fender-jazzmaster

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Out on the road, the post-hardcore supergroup’s gunslinger works in pairs, with two guitars, two pedalboards, and a Twin.

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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.

Photo by Tim Bugbee/tinnitus photography


Over the past few years, singer-songwriter MJ Lenderman has had a taste of success with his band Wednesday and his latest solo albums. On his new solo release Manning Fireworks, his artistic depth is on full display in his carefully unwinding, twanging riffs and sage lyrics, informed in part by a sturdy sense of humor.

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.

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Thurston Moore is back with some new ideas on his ninth solo release, saying that he feels like a perennial apprentice in the world of music.

Photo by Vera Marmelo

The Sonic Youth founding member is best known for his uniquely experimental approach to the guitar. On his latest solo release, Flow Critical Lucidity, he only proves to further that reputation, mixing in spoken word, his favorite alternate tuning, and prepared instruments.

On the cover of Thurston Moore’s new solo effort, Flow Critical Lucidity, sits a lone metal soldier’s helmet, spiked with an array of tuning forks jutting out in all different directions. The image, a piece from the artist Jamie Nares titled “Samurai Walkman,” seemed to Moore an apt musical descriptor of the record.

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