Bricktown, Fort Worth – “Asheville country”-rock, quintet-to-septet, MJ Lenderman & The Wind, reassembled in a promotional tour for singer, songwriter, guitarist, MJ Lenderman’s 5th studio album, Manning Fireworks, released out of Anti- Records and Epitaph Records, September 6, 2024.

As MJ Lenderman & The Wind’s Manning Fireworks tour has been increasingly “sold out” at mjlenderman.com -and venue sites- with an exponential burst in popularity since the initial single release of, “Rudolph,” July 2023, followed by the popular and catching, “She’s Leaving You,” a year later, June 2024, American men in varying stages of their lives sitting outside ex-girlfriends’ houses listening to the radio in their trucks, late at night, because they share a dog, have been influenced over Lenderman’s course to the extent the nation’s Stephen Malkmus fans became revitalized by much-needed surprise.

The Wind’s Manning Fireworks North American tour dates began with headlining the Hopscotch Music Festival, September 5 in Raleigh, North Carolina, and concluded at Asheville’s The Orange Peel, Nov. 1, 2024, with stops throughout the Eastern US, as well as an arc into Canada, and Nashville and Knoxville, TN stops.

The Manning Fireworks, European leg (of the tour) began Nov. 11, 2024, in Berlin, DE @ Privatclub, through the Netherlands, Belgium, France, the UK, and Ireland @ Workman’s Club, in Dublin, 11/23/24.

Starting 2025, Lenderman’s first appearance, back in America, was at Nashville’s Brooklyn Bowl, January 25th, to make-up for the third of three bundled, beginning-of-the-tour appearances in Nashville, October 5, 2024’s The Basement East appearance, after missing it due to Hurricane Helene.

Flooding of Lenderman & The Wind’s hometown when the hurricane made landfall up the east coast from Florida to West Virginia (through Asheville, NC, as well as into East Tennessee), Sept. 24 – 27, 2024, set them back, with damage assessments and helping efforts around the whole area still ongoing.

Past that, and Europe, MJ Lenderman has made a latest appearance in Bricktown, Fort Worth, TX’s up-and-coming venue, Tulips FTW, to headline, and close out not only Tulips, but Ft. Worth’s week of “A Free For All Music Event,” covering the Dallas/Fort Worth area through Club Dallas, in Dallas, Ferris Wheelers, in Dallas, Tulips, in Fort Worth, and Andy’s, in Denton, for eight days, TX-hardcore, the week of Feb. 1- Feb. 8, 2025.

Folk & Proper got the opportunity to catch the Manning Fireworks tour during its recent popularity, and mucho hard work on itself, for a few shows, up-to-date, and in order to originally crack a joke about how Lenderman might’ve changed since going to Europe, but it wound up a local journalist still screaming at traffic -just more dreadfully existential, now- when back from Texas, and scritching on said dog.

First, some news:

Lighthouse for The Blind Fort Worth‘s “Where Independence Begins,” S. Adams St. mural:

Bricktown, TX – Trekking from the spot to the Fort Worth skyline, and before any longhorn-adorned, Rte 377 underpasses leading into downtown, but post-MJ Lenderman & The Wind show at Tulips FTW (St. Louis Ave.), the night before, so remnants of The Wind were very much still in the air, that following afternoon (heavy winds, 2/8).

As the Cumberland flows in between downtown Nash., and East Nashville, it’s a lovely neighborhood, Bricktown, Fort Worth, Tx, standing a mix between past-few-years, Berry Hill, Nashville renovations, and the more-elongated East Nashville development, for an area of Fort Worth seemingly prominent to Hispanic, black, and, to the effect of that guy rockin’ nothin’ but a speedo in the store front at Reflection, possibly a corner gay community at Pennsylvania and S. Jennings, with Jackie O’s, and Club Reflection; all seemingly, while the gentrification of just as diversely-owned biscuit shops, the Tulips venue, cannabis shops, and niche restaurants or boutiques, from St. Louis and Main St. down to the Stage West Theatre and the Pickle Emporium at W. Vickery Blvd and College Ave, just TX big, as said (or, just a little more spread out, and the skies are wide open).

They’re catering to the fresh inhabitants of newly and neatly done box apartments overlooking/bordering the Fort Worth skyline view across US Route 377.

From the skyline, back east, through a seemingly, only 2 mile wide, Bricktown, if that, school kids walk the streets peacefully during the days, and Rocky Horror cover bands can be heard echoing from Club Reflection, into the night. The Gas Station is located right behind it in an white garage with a green cross above the door, run by Lori and Zach, while Thrive Dispensary is just a few blocks away on Main St, co-run by Daryoush of the Texas Cannabis Collective.

Such warm, daily strolls, as on the 8th, can welcome a site for warm senses in familiar forms as murals sprinkled across Bricktown’s instilled homely-ness seem as they are in Murfreesboro and Nashville, as well, via helping community hands such as (name of the people who did the Church/College corner mural, Community bank? And Murfreesboro artist, Ryan Frizzle (insta handle), current employee of The Laboratory, and art curator of The Laboratory’s second-half-of-store, local art dealership, right on the Murfreesboro square (insta handle?).

This Lighthouse for the Blind Fort Worth mural is on the S. Adams side (west side of the Fort Worth buidling located at 912 W. Broadway Ave, Fort Worth, TX 76104) between W. Broadway and W. Daggett Avenues, about 663 miles from either Murfreesboro, or Nashville, according to Waze.

“The mission of the Lighthouse for the Blind of Fort Worth is to encourage and empower blind and significantly visually impaired children, youth, adults and seniors to achieve their highest level of independence through competitive employment, specialized training and client services (at no charge).” –https://lighthousefw.org/.

Beeping crosswalk Button: “Welcome to ‘Where Independence begins.’ Follow the railing to find devices for audio decription. Use the QR code located just above this device for a more in depth experience. Section one covers independent living.”

“The tactile display of the braille alphabet is next to a large hand using the index finger to read the braille word for independence.”

“Next, Willie Fae Lewis sits at a stove, stirring a pot (“blind homemaker and former director of Fort Worth’s Lighthouse for the Blind, tries out a cook stove at the Lighthouse, 02/10/1956,” (original picture, https://library.uta.edu/txdisabilityhistory/img/10014538).

“She wears a red skirt, bright green blouse, and has a blue cowboy hat.”

1:45, Second button: “Section two represents Assistant Technology. Centered is a lighthouse that emits beams in both directions, with huge lettering spelling out, “Where Independence Begins.” A man wears a pair of low-vision, wearable glasses that help him see the clip board he’s holding. He wears a white shirt with the words, “Visually Impaired,” crossed out, and replaced with the word, ‘Capable.’”

“Next is a magnifying glass held over, and magnifying, the word, “Empower” [written on white paper, as part of, “To encourage and Empower people who are blind and […] impaired […] [their] high […] goal of Independence” (it was windy).

3:04, Third Button: “Section Three represents Orientation and Mobility. Two gentlemen are walking. One is visually impaired and needs a cane, and is being led by the other gentleman. The first man wears a pink fedora, a red shirt, yellow pants, and blue shoes. The other man wears a red shirt, green t-shirt, blue pants, and green shoes, and has a beard. They stand in front of a silhoutte of downtown Fort Worth. Next, a woman uses her yellow guide dog to safely walk down the street. The woman wears an orange cardigan sweater, blue pants, and holds a cup of coffee” (hit that button twice, to make sure. 3:46 – 4:16).

4:40 – 5:12, Fourth button: “Section Four represents Our History of Manufacturing. A line drawing of the original, six-room house, where The Lighthouse began…”

“…Also included is a large orange pen and a pair of bright pink glasses to represent the Optical Lab. In the right lense of the glasses are the words, ‘No Need for Sight When You Have Vision!’ The left lense is the same message in large braille.”

5:34, Fifth Button: F&P, “The last [button] busted up!”

[Okay, based on a motivation found after buying the WordPress website, folkandproper.news domain, within the page editor of any posts/articles that one edits on WordPress, there’s a side-bar with options available for that particular post. Within that sidebar, one can choose between “Post,” and “Block,” to specify options for the whole article, or just the paragraph one’s on. Within, “Post,” scrolled down, is an opportunity to write one’s own Audio Description. So, with a wondering on how to do such a thing, even through its own vernacular’s evolution, and constant, modern revision, Folk & Proper took a shot at audio descriptions based on a curiosity to do them correctly, found through folkandproper.news’ administrative page editor].

5:36, “Folk & Proper here for audio description, The first picture is of a gentleman wearing an orange/yellow hard hat, and blue safety glasses carrying a box [with the words] Fort Worth, longhorn beef…”

“[…] [Next] is a mop and broom […] to commemorate labor in the area, and opportunities […] to sustain an independent living […] through the hard work of Fort Worth Beef products, and general, custodial labor, around the area, people sustained independence…”

8:51, F&P: “…and its commemorated on this mural, for the wall. This is “Where Independence Begins,” and the mural is done by Kristen Soble Art Company…”

Above, the word, “———” is spelled out in large braille.

