He is a fantastic guitarist and a creative storyteller.
Over the past In just a few years, Asheville, North Carolina singer-songwriter MJ Linderman has become every indie rock fan’s go-to guy—like Craig Finn, Stephen Malkmus, or Jeff Tweedy in the mid-20s. He plays guitar in the great North Carolina band Wednesday, and in 2022, he released a great solo collection called boat songs, This year Linderman gave a great performance and great singing for the Waxahatchee band. Tiger blood.
He really feels at home in his new place. Manning Fireworks He leans into the country side of his songwriting and the back porch ache in his sound—from the fiddle-laden title track to the Drive-By-Truckers-style roots rock of “On My Knees” to the woodsy beauty of the band’s “You Don’t Know the Shape I’m In.” Manning Fireworks It is a more traditional album from the singer-songwriter. boat songsThe album isn’t quite as loud or funny. But it shows Linderman continuing to carve out his own niche as an emerging master of humble realism. The album’s highlight is the sweet rocker “She’s Leaving You,” one of several songs illuminated by backing vocals from Wednesday’s Carly Hartzman. Linderman sings about a man who wakes up to find his woman is long gone, but there’s no emotional growth to be had here: “Go rent a Ferrari/ And sing the blues/ Believe that Clapton was the second coming,” he sings before the big chorus arrives.
Such hapless, emotionally-delayed men appear in nearly every song here, and he tells their stories with easy sarcasm and funny empathy. On “Wristwatch,” he shifts from cheeky boasting (“I got a beach house in Buffalo”) to vague menace (“And a wristwatch tells me you’re all alone.”). On the 10-minute “Bark at the Moon,” the man in the song is immersed in his room playing Ozzy Osbourne’s classic of the same name on a guitar hero When the world leaves him behind, great poets of sadness come to mind, from Loudon Wainwright III to Paul Westerberg to Neil Young. Manning Fireworks. Lenderman takes this well-known rock tradition and turns it into something of his own. In these songs, life gets darker, drunker, and more desperate. Musically, that's a good thing.
