang, 'Every Catholic knows he could've been pope.' That last one, eerily prescient, got a big Chicago cheer. It came just after another Chicago name-drop, 'Hangover Game,' the show opener, about Michael Jordan's infamous 1997 finals performance, the one where he scored 38 points despite supposedly playing through a bout of flu or something. Or as Lenderman sees it: 'It wasn't the pizza/ And it wasn't the flu/ Yeah, I love drinking, too.' And I love a singer I can smile and nod along with. The man is a fountain of random, biting one-liners and, despite a lanky frame and stunned backwoods grin suggesting a half-finished John Mayer, he comes across on stage with a muscular immediacy (which could be why his fanbase seems to be male Gen X dyspeptics, with a helping of depleted millennials). All of this comes across as simultaneously familiar and fresh, even if you don't recognize the precedents. There's the deadpan of John Prine, right there. The late-dawning self-awareness of a Charles Portis character, the non-sequiturs of Steve Martin. Every influence is set to a languid pace — entirely languid, in need of variety — but with hooks you can not shake. (Sorry, one more lyric — 'So you say I've wasted my life away/ Well, I got a beach home up in Buffalo.') I fear I'm making MJ Lenderman (Mark Jacob, of Asheville, North Carolina) sound more like a recipe than what his Salt Shed show proved: At 26, he's more than ready to be the rallying point rock could use. Like other indie stars in his orbit — Waxahatchee, Wednesday, both of which he's recorded and performed with — he avoids coming off like a nostalgia act by drawing more on the spirit than specifics of his influences. Nobody here seems eager to get anywhere. His excellent band can walk a squall of droning guitars and pedal steel into an abrupt stop, hover a second, then surge forward as one, without sounding rehearsed. Nothing feels machine-tooled, nevermind factory-precise. But I hesitate to say this is not fashionable in 2025 — Waxahatchee seems maybe one album away from playing arenas, and MJ Lenderman's sold-out Salt Shed audience of 3,000 was his largest headlining show so far. I also hesitate to say Wilco, which certainly shares fans, could be a model here for the future — MJ Lenderman is still loitering in a pretty comfortable sound, and not showing a lot of eagerness to stretch. And at least right now, it's working ridiculously well. There's no preening, no self-consciousness, only a giant casual cosy hug of recognition at the mess we're in. These songs never talk at you. There's no self-improvement plan or preaching. It's the sound of overheard conversation, bracketed by guitar solos arrived at with minimum fanfare, every line building on a tone of uncertainty and rattling around your head. Like, 'One of these days, you'll kill a man/ For asking a question you don't understand.' Somehow, it's both poignant and unmoored from any specific meaning. For the first encore, MJ Lenderman returned explicitly to Neil Young to cover 'Lotta Love,' but now that famous Top 40 refrain — 'It's gonna take a lotta love, to change the way things are' — repeated and repeated and repeated, no longer suggested just a tenuous romance. It suggested: MJ Lenderman, the new poet laureate of national decline.