*A rail along the fifth section (seen above, starting at the gentleman’s chest) helps better explain:

8:56, Sixth Button: “Section Six is a miniature, 3D, relieved version of the entire mural, and provides a condensed depiction of all five sections. Below, is a raised signature of artist Kristen Scoble. Visit the QR code, at the beginning of this mural, to access more information at whereindependencebegins.org” [QR site, now defunct].

“To learn more about Lighthouse for the Blind Fort Worth, visit lighthousefw.org.”

End of audio, “Thank you for visiting, ‘Where Independence Begins.’ We hope you enjoyed your experience.”

This Lighthouse for the Blind Fort Worth mural is on the S. Adams side (west side of the Fort Worth buidling located at 912 W. Broadway Ave, Fort Worth, TX 76104) between W. Broadway and W. Daggett Avenues, about 663 miles from either Murfreesboro, or Nashville, according to Waze.

“Independence is a way of life in Fort Worth, Texas.”

It’s 80 in February.  

REAL ID IS IN

On the state level, in the US -or state-to-state, collectively- governments are currently pushing to remind citizens it is required to update your existing, state driver’s license, or state identification card (your drivers license), to a REAL ID compliant ID by May 7, 2025, in order to access some federal buildings across the country, as well as nuclear power plants, and to fly commercial flights within/out of the United States.

The Evolution of it:

“Beginning today, the Tennessee Department of Safety and Homeland Security (TDOSHS) is issuing new Driver Licenses and ID cards with a fresh design and improved security features along with new self-service kiosks, which can reduce wait times at Driver Service Centers. The new credentials and kiosks will expand to all Driver Service Centers over the next few months,” states The “Department of Safety and Homeland Security Unveils New Tennessee Driver Licenses and Self-Service Kiosks,” published Monday, August 19, 2024 | 01:06pm at https://www.tn.gov/safety/news/2024/8/19/department-of-safety-and-homeland-security-unveils-new-tennessee-driver-licenses-and-self-service-kiosks.html:

“The new Driver Licenses and ID cards prominently feature a stylized version of Tennessee’s historic State Capitol and state flag with its iconic three-stars representing the state’s three grand divisions. The new design features waves and patterns printed in very fine lines that are not able to be scanned or easily reproduced.” 

“The new credentials are made with a sturdy poly-carbonate composition, incorporate cutting edge security and printing techniques. This includes elaborate overlapping of data and graphics and laser engraved elements that will show if the document has been altered or is fraudulent. A machine-readable barcode with applicable class, endorsements, and restrictions are printed on the back of the card. A mini ghost image repeated from the photograph is encoded elements for automated validation to help reduce identity theft.” 

“’The new Tennessee Driver Licenses incorporate the latest technology which makes them more difficult to counterfeit, alter, or duplicate,’ said TDOSHS Commissioner Jeff Long. ‘These countermeasures help prevent theft and fraud and help keep your identity safe.’” 

“There is no need for citizens to obtain a new Driver License or ID with the new design before their existing license or ID expires. Driver Licenses and ID cards with the old design will be in use alongside the new cards. Previously issued Driver Licenses are valid until the expiration date listed on the card. Individuals do not need to replace their current Driver License or ID card unless their current credential has reached its expiration or a required change is needed, such as a name or address change.” 

“The new design will apply to all credentials issued by the TDOSHS including Regular Driver Licenses, Teen/Graduated Driver Licenses, Commercial Driver Licenses, Motorcycle License, ID Only License, REAL IDs, and Handgun Carry Permits.” 

Accessiblilty:

Being kicked out of the 1035 Samonsite Dr., 37129, DMV due to excessive people breaking fire code, just an hour before the picture, below, was taken at 12:48 pm, the process of going through the new Rutherford express service, serendipitously found in a panic’d internet search, The 3906 Blaze Dr, 37128 Driver Services Center, where everything has become more streamlined and electronic than the previous location.

Apparently, its possible to pay off a surprisingly suspended license fine from a long ago, unpaid/now paid, County Clerks charge, done simply -and panic-free- at the location’s kiosks, brought to the attention, and directed to, by the Blaze Dr. Driver Center’s expeditious and understanding clerk.

“The Murfreesboro Express Driver Services Center will serve as a convenient location for citizens to complete a variety of common transactions. Located at 3906 Blaze Drive Suite C. in Murfreesboro, the Murfreesboro Express Driver Services Center opens to the public Friday, Aug. 25, and will operate Monday to Friday from 8:30 a.m. to 5 p.m. CT.”  

“The following services will be available at this location:  Title transfers, Issue new license plates, Renew license plates, Disabled placards, Duplicate titles, Noting of liens, Dealer services, Online license plate renewals, Drive-thru license plate renewals, 24-hour license plate renewal kiosk, Marriage licenses, Notary applications, Notary certifications, Boat applications, Passport applications will be available in the future.”  

“At the new Rutherford County Express Driver Services Center, customers can obtain a REAL ID, issue a license to a new or returning resident, order a duplicate and/or renew a driver license or photo ID, complete a name change, renew or order a duplicate handgun carry permit, and obtain driving records. Customers can also complete many Driver Services transactions online at www.tn.gov/safety/driver-services/online.” 

“Tennesseans can use the self-service kiosk to complete many Driver Services transactions including renewing or replacing a duplicate Driver License or ID Card, changing an address, updating emergency contact information, advancing a Teen/Graduated Driver License, paying reinstatement fees, and requesting a license reissue after reinstatement requirements are met. The new kiosks can take photos and process payments with Apple Pay, Google Pay, or a credit or debit card.” 

Real ID’s at the airport:

At the federal level, please visit https://www.dhs.gov/real-id for any question answers. There’s a countdown clock to May 7, 2025.

“The REAL ID Act of 2005 established minimum security standards for license issuance and production. These standards provide an additional level of security to protect your identity. It also prohibits Federal agencies from accepting driver licenses and ID cards from states that do not meet the Act’s minimum standards,” (https://www.tn.gov/safety/driver-services/real-id.html ).

At the local-local level:

“Rutherford County Mayor Joe Carr said, ‘The opening of this facility demonstrates the effectiveness of strong partnerships between the State of Tennessee and Rutherford County.  We are committed to providing quality services for this ever-growing community,’ Friday, August 25, 2023 | 09:11am, tn.gov” (https://www.tn.gov/safety/news/2023/8/25/new-rutherford-county-express-center-and-county-clerk-office-opens.html). 

“For more information on Tennessee Driver Services including the new self-service kiosks and Driver Licenses and ID cards visit tn.gov/safety/driver-services.html.” 

MJ Lenderman &

The Wind pulls. It does not push.

MJ Lenderman’s touring band, The Wind, includes Lenderman, himself, whose recorded history/evolution takes “MJ Lenderman” from 2018’s How Do You Let Love Into The Heart That Isn’t Split Wide Open, recorded by MJ Lenderman & Wednesday, which sounds a seven-year-old introductory album souding, dichotomously, MJ Lenderman finger pick-crooning more augmented, indie-rock chords to which he’s keeping the guitar reverb tuned to, aiming into the amp, as Hartzman angelically lyricizes gloomy, morning stuff(?) [“Coyote”].

For the upbeat songs on the album, Lenderman softly punk bangs the chords, instead, and harmonizes vocally (title track). It’s lo-fi, bedroom-rock/garage rock for sweet couples, capable of being done by however many people wanted or needed (a local-Murfreesboro, TN example: https://boropulse.com/2021/08/piglett-full-length-album/).

Karly Hartzman, vocalist for Asheville, creek-rock quintet, Wednesday, and for whom Lenderman initially played guitar in Wednesday, Hartzman played drums on Lenderman’s solo-introductory EP, Dec. 2019’s Lucky, as well as vocal appearances on And The Wind (Live and Loose!), with some back-up vocals on Manning Fireworks. The two outside of recording under MJ Lenderman & Wednesday’s Dec. 2018, How Do You Let Love Into The Heart That Isn’t Split Wide Open, and Jan 2021, Guttering, also did 2019’s Faucet, under [the band name] Nash to Stoudmire. Hartzman has not extensively toured on the Manning Fireworks tour.

As far back to the beginning, recording most of MJ Lenderman’s releases at Drop of Sun Studios in Asheville, The Wind drummer, and co-producer of Lenderman’s projects, mixing, mastering, and engineering since Lenderman’s June 2019 self-title debut, MJ Lenderman, Colin Miller, Miller is not credited recording/mixing/mastering any of the “…& Wednesday” stuff, or “Jake Lenderman & Karly Hartzman,” or Nash to Stoudemire’s Faucet.

[DROP OF SUN RECORDS QUESTION: And, to make the Miller connection/tie-in (possibly family), elongated, From Wednesday’s Rat Saw God (4/7/23) are Hunter Miller, who mastered the album, Alan Miller, who played drums on the album, and Colin Miller, who has mastered Lenderman’s records back to his 2019 self-titled debut (possibly b/f, with How Do You Let Love Into the Heart That’s Split Wide Open?, MJ Lenderman’s 2018 introduction with/as “MJ Lenderman & Wednesday” [bandcamp: shortcode must include ‘track’, ‘album’, or ‘video’ param], as well as ), and at least the past two albums at Drop of Sun, there, in Asheville -as well is one of the touring drummers for The Wind- are they related, and you guys run the studio? (So, you help out Lenderman in all those ways, in all his glory, as can?)]

