MJ Lenderman, seen here playing his Jazzmaster with Wednesday, first started on guitar at the age of 8, when he was entranced by the music of Jimi Hendrix.
English actress Glenda Jackson is credited with what’s now become an old performance-art adage: “Comedy is much harder to do than drama.” During my time living in New York City for the last eight-and-a-half years, I spent countless hours in open-mic basement dungeons—where small rodents would occasionally die and pungently decay beneath the floorboards and cellar stairwells—studying amateur standups workshop ideas in two- to seven-minute allotments of stage time.
I observed how each would coalesce their creative germs over the course of months—sometimes years—into solid, reliable bits while whittling down and sharpening their inner clown. And, after eventually trying it myself, with much floundering, I can personally attest that it’s a lot harder than it looks.
Twenty-five-year-old, North Carolina-born songwriter MJ Lenderman tells me that his song ideas “usually start with one line; something that makes me laugh.” Well, on his new album Manning Fireworks, his major-label debut with Anti- Records and fourth studio full-length of his solo career—which has grown alongside his work with the band Wednesday—I can definitely hear the laughter.
On “Wristwatch,” he proclaims that he has “a beach home up in Buffalo,” and “a wristwatch that’s a pocket knife and a megaphone.” On “Rip Torn,” presumably named after the actor by the same name, he sings, “I guess I’ll call you Rip Torn / The way you got tore up / Passed out in your Lucky Charms / Lucky doesn’t mean much,” and, “You said there’s men and then there’s movies / And there’s men in Men in Black / Said there’s milkshakes and there’s smoothies / You always lose me when you talk like that.” (To jog your memory of the ’90s, Rip Torn plays “Zed” in Men in Black.)
Manning Fireworks, Lenderman’s fourth studio full-length, was written and recorded between tours. The title comes from the idea of someone recklessly setting-off the recreational explosives.
Most of the folk-y, country-rock tracks on Manning Fireworks clock in at around three to three-and-a-half minutes, and take that time to unwind without demanding any patience. Lenderman’s main guitar is a 2008 Fender Jazzmaster, which he recently had modded with a Mastery Bridge, and he unassumingly twangs out each straight-ahead riff in a woozy, barebones essence all his own. I first heard the album in its entirety at a listening party at NYC’s Mercury Lounge, where the label folks from Anti- requested that the audience not go on their phones and not talk while the album was playing. I was among a full crowd of people in the 250-capacity room who followed those rules, and Lenderman’s self-actualized storytelling made it easy. As a songwriter, he draws influence from Neil Young, Jason Molina, Patterson Hood and Mike Cooley (Drive-By Truckers), and David Berman and Will Oldham (Silver Jews).
The album’s title conjures some unique imagery, I tell him—just the verb “manning,” which I associate with sailors (“Man the ship”), military (“Man the barricades”), or machines (“Man the cash register”). He says the visual for him is “somebody standing too close [to fireworks] who could set off a huge explosion if they’re not careful. I guess that’s kind of the way I was using them. I like the phrase because, on its own, it sounds like the name of a store you would see in South Carolina or something.”
I wonder if he remembers the drastic uptick of unusually loud fireworks being set off in NYC during the pandemic, a phenomenon reported on by Rolling Stone, The New Yorker, and The Atlantic. (Many speculated that these fireworks were being given out to unwitting kids as a systemic attempt to disrupt the sleep of those organizing Black Lives Matter protests at the time.)
“That’s not what I was writing about,” he laughs, adding, “but I think it was the same summer where somebody set off a firework in my friend Alan’s car and it totaled the car.”
MJ Lenderman's Gear
From the process of making Manning Fireworks, Lenderman took away the lesson that asking for help from his peers (in terms of contributing to his music), can make his life a bit easier.
Photo by Karly Hartzman
Guitars
- 2008 Fender Jazzmaster
- 1979 Gibson Firebrand SG
Effects
- Death By Audio Interstellar Overdriver
- Dunlop Cry Baby Wah
- Boss DD-7 Digital Delay
- Tuner
Amp
- Fender Blues Deluxe with Warehouse speaker
Strings
- Ernie Ball Beefy Slinky (.011–.054)
But his idea of what it means to “man” fireworks reminds me of a Mel Brooks quote: “If I cut my finger, that’s tragedy. Comedy is if you walk into an open sewer and die.” And, I can say that I’ve never heard a songwriter say that their song ideas begin with an inspiring one-liner, let alone a country-rock musician. That’s something that sets Lenderman apart on the creative plane, and offers a lot of information behind why his lyrics are so distinctive.
“Do you like comedy?” I ask.
“Yeah,” he replies, suddenly looking like he’s more interested in speaking on the subject than about his music. “[There are] some newer specials that I’ve been liking. I really am just impressed at the courage it must take to do that, and to fail at it over and over and over again.”
Lenderman’s second guitar is his Gibson Firebrand SG, which he says “feels a little more fragile” than his Jazzmaster.
Photo by Yailene Leyva
Lenderman says that he first fell in love with guitar at the age of 8. He was entranced by Jimi Hendrix at the time, who was “all I listened to for a couple years. Then I got really into Derek Trucks, then slowly into more alternative stuff like J Mascis from Dinosaur Jr., Stephen Malkmus, and Thurston Moore and Lee Ranaldo from Sonic Youth. All that stuff’s been super informative to my guitar playing.”