Yahoo
18-06-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
Wednesday Return With ‘Elderberry Wine,' a Love Song About Finding That ‘Delicate Balance'
It's only fitting that Wednesday returns on a Wednesday. The indie rockers are back with the new single 'Elderberry Wine.' The track opens with Karly Hartzman's razor-sharp lines ('Aint heard that voice in a long time/Had to check back there to make sure you were alive'), with MJ Lenderman on backing vocals and guitar. Xandy Chelmis rounds it out with cozy lap steel, making it a warm welcome back for the band. More from Rolling Stone the Beaches, Wet Leg, MJ Lenderman to Headline Rolling Stone's Rock & Roll Tour 'Wednesday' Returns to the Scene of the Crime in Season 2 Teaser Jenna Ortega Left 'Scream 7' Because It Was 'Falling Apart' After Melissa Barrera Was Fired ''Elderberry Wine' is about the potential for sweet things in life (love, family, success) to become poison if not prepared for and attended to correctly,' Hartzman explains. 'Elderberry is known as a healing fruit, and is an ingredient in many tonics and syrups to aid the immune system. One time, however, my sister consumed them raw and it immediately induced vomiting. So 'Elderberry Wine' is ultimately a love song about creating just the right environment for fulfillment. There's a delicate balance that needs to be created, especially in love, for two lives to intersect without poisoning each other.' The video above opens with a man driving to a bar, where Hartzman is serving drinks. He's eagerly watching a horse race, until Hartzman changes the channel to the band performing the single, resulting in him mouthing, 'What the fuck?' According to director Spencer Kelly, the video was shot at the Bench in Greensboro, North Carolina, the city's second-oldest bar. 'We came in with some specific scripted scenes, but we wanted to capture the bar as authentically as possible, so everyone you see in the video is a regular, including Karly's dad, George,' he said in a statement. 'This video is a bit of a love letter to places like this, where the sense of community runs deep and the beers are always cold.' 'Elderberry Wine' marks Wednesday's first new music since their 2023 breakthrough album Rat Saw God. The band (Hartzman, Lenderman, Chelmis, Alan Miller, and Ethan Baechtold) will perform the single this evening on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert, making their television debut. Wednesday will hit two festivals this year: Project Pabst on the weekend of July 26 and Best Friends Forever on the weekend of Oct. 10. But amid his massive solo success with his recent LP Manning Fireworks, Lenderman will no longer be touring with the band. He told GQ that his last show with them was on Jan. 4 in Chiba, Japan; he and Hartzman broke up during that tour. In that same interview, Hartzman spoke about the band's new music, recorded after her split with Lenderman. 'I was numb during those sessions. I had to be,' she said. '[Lenderman] and I had written so many songs about each other and our relationship over the years, including these, and I just needed to get them out.' Best of Rolling Stone The 50 Greatest Eminem Songs All 274 of Taylor Swift's Songs, Ranked The 500 Greatest Albums of All Time
Yahoo
18-06-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
2025 Americana Awards Nominations: Charley Crockett, MJ Lenderman, and More
The Americana Music Association has announced the nominees for the 2025 Americana Honors & Awards. Held every September during the annual Americana Music Festival in Nashville, the ceremonies will recognize the outstanding albums, songs, and artists in the roots music world. This year, Charley Crockett, MJ Lenderman, and the Americana power couple of Gillian Welch and David Rawlings are all nominated. The winners will be announced Wednesday, Sept. 10, at the Ryman Auditorium. AmericanaFest kicks off Sept. 9 and runs through the 13th. This marks the festival's 25th year. More from Rolling Stone Wednesday Return With 'Elderberry Wine,' a Love Song About Finding That 'Delicate Balance' the Beaches, Wet Leg, MJ Lenderman to Headline Rolling Stone's Rock & Roll Tour Charley Crockett Is Taking Texas to the World 2025 Americana Honors & Awards nominees: ALBUM OF THE YEARLonesome Drifter, Charley Crockett; Produced by Charley Crockett & Shooter JenningsFoxes in the Snow, Jason Isbell; Produced by Jason Isbell & Gena JohnsonManning Fireworks, MJ Lenderman; Produced