[Folk & Proper has not heard back from Drop of Sun Records, and they haven’t set up their voicemail, as of this writing].

-Also from Wednesday is multi-instrumentalist, Xandy Chelmis, who mostly mans the lap steel for such shoegaze, Ashville country, but has diversified into fiddle, box acoustic guitar, and tambourines from time-to-time, over at the “Hillbilly Workstation,” throughout the 2024-2025 Manning Fireworks tour. Chelmis (Kel-miss) jumped on, studio-wise, for 2019’s self-titled, and again, for 2022’s Boat Songs.

Another two of Lenderman’s quintet-to-septet, The Wind -one of Lenderman’s more recent labels, Anti- records (Asheville), published a promotion for And The Wind (Live and Loose!), Monday, October 30th, 2023, as Live and Loose! was coming out: “MJ Lenderman Announces New Live Album, And The Wind (Live and Loose!), Out November 17th On ANTI-“

“Today, Asheville musician MJ Lenderman announces his new live album, And the Wind (Live and Loose!), out November 17th on ANTI-, and presents an accompanying live video for fan favorite ‘You Have Bought Yourself A Boat.’  MJ Lenderman writes songs that are amorphous and elastic, rising to fill the venue they’re in, generous to accommodate the numbers of players on stage (an often unpredictable affair), less concerned with replicating the studio version than they are with meeting the crowd where they’re at. On his records, Lenderman handles most of the playing, but with And the Wind (Live and Loose!) it’s a multi-headed beast. With the help of guitarist Jon Samuels (Friendship, 2nd Grade), drummer Colin Miller, plus fellow Wednesday bandmates, Xandy Chelmis (pedal steel) and Ethan Baechtold (bass), And the Wind (Live and Loose!) builds out a number of beloved MJ tracks into something else entirely,” the release posted (https://www.anti.com/news/mj-lenderman-announces-new-live-album-and-the-wind-live-and-loose-out-novem/#:~:text=it’s%20a%20multi%2Dheaded%20beast,tracks%20into%20something%20else%20entirely.).

[Since then, and simply put, touring bands shuffle for various reasons, and some due to need. Ethan Baechtold can play piano/keys/synth, when needed, and/or has the opportunity… The Wind pulls. It does not push].

Landon George has picked up the bass (and eventually third drummer!) for The Wind, due to the same pulling necessity.

George has released under aliases Dosha, Lil’ Nothing Man and The JavaScript Family Band, out of Habitable Records (Asheville, I think) (https://habitablerecords.com/landon-george/).

Also, chumming around, for the first North American leg, MJ Lenderman & The Wind toured with Ryan Davis and The Roadhouse Band, “as [they’ve] been assembled to meet increasing demands for live performances [2024’s] summer and fall, featur[ing] members of Kentucky-based experimental unit Equipment Pointed Ankh, Nashville songwriting voltron Styrofoam Winos and Athens’ bummer country/power-poppers Little Gold in a certain-to-dazzle assembly of both labelmates and friends,” (https://groundcontroltouring.com/artists/ryan-davis-the-roadhouse-band).

“The[ir] tunes on the album range from bare-boned, achingly crooned avant-folk tales to jovial, collaborative excursions into long-form experimental country-tinged rock modes,” about Ryan Davis and The Roadhouse Band, according to Ground Control Touring.

(Trevor Nikrant, from Winos became available through Ryan Davis and The Roadhouse Band; got/gets chances to step into The Wind, when can and needed, too).

Journalist Justin Barney, from Nashville’s WNXP 91.1 covered Nashville’s Styrofoam Winos back in Oct. 2024 in his article for WNXP’s “Artist of the Week,” series:

“On working with MJ Lenderman

[Justin Barney, journalist, WNXP, 91.1 fm, Nashville Public Radio] JB: It was cool to see you on the MJ Lenderman track for the live album. How did that all happen?  

[Multi-instrumetalist, vocalist, The Styrofoam Winos, Lou Turner] LT: Well, Jake Lenderman, as he’s known on the streets, and Trevor both have solo albums on Dear Life records and they met through the South By Southwest showcase [2022]. And then just became friends and kept in touch. He reached out and asked if we wanted to do a few dates with them last summer and we did not know that the tapes were rolling. We were having a great time just having a ball. Trevor was ripping on the trombone. Our friend Ross Collier was there and he joined as well. He and I are singing wildly out of tune and it’s very joyful.  

JB: Where was that recorded?  

[Multi-instrumentalist, vocals, The Styrofoam Winos, Joe Kenkel] JK: It was at Lincoln Hall in Chicago. I heard a lot of the show was not usable because the mic in the room just so happened to be next to a very loud fan who was who was loudly singing the entire album.” (On working with MJ Lenderman

JB: It was cool to see you on the MJ Lenderman track for the live album. How did that all happen?  

LT: Well, Jake Lenderman, as he’s known on the streets, and Trevor both have solo albums on Dear Life records and they met through the South By Southwest showcase. And then just became friends and kept in touch. He reached out and asked if we wanted to do a few dates with them last summer and we did not know that the tapes were rolling. We were having a great time just having a ball. Trevor was ripping on the trombone. Our friend Ross Collier was there and he joined as well. He and I are singing wildly out of tune and it’s very joyful.  

JB: Where was that recorded?  

JK: It was at Lincoln Hall in Chicago. I heard a lot of the show was not usable because the mic in the room just so happened to be next to a very loud fan who was who was loudly singing the entire album” (https://wnxp.org/record-of-the-week-styrofoam-winos-real-time/).   

-Moving on, there have been appearances by former members of The Wind, such as Willie Younts, sitting in as second drummer at The Bijou, the next show back after Hurrican Helene, October 6, 2024, as well.

“Right now, they are getting their PhD at Tennessee in English […], sent Ladon George.

“But here is some of their music if you’d like to check them out: https://osandwy.bandcamp.com/album/you-help-me-say-it,” he said.

“Funny enough Oh Stone is also former drummer AND bassist of The Wind,” said Landon.

For the remaining, second North American leg of the Manning Fireworks tour, post-Europe, and which runs back into Canada, through the Midwest, and Kentucky, again, on March 7, 2025 (then to VIC, Australia, and New Zealand, for a week,…..), tickets are sold out until June 4, 2025 dates, man. Then there are shows scheduled to mid-September, 2025, in the US and Canada… -there’s no telling.

Band credits for Live and Loose!: MJ Lenderman – Vocals and Guitar
Xandy Chelmis – Pedal Steel
Ethan Baechtold – Bass
Jon Samuels – Guitar
Colin Miller – Drums
Karly Hartzman – Vocals on “Toontown”
Guest appearance on “Long Black Veil” by Styrofoam Winos

Bandcamp liner notes for MJ Lenderman’s March 2021, Ghost of Your Guitar Solo:

“MJ Lenderman is the project of Asheville native, Jake Lenderman, guitarist in country/indie band Wednesday, who released ‘I Was Trying To Describe You To Someone’ to critical acclaim in early 2020 on Orindal Records. His label debut for Dear Life Records is ‘Ghost of Your Guitar Solo,’ a ten-song collection recorded and performed entirely by Lenderman.

The record was written and recorded quickly, songs often being fully constructed and recorded within frenzied single day sessions. Songs were born out of freewheeling jam sessions with his roommates, with Lenderman often freestyling lyrics that would later become the foundations of the finished songs. Inspired by a writing exercise conceived by the late David Berman, Lenderman would write 20 disconnected lines a day, scrapping most of them but preserving a few to be used later. This process aided in what became an extremely prolific writing period for the artist this past spring. The record sounds like country music being played by a noisy punk band, unkempt and imperfect like the characters in his songs.

Lyrically, Lenderman broadened his scope beyond solemn introspection, adding humor to scenes larger than his own life. He points to authors Harry Crews and Larry Brown as inspirations, both whom are southern, self-taught writers who balanced empathy, humor, and darkness. This leads to the erosion of the line that separates humor and sadness. The resulting songs are about over-indulgence and drug/alcohol abuse, full of self-loathing and pity while simultaneously celebrating the absurdity of it all. ” https://mjlenderman.bandcamp.com/album/ghost-of-your-guitar-solo

The bandcamp liner notes for April 2022’s Boat Songs:

“Jake Lenderman lives in Asheville, North Carolina. He plays guitar in the indie band Wednesday, sometimes fishes on the Pigeon River, and creates his own music as MJ Lenderman. His latest solo release with Dear Life Records is titled Boat Songs. Lenderman describes the album as his most “polished” sound to date, built around songs that “chase fulfillment and happiness”—whether that means buying a boat, drinking too much, or watching seeds fall from the bird feeder.

Boat Songs is the followup to Lenderman’s 2021 label debut, Ghost of Your Guitar Solo, and subsequent release, Knockin’, with Dear Life Records, both of which were critically acclaimed for their off-the-cuff alternative country sound. But with Boat Songs, Lenderman emerges confident as ever, an innovative yet unassuming artist, straightforward and true.