Having seen Lenderman play at Mercury Lounge—he performed a few songs live after we listened to the Manning Fireworks album stream—I can say there’s an intriguing, deceptive reductiveness to his playing. He fingerpicks, but in a seemingly self-taught style; the riffs are simple; but his publicist boasts to me after the show that he can shred, too. He can, and you can hear that more on his heavier, rockier live album, And the Wind (Live and Loose!), released in November 2023.
He’s never been that into gear, and still has stock pickups on his Jazzmaster, but recently had the tech from the band Drop of Sun (members of which facilitated the recording of Manning Fireworks) modify his amps. Aside from that, his spare pedalboard contains a Death By Audio Interstellar Overdriver, a Cry Baby Wah, a Boss DD-7 Digital Delay, and a tuner.
Lenderman’s 13-year-old self was mostly into rap, and while that young teenager might be impressed by how far he’s come today with his music, he says he probably would be confused by the songs.
“How would you describe your music to someone who hasn’t heard it?” I ask.
“I usually just say rock,” he says, laughing, “or country rock.”
“But … if you had to write what makes you different, and the answer will either get you into Heaven or Hell, what would you say to avoid going to Hell?”
“Uhm, I guess.... I don’t know, I would tell whoever to listen to it and maybe go to Hell.”
YouTube It
Performing a song off his 2023 record, And the Wind (Live and Loose!), MJ Lenderman takes the stage at SXSW with his trademark, modest delivery and twanging black Jazzmaster.
A mix of futuristic concepts and DeArmond single-coil pickups, the Musicraft Messenger’s neck was tuned to resonate at 440 Hz.
Until its untimely end, Musicraft made roughly 250 Messengers in various configurations: the mono-output Messenger and the flagship Messenger Stereophonic, both of which could come with the “Tone Messer” upgrade, a built-in distortion/fuzz circuit. The company’s first catalog also featured a Messenger Bass, a wireless transmitter/receiver, and various models of its Messenger Envoy amplifier, very few of which have survived, if many were ever made at all.
“To this day, even fans will sometimes call the decision to use DeArmonds the Messenger’s ‘Achilles’ heel.’”
Upon its release, the Messenger was a mix of futuristic concepts and DeArmond single-coil pickups that were more likely to be found on budget instruments than pricier guitars such as these. The Messengers often featured soapbar-style DeArmonds, though some sported a diamond grille. (To this day, even fans will sometimes call the decision to use DeArmonds the Messenger’s “Achilles’ heel.”) The Stereophonic model, like the one featured in this edition of Vintage Vault, could be plugged into a single amplifier as normal, or you could split the bridge and neck pickup outputs to two separate amps.
One of the beloved hallmarks of the guitars are their magnesium-aluminum alloy necks, which continue as a center block straight through the tailpiece, making the guitars relatively lightweight and virtually immune to neck warping, while enhancing their playability. Thanks to the strength of that metal-neck design, there’s no need for a thick heel where it meets the body, granting unprecedented access to the higher end of the fretboard.
This Stereophonic model could be plugged into a single amplifier as normal, or you could split the bridge and neck pickup outputs to two separate amps.
The neck was apparently also tuned to have a resonant frequency of 440 Hz, which, in all honesty, may be some of that 1967 “whoa, man” marketing continuing on through our modern-day guitar discourse, where this fact is still widely repeated on forums and in YouTube videos. (As one guitar aficionado to the next, what does this even mean in practice? Would an inaudible vibration at that frequency have any effect at all on the tone of the guitar?)
In any event, the combination of that metal center block—resonant frequency or not—the apple-shaped hollow wooden body of the guitar, and the cat’s-eye-style “f-holes” did make it prone to gnarly fits of feedback, especially if you engaged the Tone Messer fuzz and blasted it all through the high-gain amp stacks favored by the era’s hard rockers.
The most famous devotee of the Messenger was Grand Funk Railroad’s Mark Farner, who used the guitar—and its Tone Messer circuitry—extensively on the group’s string of best-selling records and in their defining live shows, like the Atlanta Pop Festival 1970 and their sold-out run at New York’s Shea Stadium in 1971. But even Farner had some misgivings.
The Messengers often featured soapbar-style DeArmonds, though some sported a diamond grille.
In a 2009 interview, he talked about his first test-run of the guitar: “After I stuffed it full of foam and put masking tape over the f-holes to stop that squeal, I said, ‘I like it.’” He bought it for $200, on a $25-per-pop installment plan, a steal even at the time. (He also made it over with a psychedelic paint job, befitting the era, and experimented with different pickups over the years.)
When these guitars were new in 1967, the Messenger Stereophonic in morning sunburst, midnight sunburst, or mojo red would have run you $340. By 1968, new stereo models started at $469.50. Recent years have seen prices for vintage models steadily increase, as the joy of this rarity continues to thrill players and collectors. Ten years ago, you could still get them for about $1,500, but now prices range from $3,000 to $6,000, depending on condition.
Our Vintage Vault pick today is listed on Reverb by Chicago’s own SS Vintage. Given that it’s the stereo model, in very good condition, and includes the Tone Messer upgrade, its asking price of $5,495 is near the top-end for these guitars today, but within the usual range. To those readers who appreciate the vintage vibe but don’t want the vintage price tag, Eastwood Guitars offers modern reissues, and eagle-eyed buyers can also find some very rare but less expensive vintage MIJ clones made in the late ’60s and early ’70s.
Sources: Reverb listing from SS Vintage, Reverb Price Guide sales data, Musicraft July 1, 1967 Price Schedule, 1968 Musicraft Catalog, Chicago Music Exchange’s “Uncovering The Secret Sounds of the 1967 Musicraft Messenger Guitar,” MusicPickups.com article on the Messenger.