by Alex Farrar & MJ LendermanSouth of Here, Nathaniel Rateliff & The Night Sweats; Produced by Brad CookWoodland, Gillian Welch & David Rawlings; Produced by David RawlingsARTIST OF THE YEARCharley CrockettSierra FerrellJoy OladokunBilly StringsWaxahatcheeDUO/GROUP OF THE YEARJulien Baker & TORRESDawesLarkin PoeThe MavericksGillian Welch & David RawlingsEMERGING ACT OF THE YEARNoeline HofmannMJ LendermanMedium BuildMaggie RoseJesse WellesINSTRUMENTALIST OF THE YEARFred EltringhamAlex HargreavesMegan JaneKaitlyn RaitzSeth TaylorSONG OF THE YEAR'Johnny Moonshine,' Maggie Antone (Written by Maggie Antone, Natalie Hemby & Aaron Raitiere)'Ancient Light,' I'm With Her (Written by Sarah Jarosz, Aoife O'Donovan & Sara Watkins)'Wristwatch,' MJ Lenderman (Written by MJ Lenderman)'Sunshine Getaway,' JD McPherson (Written by Page Burkum, JD McPherson & Jack Torrey)'Heartless,' Nathaniel Rateliff & The Night Sweats (Written by Nathaniel Rateliff) Best of Rolling Stone Sly and the Family Stone: 20 Essential Songs The 50 Greatest Eminem Songs All 274 of Taylor Swift's Songs, Ranked
The Independent
18-06-2025
- Entertainment
- The Independent
The world according to Wednesday, your new favorite alt-country indie rock band
A pit bull puppy peeing off a balcony. Mounted antlers in the kitchen on a crooked nail. Pink boiled eggs stay afloat in the brine. For its dedicated audience, the North Carolina alt-country-meets-indie rock band Wednesday is an exemplar in evocative songwriting, where whole worlds are found in short lyrical lines. And that says nothing of what they sound like. The most exciting band in contemporary indie rock is informed by Drive-By Truckers and Pavement in equal measure, a distinctive sonic fabric of lap steel, guitar fuzz, folksy and jagged vocals. On Sept. 19, they will release their sixth and most ambitious full-length, 'Bleeds.' 'My songwriting is just better on this album,' Wednesday's singer and songwriter Karly Hartzman explains. 'Things are said more succinctly ... the immediacy of these songs was the main growth.' Wednesday began as Hartzman's solo project, evidenced in 2018's sweet-sounding 'yep definitely.' They became a full band on 2020's 'I Was Trying to Describe You to Someone,' a dive into guitar distortions, and 2021's 'Twin Plagues,' a further refinement of their 'creek rock' sound. The lineup consists of Hartzman, bassist Margo Schulz, lap steel player Xandy Chelmis, guitarist Jake Lenderman and drummer Alan Miller. Some also tour with Lenderman's solo project, MJ Lenderman. (Hartzman and Lenderman previously dated.) Wednesday's last album, the narrative 'Rat Saw God,' was named one of the best albums of 2023 by The Associated Press partially for its uncanny ability to dive into the particularities and complications of Southern identity. 'Bleeds' sharpens those tools. On 'Bleeds,' a band evolves 'Originally, I was going to call it 'Carolina Girl' but my bandmates did not like that,'' Hartzman jokes. 'Bleeds' comes from the explosive opening track, 'Reality TV Argument Bleeds.' She likes how the band name and album title sound together — ''Wednesday Bleeds,' which I feel like I do, when I play music ... I'm almost, in a way, bloodletting and exorcising a demon.' Lyrically, 'Bleeds' features some of Wednesday's best work — even in the revisiting of an older song, 'Phish Pepsi,' that hilariously references both the jam band and the most disturbing movie released in 2010 — a kind of specificity born from Hartzman's writing practices. During the COVID-19 pandemic, she and Lenderman 'wrote 20 lines of writing each day,' a practice adopted from Silver Jews' David Berman. She's also a documentarian of memory: She takes notes of things her friends say and images that are affecting, to later collage them together in songs. 'The well never runs dry,' Hartzman says. 'Because I've admitted not everything can come from inside. I need to look outward outside of myself for inspiration.' Remembering, she says, 'is the goal for most of the (expletive) I do. ... I care. I want stories to persist.' Storytelling through song 'Bleeds' manages cohesion across a variance of sound. 'Wasp' is hard-core catharsis; lead single 'Elderberry Wine' drops guitar noise for shimmery, fermented country. 'Wound Up Here (By Holding On),' which references the Appalachian poet Evan Gray, is a pretty indie rock track about a hometown hero who drowns. The quietest moment on the album, the plucked 'The Way Love Goes,' was written as 'a love song for Jake when we were still together. 