MJ Lenderman has a lousy voice. It often cracks mid-syllable, goes off-key, and has a limited range. He’s not much of a guitar player. There is nothing remarkable about the way he accompanies himself. His lyrics often go for the cheap joke over the deep thought and don’t tread beyond the personal. The record’s lo-fi production suggests not much is going on here. Every song on his latest album, Manning Fireworks, kind of sounds the same. So why is this record and Lenderman so damn good? The record and Lenderman kick butt!
That’s one of the wonders of music. It’s not about who has the best voice, nimblest fingers, most beautiful words, etc. It’s how it makes one think and feel. MJ Lenderman creates a bunch of noise that somehow cuts into his listeners’ heads and hearts, even when the songs’ sonics resemble that of the garage band next door, who have just discovered the wonder of amplification and the joy of making up words on the spot.
Lenderman is playful and sincere, so one can never be sure if he’s sarcastic or observant. His earnestness and breezy sense of humor are part of his charm. He knows this and toys with his audience. Consider the meta meaning of lines such as “Please don’t laugh only half of what I said / Was a joke” (“Joker Lips”). The North Carolina singer-songwriter professes honesty and mendacity simultaneously, like a pie in the face or slipping on a banana peel. His disingenuousness is proof of his authenticity. Laugh, clown laugh.
The narrator of the songs on the new album takes funniness seriously. “I’ve lost my sense of humor,” he confesses in the first line of “Bark at the Moon”, a track that compares playing Ozzy Osbourne’s classic heavy metal tune on Guitar Hero to seeing the Mona Lisa. MJ Lenderman means it and raises a good point. What one considers high art comes from the experience of interacting with it. (This is reminiscent of Guy Clark‘s superb “Dublin Blues”, where Clark croons, “I have seen the David, I’ve seen the Mona Lisa too. I have heard Doc Watson play “Columbus Stockade Blues”). One can consider the DaVinci masterpiece and Ozzy’s howling equal in the level of aesthetic pleasure derived. On a different level, one can then interpret the song’s first line differently. Is the whole song a big joke? Maybe—yes and no. Ozzy’s “Howl at the Moon” and the Mona Lisa equivalent ha ha ha. Lenderman’s ten-minute song ends with seven minutes of instrumental clatter via feedback and the electric guitar. He says it all without saying a word.
Lenderman wrote all the songs, but he’s not alone on the record. He not only plays lead guitar, but he also plays most of the instruments, including organ, bass, drums, and drones. To accent the material, Lenderman is joined on various tracks by several musicians on different instruments, including trumpet, clarinet, bass, piano, mellotron, upright bass, pedal steel, and such. For example, Xandy Chalmis’ pedal steel turns “Wristwatch” into a Neil Young/Ben Keith-style country rock dirge. The twangy sound of the strings adds a comic element to a song that starts, “So you think I have a funny face, it makes me money.” It’s the one-liners like this that capture one’s attention.
Consider tropes such as “We sat under a half-mast McDonald’s flag”, “How many roads must a man walk down before he learns he’s just a jerk”, “I had a thought, but I forgot” that make one say “huh”. The lines aren’t heavy as much as they are koans that don’t mean as much as they do by illuminating by being confusing (why would a McDonald’s flag fly at half-mast—did a fast-food employee die?). Who knows, or more precisely, who cares? MJ Lenderman suggests that everything matters, and so what if it did? So send up the fireworks and celebrate.