MJ Lenderman's music is a little sad, sometimes funny and almost always comforting. He's already played the Tiny Desk with the indie-rock band Wednesday, but after a stellar 2024 — a memorable feature on Waxahatchee's "Right Back To It" and his own solo album, Manning Fireworks — it was time to bring him in for his own set.
His band, normally called MJ Lenderman & The Wind, told us that when they play their songs stripped back like this, they refer to themselves as MJ Lenderman & The Breeze. The fiddle-forward "Rip Torn" and "You Don't Know The Shape I'm In" feel especially suitable for the space.
Lenderman's compelling lyricism and wry sense of self shines in this performance. On a song pulled from Ghost of Your Guitar Solo, he reflects on how he used to think he wanted to be a Catholic priest: "I would never have to worry / About the girls tryin' to break my heart / All expenses paid / Yeah, I'd have it made / The house would come furnished." Afterward, he muses, "Nothing funny has ever happened to me."
SET LIST
- "Wristwatch"
- "Rip Torn"
- "Catholic Priest"
- "You Don't Know The Shape I'm In"
MUSICIANS
- MJ Lenderman: vocals, guitar
- Jon Samuels: guitar
- Landon George: upright bass
- Ethan Baechtold: piano
- Colin Miller: drums, background vocals
- Xandy Chelmis: dobro, fiddle, background vocals
TINY DESK TEAM
- Producer: Elle Mannion
- Director/Editor: Maia Stern
- Audio Technical Director: Josh Newell
- Host/Series Producer: Bobby Carter
- Videographers: Maia Stern, Kara Frame, Mitra I. Arthur
- Audio Engineer: Josephine Nyounai
- Production Assistant: Ashley Pointer
- Photographer: Michael Zamora
- Tiny Desk Team: Joshua Bryant, Hazel Cills
- Executive Producer: Suraya Mohamed
- Series Creators: Bob Boilen, Stephen Thompson
- VP, Visuals and Music: Keith Jenkins
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