Recorded at Asheville’s Drop of Sun with Alex Farrar and Colin Miller, Boat Songs is the first album Lenderman made in a professional studio. WWE matches and basketball games were silently projected on the studio walls during recording sessions. And you can hear their power in these ten unapologetically lo-fi tracks, each brimming with pent-up energy and the element of surprise.

A clavichord honks throughout ‘You Have Bought Yourself A Boat’ with the playfulness of a live Dylan/Band set. ‘SUV’ screams with My Bloody Valentine distortion. When Xandy Chelmis beautifully bends his steel guitar on ‘TLC Cage Match’ you can’t help but think of Gram Parsons. And ‘Tastes Just Like It Costs’ howls with the intensity of Crazy Horse era Neil Young. Boat Songs is fearless and it’s exciting. It challenges the perception of what modern day country music is supposed to be and where it can go.

But no matter where Boat Songs goes sonically, the album is deeply rooted in Lenderman’s natural gifts as a storyteller. Someone once asked Hank Williams what made country music successful and he said, “One word: sincerity.” Filled with everyday observations ripped straight from his journal, Lenderman’s lyrics are sincere in their absurdities, with the vulnerability and honesty of Jason Molina and Daniel Johnston. There are moments of humor (‘Jackass is funny like the Earth is round’), admission (‘I know why we get so fucked up’), and recognition of beauty others might not stop to see (‘Your laundry looks so pretty…relaxing in the wind’). Read alone on the page, ‘Hangover Game,’ ‘You Have Bought Yourself A Boat,’ and ‘Dan Marino,’ stand out as perfect little poems, unpretentious and real. Simply said, these songs are unforgettable.

Or you could also say it like this: listening to Boat Songs by MJ Lenderman is like joining your best friends out on the porch. The neighbors might be yelling and the bugs might be biting. But y’all are shooting the shit and letting loose, telling the same old stories again and again. But it don’t matter how many times you’ve heard them, because they’re from the heart—and in the end they always make you feel alive again.” –Ashleigh Bryant Phillips, mutual fan.

Anti- Records, 25th Anniversary Showcase, The Basement East, Sept. 19, 2024:

With the heels of Nashville’s demand baring down on the Manning Fireworks tour, early, appearances were scheduled for Third Man Record’s The Blue Room, September 18, 2024 (the next appearance following the tour’s first, at Hopscotch Music Festival in Raleigh, Sept. 5, 7), then at Nashville’s The Basement East, October 5, MJ Lenderman made somewhat of a surprise appearance tucked into not only the line-up of, now, Nashville’s annual, AmericanaFest Music Festival and Conference, Sept. 19th, for the fest’s 17 – 21, 2024 dates. With acts strewn all across downtown Nashville, Anti- Records’ 25th Anniversary Showcase featured Waxahatchee, Neko Case, Madi Diaz, MJ Lenderman, Christian Lee Hutson, Leyla McCalla.

(And another layer/with all this going on, MJ Lenderman and fellow Anti- Records roster member, Birmingham sextet/septet, Waxahatchee, who’s latest album, Tigers Blood, which would be nominated for a Grammy later in the fall, that year, had Lenderman contributing vocally, as well as co-producing).

-It’s also a good indication of an artist’s developing popularity when The Blue Room @ Jack White’s Third Man Records lands a scheduled appearance right in the middle/right before any obvious, tour date/area venue scheduling. WNXP has The Sonic Cathedral, but it’s seemingly not scheduled in such a manner Jack White utilized over the course of his 2024-2025 touring.

Audio, I-840 W, Sept. 19, 2024:

1:11, Folk & Proper, to doorman: Already playing? There a lot of people already in here?

Basement East, doorman: Nah, not too bad.

F&P: All right, not too shabby. Thank you.

F&P, 3:00: Will you tell me who this is, real quick? I forgot my book in the truck…

Audience member: Leyla McCalla [Carolina Chocolate Drops, Our Native Daughters].

1:15-2:16, walking into the venue; 2:16 – 5:47, “Open the Road,” 5:58 – 9:59, “So I’ll Go” (harmony ~9:00, closing “So I’ll Go”).

10:00, Leyla: How’s everybody doing? (crowd yews)

Leyla: What an amazing crowd celebrating 25 years of Anti- Records (crowd whoos). I’m so proud to be on this label. They let me do whatever I want, and they actually care about how I feel, and what I want to say with my music. We just release our 5th record on Anti-, this past April. Its called Something About the Heat, and we’re playing songs from that record, and we’re gonna continue on with this song which is inspired by Octavia Butler (crowd whew). Any fans of Octavia Butler (Crowd whews, again)?

Leyla: Awesome. I read her book, Parable of the Sower, and it says that God is change. And, y’know, sometimes I believe in God. Sometimes I don’t. But, I think that’s a pretty accurate description of it, and I think when I was writing these songs, I was really thinking about change, and how to cope with it when I looked to the black, feminist authors of my heart, and they help light the way.

Leyla: So, this one’s called, “Take me away.”

Audio, 16.48 – 20:40, title track, Sun without the heat, April 2024, Anti-

20:41 – 26:37, “Crown,” 26:38 – , “We’ve got one more…”

19:53, Chrisian Lee Hutson, an L.A. country, singer/songwriter, acoustic Bon Iver deal, with fiddle and cello by Camille Faulkner, Harrison Whitford on bass, and some lower-register percussion accompaniment by Remi Moore, for a more-so written in a desert cabin feel, rather than a cabin in the woods.

Audio open, “I’m Christian Lee. Can you guys hear me?”

00:18 – 3:30: Christian Lee Hutson’s “After Hours,” and his views on Nashville (3:30 – 4:40).Caption: We have!

4:40 – 7:55 Hutson follows up with “Candyland,” from his latest, Paradise Pop. 10, out Sept. 2024, Anti-.

7:55 – 12:28, “Beauty School,” from 2024’s Paradise Pop. 10

13:05, Hutson: It’s hot as fck in here, guys

13:21, All right, cool.

Hutson, “Northsiders,” – 13:26 – 17:17 – Anti- records mention,
caption: beautiful violin, desert harmonica, too

17:17 – 18:10, Hutson: Thank you.”; Anti- Records gratitude.

Basement East 2 18:10 – 22:20, Paradise Pop. 10‘s “Lose this Number.”

22:20, until audio closes, “Thank you, this is our last song. We’re gonna figure out how this amp works….”

-And Hutson goes electric.

MJ Lenderman’s appearance:
14:10, Audio, The Basement East 3 (~9:00 pm) (Anti- Records 25th Anniversary Showcase within Nashville’s Americana Fest 2024, September 19 [2024]):

MJ Lenderman: Hello Nashville… We got a special show for you tonight… One time only (F&P: YeahYeah!!)

Lenderman’s appearance was backed by Waxahatchee! A.k.a. Katie Crutchfield’s touring band on for their latest, Tigers Blood (March 2024), and ensuing tour, featuring Brad Cook on bass and synth, et. al.; Phil Cook on keys, dobro, harmonica, banjo, marimba, accordion and slide guitar; current Wilco member, and Jeff Tweedy’s son, Spencer Tweedy, on drums, percussion, harmony, and background; MJ Lenderman on electric guitar (all 12 tracks of Tigers Blood), as well as acoustic, bass acoustic, harmony and background vocals; Colin Croom, on electric; with Cole Berggren on the pedal steel (and Natalia Chernitsky on the albums background vocals to make the septet, but wasn’t present at Anti- 25th).

Audio, The Basement East 4, “She’s Leaving You,” start – 4:54 through the end of the recording (?)

4:38, “By the way, this is, uh, Colin Croom, over here; we got Spencer Tweedy on the drums; Cole Berggren, and Brad Cook,” Lenderman introduces the band.

15:30, Lenderman: “Thank you, so much” (crowd goes apey).

[skip Madi Diaz, because she’s in “girl blues,”

MJ Lenderman & Waxahatchee set, Audio’s 7, 8:

Birmingham, AL’s Katie Crutchfield, a.k.a., Waxahatchee, kinda gets the gist in a Billboard interview for her upcoming, at the time, Tigers Blood, out of Anti-, March 22, 2024, saying:”He came on the Plains tour [in 2022] and opened. I came up in this small DIY scene and I had always approached my music career as like, the main thing is artistic integrity and creative integrity – it’s all about the work and it’s about being close with my people and just like having fun with it. And then having this big year with Saint Cloud, this big year with Plains, not that I like got so far away from that, but I got pulled away from it a little bit. I didn’t even totally see that. So when I was on that [Plains] tour, before we made Tigers Blood, with him and his band and seeing how alive their set was every night and how they built this sweet community and they’re in such good spirits and having so much fun with it – and there’s all this buzz around him and his band, but they really don’t see it or care about it. That really realigned me with my own values. I just really appreciated it. My record wouldn’t have landed the same or been the same had I not had that experience.” -Eric Renner Brown, “Waxahatchee Likens New Album ‘Tigers Blood’ to ‘A Great Slice of Homemade Bread,” Billboard Magazine, https://www.billboard.com/music/rock/waxahatchee-new-album-tigers-blood-mj-lenderman-interview-1235625075/

5:22, “Burns Out at Midnight,”

8:36 – 11:31, “Bored,”

11:52, “Lone Star Lake,” (“We’re gonna dedicate this next one to Neko [Case])

15:16, Waxahatchee: “Thank y’all,” Tigers Blood‘s “Crimes of the Heart,”

18:48, “Crowbar,”

22:49, “365,” (killer solo, outro)

26:23, “The Wolves,” 29:07, band intros, Katie Crutchfield (lead vocals), “Colin Croom on the dobro, pedal steel, electric guitar, and keys (crowd, apey), Spencer Tweedy on the drums, and the backing vocals (crowd, cheers), Cole Berggen on the keys, and the banjo (crowd, wild), Eliana Athayde on the bass, and backing vocals (crowd, yills), and of course, you know this guy -MJ Lenderman on the guitar, and backing vocals (crowd, apey, again)…

Neko Case, Anti- Records, cordial greetings to the lineup; mostly playing songs played for only the second time, that evening

In 2017, Waxahatchee hooked up with The New Pornographers, who had just released Whiteout Conditions, out of Concord Records, for a tour upon the release of Waxahatchee’s Out in The Storm, from Merge Records, that summer.

