Latest news with #Lenderman
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.
Hamilton Spectator
18-06-2025
- Entertainment
- Hamilton Spectator
The world according to Wednesday, your new favorite alt-country indie rock band
NEW YORK (AP) — 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 Ethan Baechtold, 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. ___ A previous version of this story incorrectly listed Margo Schulz as Wednesday's bassist. Ethan Baechtold is the current bassist. Schulz parted ways with the group before the release of the 2023 album 'Rat Saw God.'
San Francisco Chronicle
18-06-2025
- Entertainment
- San Francisco Chronicle
The world according to Wednesday, your new favorite alt-country indie rock band
NEW YORK (AP) — 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 Ethan Baechtold, 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.' ___ A previous version of this story incorrectly listed Margo Schulz as Wednesday's bassist. Ethan Baechtold is the current bassist. Schulz parted ways with the group before the release of the 2023 album 'Rat Saw God.'
Winnipeg Free Press
18-06-2025
- Entertainment
- Winnipeg Free Press
The world according to Wednesday, your new favorite alt-country indie rock band
NEW YORK (AP) — 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 Ethan Baechtold, 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. Weekly A weekly look at what's happening in Winnipeg's arts and entertainment scene. '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. ___ A previous version of this story incorrectly listed Margo Schulz as Wednesday's bassist. Ethan Baechtold is the current bassist. Schulz parted ways with the group before the release of the 2023 album 'Rat Saw God.'
18-06-2025
- Entertainment
The world according to Wednesday, your new favorite alt-country indie rock band
NEW YORK -- 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. '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.' '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.'