'Elderberry Wine' as well.'' Hartzman explains. ''Elderberry Wine' is kind of talking about me noticing slight changes in a relationship.' These are not breakup songs; they exist right before the point of dissolution. 'Sweet song is a long con / I drove ya to the airport with the E-brake on,' she sings on the latter. Later: 'Sometimes in my head I give up and / Flip the board completely.' 'I'm understanding how sound creates emotion. That's what I'm learning over time,' Hartzman says of her musical growth. 'I'm also listening to more music with every year that passes. So, my understanding of what's possible, or what I can be inspired by, shifts.' A number of the songs pull from childhood memory, as they always have across Wednesday's discography. 'I think about growing up a lot,' she says. 'When I think of trying to tell ... a story that's vivid and intense, that's just the easiest time in my life, where everything felt vivid and intense.' Longtime fans of the band will find recurring themes and characters from past songs. For example, 'Gary's' from their 2021 album returns as the 'Bleeds' closer in 'Gary's II,' where he gets into a bar fight. 'In a way, I'm writing the same songs over and over, but I'm just trying to make them better,' she says. There is always more humanity to excavate. And often, those emotions, 'they aren't done with you,' she adds. 'They're not letting you go.' So, let the bloodletting begin.
Scottish Sun
03-06-2025
- Entertainment
- Scottish Sun
MJ Lenderman wows crowd following sell-out debut Glasgow show
Life is cyclical. Music. Fashion. Politics. The longer you live the more you begin to wonder where you've seen something before. 2 MJ Lenderman was originally due to play St Luke's but packed out the Old Fruitmarket 2 The band blended melancholic rock with sharp lyrics Thankfully to be familiar isn't always unfortunate. Reinvention. Reimagination. Really f*****g good music. Enter MJ Lenderman. Bringing with him a hail of jagged chords, nasal vocals, and slide guitar that will make you wonder if the horrors of TikTok the rehabilitation of Shed Seven ever happened. Last year his album, Manning Fireworks, with its shades of alt country, topped end of year lists and sold out initial pressings on LP. That fervour was followed with a run of sold out shows. Tonight, his first performance in Glasgow, was upgraded from St Luke's to the glorious surroundings of the Old Fruitmarket. And as the daybright noodlings of opener Joker Lips gives way the angst of On Your Knees the antique hoardings are rattling. With a sound that veers from the ethereal sadness of Sparklehorse to Ragged Glory era Neil Young, you'd be forgiven for thinking MJ Lenderman was a man of advancing years but at 26 he's got an eye for a sharp line. The swagger of youth, pushed on by his understated delivery, puts him at the centre of what feels like a slacker resurgence. But this is not grunge mark II - never has a calmer man wielded a Gibson SG. A faithful cover of Sparklehorse's Maria's Little Elbows ramps up the melancholia with its refrain of 'Loneliness' before the blissed out blues are over. The facade of millpond calmness slips with the steady pulse of She's Leaving You. A gently chugging ode to the collapse of a relationship and a highlight from the album which builds, like so many things, to nothing. Collapsing into itself with a haze of backing vocals as Lenderman's wandering guitar vanishes and ushering in jagged riff of Wristwatch, a two-fingered rebuttal, which explodes from the stage. A string of facetious boasts 'I've got a houseboat up in Buffalo/and a wristwatch that's a compass and a cell phone/and a wristwatch that tells me you're all alone' are trapped by slashed chords and brooding bedroom vocals. To play two of your best known tracks mid set is a bold move. But confidence is not something lacking tonight. With youth often comes a sense of naivety and Bark At the Moon is a paean to inexperience. Chugging chords flirt with day-glo guitar solos before admitting: "I've never seen the Mona Lisa/I've never really left my room/I've been up too late with Guitar Hero/Playing "Bark At The Moon". Sharp tongued and slight of frame MJ Lenderman may well be this year's great white hope for alt rock but don't let that put you off. He may be young but in this game youth doesn't always equal inexperience - let's hope his first time in Scotland isn't his last.