MJ Lenderman, Bijou Theatre, Knoxville, TN, October 6, 2024:

With The Wind pulling (as well as for Lenderman’s touring crew, over the course of this tour), MJ Lenderman & The Wind took a brief hiatus from the tour immediately after their 2nd of three Nashville shows scheduled in a month during the Manning Fireworks tour, and picked back up after breaking to rush home and help after the effects of Hurricane Helene, then rescheduling any dates missed (Oct. 5th, at The Basement East), while picking back up with their scheduled Knoxville’s Bijou Theatre date, October 6, 2024, featuring, openers, Ryan Davis and The Roadhouse Band, as well as with some interesting news, carrying on with the tour…

Audio, “W Cumberland Ave, Oct 6, 2024,” Ryan Davis and The Roadhouse Band:

MJ Lenderman & The Wind walk onstage, 8:45 pm

0:15, Lenderman: Is this gonna be a seated show? (Er’body stands up)

-band tunes A440, even banjo

1:00: It’s no big deal….. First night of the tour (crowd applauses)

1:19 – MJ Lenderman & The Wind, “Rudolph,” until about 8:15, when “Rudolph,” lighting the way for what a Lenderman and The Wind show can be about, varying elongated, mood setting compositions and string reverb experimentation at any given song’s outro (they used “Rudolph” to preview/light the way for the show, as The Wind shows off their full engine prowess, and they’ll later make a show closer out extended reverb musicianship, and which eventually fades into, “Inappropriate,” (~6:44) -to match the flow of The Wind (and the Knoxville setlist), from Lenderman’s 2021 Ghost of Your Guitar Solo (until 1:24:33) (Crowd goes apey).

8:36, Lenderman’s Allman Brothers-feel (with The Wind), “Joker Lips,” through audio’s end.

Pt. 2, 0:02, Lenderman: We got a special show tonight (crowd cheers). Our friend Willy Younts, former member, and current member of The Wind, tonight, is joining us on second drum (Crowd cheers).

0:29, “On My Knees” (good recording)

4:46, “She’s Leaving You,” (two drummers)

0:07, Lenderman, b/t song banter: “So, as you guys probably know we’re from Asheville (crowd applause), and we’ve been hit with a pretty bad hurricane, but, um, we’re happy to be together, and safe (woots), and we have some shirts for sale, with the tour dates on them, and all the money we make from those are gonna go to, y’know, benefit and aid for hurricane damage, so if you want to help out, that’s one way to do it.”

0:47, “TLC Cagematch,” from 2022’s Boat Songs

5:20, “You Have Bought Yourself a Boat,” from 2022’s Boat Songs

8:31, Lenderman, “sorry….” as the reverb starts to kick in, again….

Its an amalgamation of any technical writing pertaining to the lyricism of Steven Malkmus, plus the 7th bend for the “All” in Knockin’s, “You’re All I Need, babe,” compared to Neil Young riffs, as Lenderman’s “It Taste Just like it Costs,” stands as his “Cortez the Killer;” accompanied by the defensiveness of a generation, and even them literally using the lyrics of older generations, refurbished/remotivated, to create this mix that’s made Pavement fans feel important again. Drive-by truckers, Pavement, J Mascis & The Fog, etc… (some have mentioned David Berman? Ben Kweller?) Dylan. The Band. Quiet Riot. Plus, he’s just dry as hell. It’s hilarious.

5:15, “Wristwatch” (awesome) – 9:00 (audience cheers),

Seamlessly into “Manning Fireworks,” (awesome recording, too) – 12:22

12:28, Lenderman: Thank you guys.

“We haven’t sung that song since The Pilot Light. That’s one of the best venues in the world,” Lenderman says.

12:51, Wind member, “…except for the bathroom situation.” Lenderman, “Except for the bathroom situation, …but we can deal with that…. Go outside…”

12:59, Audence member, “You’re fine!” (crowd giggles).

13:08 – “You Don’t Know The Shape I’m In” (good recording)

0:05, Lenderman, “uh, Can anybody tell me what time it is?”

Most of the crowd shouts, “9:33!”

Member of The Wind, “Just tell him it’s time to drink his water…”

Audience member: “It’s five-o’clock somewhere!”

Lenderman, “That means nothing to me” (crowd laughs)

“Also, I wanted to say happy belated birthday to our merch person, Adenna (?)… wanted to give her some birthday wishes. We were supposed to be on tour yesterday, or the day before, [and] it was her real birth… Shit happens,” Lenderman says.

0:38, “Bark At The Moon.” (Don’t move to NY City, it’s gonna change the way you dress” “Ghosts of your Guitar Solo,” ~13:40), plus another seamless, full-band, reverb transition at 4:32, into another beautiful, instrumental, Jon Samuels-led, Cortez the Killer outro rant, everyone in dissonant country harmony to crash rides, all out -and introduces this sprite little billy goat dancing on a sunny hillside, The Wind guitarist, Jon Samuels.

Sharing any intricate electric solos, or spearheading any elongated reverb breaks/full band tuning-to-next song, Jon Samuels, an old friend of Lenderman’s since grade school, (for lack of better words) gets into it, seemingly praising with guitar in hand.

14:20, Lenderman & The Wind’s, “Catholic Priest,” from Ghost of Your Guitar Solo (18:01, crowd applause).

18:00, his punk song, “SUV”, from Boat Songs, – end of audio.

Lenderman: Hey, what time is it, now? (crowd laughs, some call out 9:33!)

The Wind member, “Don’t even answer. Nobody look at your phone.”

Lenderman, “Oh, I don’t care, either. I just want to know for personal reasons (crowd laughs).

Audience lady: We like it! Play as long as you want.

Lenderman: …Well, we don’t know that many songs (audience laughs) […]

Audience lady, inaudible; Lenderman, “Oooohp, here we go!,” strums, “A red guitar!”

**the news, :55, Lenderman: “Xandy’s got to get his fiddle for this one. -By the way, that’s Xandy Chelmis, over at the Hillbilly work station (audience chuckles). We got Landon George on Bass, Colin Miller on drums, you already know Willy Younts. We got Ethan Baechtold on keys. That’s Jon Samuels (guitar) -and by the way, **this is our first show ever with our banner behind us” (crowd cheers).

Audience, “YEah!,” and inaudible heckles

Lenderman: Thanks a lot, to Ryan Davis and The Roadhouse Band. I’ve been a huge fan of Ryan for over a decade, and it means the world to me to get to tour together (crowd roars).

Then, while strumming into next song, audience lady, again, causes him to mal-chime, funnily: audience lady, “…Who’s on the banner?”

Lenderman, abruptly stops: …. What’d you say? (audience laughs)

Audience lady: WHo’s on the banner?

Lenderman: WHo’s on the banner??

Audience: Yeah, please tell us!!

Lenderman: That’s a painting.

Audience guy: Explain it! (audience laughs)

Lenderman: It’s a painting by… our good friend, Matt Reid – [a.k.a] TB Beaches (crowd cheers, a few boo).

-After the outburts, Xandy fires up the fiddle at hillbilly workstation for “Rip Torn,” 2:25 (“And we need to learn how to behave in groups,” audience member: “whoo!!” -the seeming theme for this entire tour, when it comes to audience interactions) (“And there’s been Men in Black [and he holds up a 1, 2, and 3 fingers]”), 6:08crowd cheers.

[TO FORT WORTH SECTION -Getting into Fugazi, another way to gauge how badass awesome those guys were is seen in the appreciation for Fugazi’s work recently found in the Youtube historian’s coverage. Within that appreciation, the youtube-ographers do a great job bringing up examples with video clips. -explain the Cortez the Killer clip, and Taste Just like it Costs like that?

[Wanted to yell “Waiting Room!” in Fort Worth, but…]

“We got two more we were supposed to practice, but umm…,” Lenderman says, as the crowd cheers after “Rip Torn.”

Audience lady: We love it!

Lenderman: …but there was a big hurricane, so… (laughs)

Another audience guy: Bring it, baby!

Lenderman, delighted: we, uh… We’re bringing it! y’knowwhatI’msayin’. We know how you feel, …but all’s I’m trying to say is… …we only know two more songs (crowd laughs)…potentially…

-There are a couple of whistles and ‘whooo’s! out of the audience.

Lenderman: -There’s a couple more, now, that you say that (crowd laughs). -Well, we’ll do two for now. Thank you for being here.

Lenderman, “This song is a true story.”

3:49, Lenderman: Thanks everybody…

3:56, “Unhhh… I think this is gonna be our last one.”

Crowd, some are clapping, but some get a couple of ‘boooo’s out. The room split-second goes quiet and audience guy, “Fuck!” (audience laughs at themselves)

MJ Lenderman, turns around: All right! (audience laughs)

Lenderman tunes up a little for, “Knockin’,” a crowd pleasing/sing-along closer, everytime, singing every night, “I might be knock knock knock knock knock knock knockin’ on Heaven’s Door, Tonight,” every night. Sometimes nine knocks.

Lenderman: I don’t think y’all are ready for this one… (couple audience members hoot and whistle). …We love you Knoxville. I do actually have the time (audience laughs).

Another audience guy: …for a Wristwatch?

Lenderman: It’s right now (audience laughs).

-We already played that, my brother (audience laughs).

Another audience guy, again: I know. I know.

Another another audience: You were in the bathroom!

–4:46, MJ & Lenderman & The Wind, closes the Bijou set with “Knockin’,” crowd sings along, “You’re all I need, babe…”

(Warren Zevon’s “Shits Fuckd Up,” turned on over the PA/house music, as everyone exited).

Fort Worth:

Now, I was going to crack a joke about how Lenderman possibly changed as a person between the first North American leg of the Manning Fireworks tour in 2024, and the second, in 2025, with the European leg of the tour in between, but it was the irony Lenderman lyricizes as it was myself that changed during travels, next, to Fort Worth, catching Lenderman and The Wind headline the Dallas/Fort Worth-area’s Jambaloo Music Festival (between three cities, Dallas, Fort Worth, and Denton), at Tulips FTW, with openers Pink Fire, and Darling Farm.

It was […] who wound up screaming at traffic when I got back into Murfreesboro to the tune of “Manning Fireworks,” chorus, made-up, fan lyrics: “Woke up in Fort Worth/Took a nap in Detroit/Landed back in Nashville, and boy do my arms hoyt. I once was a baby, but now just a jerk/screaming at traffic in Murfreesboro.

MJ Lenderman & The Wind were just fascinatingly breezy, to the effect of…

MJ LENDERMAN & THE WIND, JAMBALOO RSVP, TULIPS FTW, FORT WORTH TX, February 7, 2025 (good lesson: [don’t be afraid to] put yourself in the right spot, no matter the stretch. Same as going up to Basement East from Murf., just in Dallas/FortWorth) (Also, I found closure for this Lenderman fascination [it’s his journey, which speaks for itself. This is all his processing, and closure. We each have our own grandiosity, and once it’s out, it’s everyone’s, from then until now on, like sitting out in the truck, with Pavement everywhere, sharing a dog.

It was learned RSVP’ing to far-fetched, yet accessible shows is an exercise, putting yourself in the right spot, to cover WNXP’s Bobby Hotel Rooftop Series, last summer.

If you RSVP (usually for free, which is the appeal of the venture when all Lenderman shows on mjlenderman.com, and venue sites, are sold out until half way through June, before Bonarroo was announced- it’s up to you to get there, and be present (fulfill your RSVP). They’re not going to throw reminders and confirmations, or affirmations, at you, holding your hand for reassurance (https://folkandproper.news/2024/07/08/william-womacks-the-hotel/), and most of the time, they don’t even check the tickets.

You see a show you’d like to attend, be it on a rooftop hotel in Nashville, or a burgeoning, just-across-the-interstate indie venue in Fort Worth, TX (seriously like East Nash, with US Rte 377 acting as the Cumberland river-type closeness to downtown, -even with a creeping gentrification in the Bricktown area, as Main St. (again, think of Main St. running out through East Nash) is developing high-end biscuit shops, hip, locked-door record shop/black-owned coffee shop/and fresh, old white people hair boutique-kinda shopping nooks -some killer weed store (Thrive and Gas Station), and there’s even a corner gay bar community, with Jackie O’s and Club Reflection, at Jennings and Pennsylvania, just for wayward travelers showing up late at night looking how to get into The Gas Station, butted up against Club Reflection.

Tulips FTW, Fort Worth, February 7, 2025 (drs 7, show 7:30 pm), audio, “Jackie O’s Cocktail Club, ” 1:52:29 (started recordimg at Pennsylvania and S. Jennings, a bit before):

1:52:41 – Denton, TX’s, Darling Farm, a Texas alt. 90’s, indie emo project out of lead singer/guitarist, Joseph Mings: Kinda Karate-math, kinda Malkmus, French indie, alt. rock trio bouncing minor-tinged counter melodies between the bass and guitar, each song different tuning, through soft-to-crash ride crescendos, with “modern-aging” lyricism. Good, bouncy, alt. show with well-constructed dissonances and hints of throwbacks.

7:25, “This next songs about partying. So, I hope you like to party,” says Mings, as Darling Farm sets into a somber, Sigur-chimed intro before lullyingly Malkmus vocalizing, ” I don’t really wanna take a pay cut, but I gotta do something or I’ll dry up […] Wanna quit my job being ice cream man,” smooth and easy until bouncing into a lumber yard of ban saw, guitar fury, but shortly back into alt. 90’s ballad groove territory in “Ice Cream Man,” from their 2022 release, No, Yeah, out of Bible Jail records (https://soundcloud.com/grauttracks).

11:26, Joseph Mings: We’ve got two moooooore. Then it’s gonna be Wild Pink and MJ Lenderman, what a niiiiiiight! (crowd owowowowos).

–Mings, We got time for one, only one, then… This songs called “Bread Crumb”…

11:57, Darling Farm’s “Bread Crumbs,” Karate-Malkmus as hey, emo crybaby, post hardcore-y punctuations in chorus (if there is a chorus), lyricizing “I latch ooooonnnnnn…” to a guitar and bass bouncing, math bridge (Crowd Cheers, 14:48).

(~20 minute set change), Wild Pink, Audio, “Jackie O’s Cocktail Club,” Wild Pink walks out to AC/DC’s “Hell’s Bell’s,” like a wrestling intro until Wild Pink front man/guitarist, John Ross’s fuzz punctures through an all fuzzy, Tom Petty and The Heartbreakers for the opening track -the title track- of their latest, Oct. 2024’s Dulling the Horns, engineered by Justin Pizzoferrato, in New York.

5:00 – a historical, “Cloud or Mountain” (very different from album version) (killer lap steel).

~9:19? “Eating the Whole Egg,” Wild Pink’s set/lyrics are engrained with gems of wisdom, “Sometimes dreams aren’t meant to be lived in/they’re meant to be forgotten,” ultimately, “My stupid ass is always searching for something/hoping for a pearl when I open up my fist…” “Nothing lasts Forever!” (10:46).

9:34 Audience members (Wild Pink is from New York): “Go Bills!!” Go Bills!” as “Eating the Whole Egg,” warms up… (the “Nothing Lasts Forever!” guys).

12:39, seamlessly into “St. Catherine St”🤘 -2:44:04 (killer stellar lap steel, again).

17:24, “Bonnie One,” “We were dogs that killed the man that hurt us…”

2:44:41-audio cuts

18:04, audio cuts back to harmonica-laden, “—————” (?) -song about the Kennedys assassinations (sax song, too?) -~22:20

22:22, Wild Pink, “Let’s give it up for MJ Lenderman & The Wind (heavy NY accent) (crowd cheers). They’re up after this. We’re Wild Pink. Thank you so much for being here (crowd ‘yew’s/goes apey) Got some merch from the band we’re selling over there…

22:45, The hi-hat’s tapping down this whole time… Wild Pink’s “Sprinter Brain” (Bandcamp’s version is better than this muffled audio version. Same feel, not different👍) Springsteen as hey. Mucho Sax in this one. New York Country? (Forgot they rode out heavy reverb from 23:15 until the end of the set/recording)

Very wisdom-based, and historical, in lyricism; Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers, with bridges into NY hardcore, at times.

MJ Lenderman & The Wind, Tulips FTW, February 7, 2025: “Custom Quintet.”

3:14, Lenderman: Thank you, Fort Worth (crowd, apey). We have kind of a special show for you guys tonight (crowd cheers). It’s a bit of a custom for Fort Worth, tonight (crowd cheers)… Umm. Um, we’ve been dealing with some food poisoning (crowd, empathetically “aww’s”), and our drummer finally got hit with it, today. Colin. So, God bless him… but…

Audience member: What’d you guys drink in Austin?

Lenderman: This is Trevor… (crowd cheers, Trevor!!) playing bass. He usually plays keys. He’s never played bass with us before, and then we got Landon George, our normal bassist, on drums, so… (crowd erupts). Neither of these guys have ever done this.

4:00, MJ Lenderman and The Wind, “Joker Lips.”

-Joker Lips audio, -sounds great. Lenderman is either turning around after each song, giving a couple thumbs up to the custom quintet, or patting his elbow, which he does only once (which was after….[check notebook]); “This morning wants to kill me. Yeah, you know I love my TV, but all I really want to see is see you need me.”

7:08, audio skips, so video👍 “Wristwatch“?

Audio skip at, 7:12, “Can I get my monitor turned up, please?” -Samuels?, into Lenderman’s metal song, “Six Flags”) good audio -The audio guy, prevalent throughout the evening, was on lights, he said at the end of the night, but he still did the elbow pump, “yes!”, when Lenderman’s echo mic effect kicked in for this song. Jambaloo crew were having a good night. “A lot of hard work,” he said. Samuels nails/makes this song with his disciplined, hold-breath, elongated notes, but he’s still thrash-tapping to create the stretch (can’t hide that sprite, hyperactivity, man).

Audio cuts again, 15:26, Vid?

back at 15:26, audio blips back in, Lenderman: “Thank you, guys…”

F&P, crowd cheering: Hey, Thank You!

15:43: strums into “She’s Leaving You,” with Fort Worth’s Custom Quintet (great audio). Lenderman turns around with a couple big thumbs up afterwards. I cried singing into the chorus with’m. (seemingly) The whole audience was. -A lot cleaner/looser version, [fanning out, btw] like he was singing with us instead of singing a song for us. Like, he finally gave us the song. It’s ours now!!

Headline: ” ‘She’s Leaving You,’ IS OURS NOW!!! WE’RE ALL SINGING ALONG! [in a killer fit of acceptance!].

[killer solo, too.]

I mean, 19:45 – we’re all going until Xandy takes over (and then we just sing with Xandy) (crowd, apey).

20:50, F&P to guy next to us, “I think we could leave now and be okay…”

Lenderman turns around with a big smile, and two thumbs up, “Awesoooome!” or Lenderman, to audience: Y’all were slow…” (crowd cheers, yeah’s!)

21:04, Lenderman: Give it up for Trevor and Landon (Crowd Yeah”!)

21:23, Lenderman: This is actually Trevor’s last night with us (crowd wails and boo’s), Lenderman: For now. For now…. (crowd chatter)

3:25:00 + 21:26

:10, as Lenderman strums in and Xandy picks up the fiddle, The Wind break into “Rip Torn…” (3:50:55, crowd cheers

3:58, band intros, Lenderman: Thank you. That’s Xandy Chelmis over there on the periphery (crowd yeah’s!).

4:15, audio cuts, vid.?

4:16, MJ Lenderman and The Wind’s punk song, “SUV,” from Dec. 2019’s Lucky (couldn’t hear, but crowd, apey). “MY TV” -6:27

6:37, strums, Lenderman: Jumba-loooo?? (upspeak) (crowd cheers).

6:54, Lenderman: Did you guys have a nice Jamba-Loo?? (crowd cheers)..

“If it ended on Friday, when did it start?” Lenderman asked

Audience Member: It started tomorrow!

Lenderman, giggled: We’re happy to be here [for] all of it, to close it out for you guys (crowd yews).

Jambaloo, much like Austin’s South-x-Southwest, now Nashville’s Americana Fest, now the Dallas Fort-Worth-Texas’ hold-my-seltzer-We’ve-got-Three-Cities-in-which-to-do-that, is a (three) city-wide festival, holding artists and their acts/stage shows sprinkled across whichever town or city’s venues along a given track, or map, for which festival attendees hop, show-to-show, sometimes in a logistics/logistical nightmare. Some go through ticket buying processes (describe RSVP mentioned up top, AmericanaFest scavenger hunt/track down to downtown Hilton, recent Do 615 Live $15 set up, with venue disclaimers, and how you just RSVP’d and straight-up walked in w/o showing tickets, and all) Cool little set ups.

–Describe how you procured the info, too (scavenger hunt, Lenderman.com listed all the others were sold out, but the Jambaloo one was still RSVP, last year/early this year, and you’d been through Bobby RSVP where you learned you just show up, and kinda don’t need the ticket -that’s how the faith RSPVs work (and the compnay that puts it on has faith you’re honest, bc how could you not be? Cool set up blasing different methods of ticket retreiveal, even including old-school tactics like day-of venue giveaways/retreival, finding the info out through/participating with local radio stations and DJ’s, and simply having faith you’ll be able to get into the venue half way across the country, the day of, and full-faith Jambaloo will send you a ticket, even if you missed to the first RJD2 RSVP you signed up for that monday, a week before, and worried they dropped you bc they thought you were a bot, and wouldn’t hear from them until the day of the show (uncertainty travel, and acceptance if you couldn’t get in [they didn’t even chech tickets, again, like at Bobby] but also tell about how they gave you faith texts, eventually email’d tickets Jambaloo did (two for all others, but 1 for Lenderman)(it was a packed house, too). Just a huge organizational success for a mult-city-wide, Texas road trip festival.

ANyway… Jambaloo started the previous Monday with RJD2 show @ and ended Saturday with The Texas Gentlemen with Quaker City Night Hawks, Matthew Logan Vasquez, and J. Isaiah Ev sho at Ferris Wheelers in Dallas, the next day, Saturday, Feb. 8, 2025.

“It’s a lot of work,” the audio guy you thought was Landon, or Baechtold, outside, said, later, in the booth.

[-You’re having dreams about the 101.5 DJ stuff…]

7:31, MJ Lenderman and The Wind drum-tap count off into “You’ve bought Yourself a Boat,” from 2022 Boat Songs.

-And Lenderman knows exactly which song to play after any audience interaction, like it’s instilled, much worse and better, his generational defensiveness at play. But again, it’s just his catalogue, and the way he wants to do it.

10:26, crowd cheers

:03, Lenderman: Oh, did I mention, this is John Samuels [on guitar]…
The Wind Quintet [crowd yew’s and cheers]. …A Fort Worth custom.“

:21, “TLC Cagematch,”-4:50

4:42, you ready?: “On my Knees,” “Travolta’s bald head” song, Jon Samuels – an engine, but they fell apart a little. Lenderman’s elbow tap after the song (crowds cheering). -9:02

**9:13, Lenderman: All right, we’re gonna do a cover, right now. This is a song by Smog (F&P, ararararararas/Yes!) It’s out on a -our, our -another version we did of this we did from Milwaukee, I think, is out on a compilation that came out today to benefit LA; people who were affected by the fires… It’s only available today, I believe, so look it up. It’s called “Good Music.” …That’s the name of the band. -Y’know… Artist page… [on bandcamp.com].

“…But if this doesn’t sell you, I don’t know what will,” Lenderman said, 9:53.

Smog is Maryland-based cat out of the early-mid nineties that recorded lo-fi feats of sad-bastard, indie-folk greatness (monotone baritone folk) over the course of his hardcore-indie pursuit to do Smog. He later recorded under Bill Calahan, his other name, at the turn of the millennium.

He breaks horses.

14:50, Lenderman, back in FW: Thank yoooou.

F&P: “Thank you!”

The Wind member, :06 (to an audience member’s shirt?) “-still thinking about a Search and Destroy. Craziest words I’ll ever see, but I love it.

:18, the first utterances of the grill group, “bring the grill out of the rain, dude!” “Relax!” “It’s cold as sht!”

:23, first Strums, and reverb, into Maning Fireworks’ album closer, “Bark at The Moon,” softer quintet-style. “I’ve been up too late with Guitar Hero playing ‘Bark at the Moon’…” -Whole place singing along.

@4:31, The Wind turns into the werewolf of Reverb and band frequency surging dissonance of early 2000-aughts Weezer shows, after Weezer replaced their bassist, and for their outrs, on tour, as The Wind’s outros can sound. Aye Aye Aye (-8:36)

8:36, seamlessly transitions the fuzz and reverb into “No Mercy,” from 2019’s Lucky

18:29, audience member: Fck Yeeeeaahhh!; crowd cheers/wails/wooooo’s

Lenderman: Thanks, Fort Worth… Good Night

MJ Lenderman and The “Custom Quintet” Wind walk off stage…

0:00 – audience cheering on; audience member: “One Mooooorrrrrrreeeeeee!!!!”; audience keeps going – and going…:

:38, Mj Lenderman and The “Custom Quintet” Wind walk back out, :46-Audio cuts/Vid.:

:46, Room was kinda quiet after “The Custom” Wind covered Lorelei’s “Dancing in the Club,” as the crowd chilled between songs, for the two song encore…

:47, “Let’s get the grill out of rain, MJ! Get the Grill Out of The Rain!” [I mean, pierced the rooms attention, hard. And, it was a looong heckle, in the moment]

[Picked back up with the “Get the Grill out of the Rain, MJ!” heckle. Perhaps an appropriate re-entrance to the audio, as any of Lenderman’s “generational defensiveness,” -much like the suddenness and randomness of that heckle popping up- he has to deal with sht like that (this guy had been saying this line, not directed at Lenderman, or his band, at different times during the night, to his surrounding buddies, so it’s obvious the line means something/is esoteric to those folks, but when he got a little delusional by taking what was in his head and yelling it into the crowd, and at Lenderman and his band, as if the weight of it meant what it had meant to he and his friends, did not translate from a catch phrases, for the weekend, to Lenderman’s understanding].

Crowd, muffled, because of confusion (?)

Jon Samuels, seemingly confused: I don’t think we know that one.

Audience member: “…Hey, asshole…”

Another audience member: MJ, this is a great show!

:58, MJ Lenderman: “We were gonna do it, but I don’t think we will anymore,” (crowd cheers).

1:03, MJ Lenderman & The Wind’s last encore song, “Knockin’” (), “We saw Jon Daly/sing “Knockin’ on Heaven’s Door…” -“Knock Knock Knock Knock Knock Knock Knock Knock Knockin’…” -killer 90’s alt rock solo, hunkered over, huuuuuustlin’, “You’re All I Need, babe.”

– 4:46, crowd erupts, cheers

4:52 Lenderman: Thank you guys so much! Everybody get home safe… F&P: yeahyeah!!

4:55, house music, Warren Zevon’s “Shts fcked up,” over the PA/House music…

Walking out, into beautifully (like, 80 degrees), February warmth of the clear and open, Fort Worth, TX night sky -and on a journey through someone else’s experience, searching for my own closure of the MJ Lenderman project, I smelt like a giant blunt the whole night, and especially to the chorus of wristwatch.

One of the major, unknown, I guess, subconscious catharses of this whole situation was when it felt like seeking closure was grasped, in this whole ex-girlfriend/sharing a dog thing, while very loudly, singing “She’s Leaving You,” throat up in the air, along with the band, in real time, and all- even tearing up a little bit. I’m still coming to grips with that, thinking it was just because I want peace, and my life back, but good for Lenderman for getting it out, in his own beautiful way, and through such a complex navigation of emotions, and modern ways of viewing life (touring schedule).

Steve Malkmus is currently involved in a 90’s alt. four-piece, The Hard Quartet, which is now starting up/touring as an alt. 90’s super group made up of Pavement’s Steven Malkmus, The Double and The Cairo Gang’s Emmett Kelley, Chavez (and Skunk’s!) Matt Sweeney, and the Dirty Three [and session-ist at one time for Smog], Jim White.

The tour’s first date is at Nashville’s Brooklyn Bowl, down on North 3rd, and scheduled for 8:00pm, March 21st, 2025.

This Hard Quartet activity at The Brooklyn Bowl, Nashville, is brought to you by Nashville Public Radio’s 91.1 WNXP (like arranging/promoting/hosting last year’s Bobby Rooftop Concert Series, of which more information can be found at https://folkandproper.news/2024/07/08/william-womacks-the-hotel/, as well as wnxp.org. 2024 Bobby Rooftop series should start back up for the summer).

As well as, this whole thing has been part of the WNXP universe, found on-air, out of Nashville, TN, at 91.1 FM on the knob, and at the WNXP app for live streaming of the station, and found where your apps are sold/given away.

Manning Fireworks by MJ Lenderman can be found across the icons at Spotify, YouTube Music, Apple Music, and Pandora, as well as streaming at regular Youtube, and Bandcamp page, found at https://mjlenderman.bandcamp.com/album/manning-fireworks.

Information for Nashville, TN’s The Basement East, and any upcoming shows can be found at https://www.thebasementnashville.com/, more specifically, https://www.thebasementnashville.com/basement-east/.

Information, and upcoming shows for Knoxville’s Bijou Theatre cand be found at https://knoxbijou.org/, more specifically, https://knoxbijou.org/events/.

Information, and upcoming events for Fort Worth’s Tulips FTW, located at 112 St. Louis Ave, 76104 can be found at https://tulipsftw.com/.

More information, as well as updated touring schedule for MJ Lenderman & The Wind can be found at mjlenderman.com. And venue sites, for the ones that are sold out, aren’t a bad idea to double check.

Tickets for The Hard Quartet can be found scrolling down their homepage, https://thehardquartet.com/, or through The Brooklyn Bowl’s site, at https://www.brooklynbowl.com/nashville/shows/all. Also, keep ears to local stations in case the DJ’s are up to something. Great beacons of local fun.

The Hard Quartet’s tour starts at Nashville’s The Brooklyn Bowl, March 21st, 2025.

–And to time travel, a little bit [June 4, 2025. 1:33am, Rose Ave.] -In hindsight, better yet, updated- on the journey, starting with sitting out on in the truck, listening to Pavement around me, and underneath the tires, flipping rhrough stations, sharing dogs, this whole processing life/trying to figure out Lenderman’s appeal, and Pavement journey… it wound up in Steve West territory, May 31, 2025, as “in from the mountains,” Darlington and Staunton, VA’s Darlington Pair, and Unmastered Masters, with “both bands [having] [Pavement’s third drummer] Steve West in a variety of roles,” 8:15 & 9:30PM, according to the flyers he, Pavement’s second drummer, Bob Nastanovich, and Pavement’s 2020 touring band addition, Rebecca Cole, passed out at the will-call, front ticket counter, entering Nashville’s The Belcourt Theatre for a “select cities,” preview of Pavement’s 2025 doc./biopic, Pavements, an extremely cleverly way of editing togogether the tale and simultaneous promotion and production crescendos of recent Pavement-inspired/based stage production, “Slanted! Enchanted! A Pavement Stage Production,” as well as a Pavement pop-up Museum/gallery show, and prepping, filming, and “for considering,” an upcoming biopic starring Stranger Things, Joe Keery, as Malkmus, among other stellar cast playing Steve, Bob, Spiral Stairs, Andy Young, Bob Nastanovich, and Matador label execs.

Bob, Steve, and Rebecca spoke to the crowd before and after the two showings, May 30, 2025, at the Belcourt Theatre.

The flyer was for a following-night, “LOUIE Louie ‘HERE FOR A GOOD TIME’ NIGHT,” get-together at Soft Junk, a hip, Nashville venue/ practice space and dj loft that The Hard Quartet practiced at leading up to the March 21, 2025 show, located at the back of a, seeming, Gallatin Pike back-building art collective elbow complex, at 919 Gallatin Pike, 37206.

“DJ RCC (Rebecca Cole from Minders, Wild Flag, Pavement)” also reads the flyer.

“DJ Need a Stack (Bob Nastanovich -Pavement, Silver Jews)” reads the flyer.

“DJ Carleystyle (keeping it lewd, lively & lush), ~11 pm~ <DRINK Louie Louie>”

And after all this, after fighting a seemingly always-scheduled, verbal fight riding home from the NSC soccer matches this Karly Hartzman of mine and F&P have worked together for years -now, both together and apart, meanwhile sharing a dog -getting away from the fight and company for a second, that May 17, 2025, the wind took me -I mean- first, home, but then to grab a preroll from the gas station at the corner of Middle Tennessee Blvd. and Greenland Dr. (northwest corner of MTSU), only to hear a familiar opening chord strummed -plus an “always-hankering” to cover the localest local- F&P found Cookeville quartet, Silk Becky, gracing the journey, spirit, timeliness, and presence of MJ Lenderman at The Boro Bar and Grill, some random Saturday in May 2025, just carrying on.

Speaking with Silk Becky roadie, Carl Walter [Lee?] [friend of the band], and finding the loose and playful rawkers traveled from Cookeville for the set, “That one’s out of Cookeville (referring to one of the two frontmen). That one’s from Wisconsin (referring to the other one). And they’re based out of Murfreesboro,” said Carl before Silk Becky erupted into an Em blues run loosely titled, “Fuck you, Carl.”

At the point of F&P leaving Carl and the other two Becky fans in the mafia booth at Murfreesboro’s dive, The Boro Bar & Grill -owned by Lee Roberts, managed and organized by Haley Meador and Mary B. Wrather- spilling information on a newer act, a gut feeling hit to stay and talk.

But F&P left as battle felt ensuing/a problem existed that needed to be dealt with/I had run away from a frustrating, constant fight, leaving it unresolved with a person who hates unresolved…

Walking back across Mid. TN Blvd. and Greenland intersection, the mother of my dog, and whom I’d gotten tired of fighting, was ultimately tracking her way to where I’d most predictably be, definitely on the right enough path to hear/see a rock band playing into the open night; ‘oh, check the Boro.’

So, in disguise [picture deleted, or hellfire] -She’s from Cookeville, too- F&P walked away from what possibly could’ve been a hilarious array of coincidences aligning all of this Pavement/Lenderman into some funny local jazz with Brittany walking up wild eye’d, in a wig, at The Boro, to enjoy “She’s Leaving You,” through the open doors, on the pavement patio.

MJ Lenderman recently released a new music video for Wednesday, “Elderberry Wine,” a couple weeks ago 😬

…But he seems okay.

More information on Silk Becky can be found at their socials.

Information on Belcourt Membership is at https://www.belcourt.org/membership/.

Help to the airport in February 2025, Brittany Hunter.

More area music videos found @folkandproper.news, on Instagram.

This article was last updated, June 4, 2025.