MJ Lenderman: Tiny Desk Concert

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MJ Lenderman: Tiny Desk Concert with tags npr, npr music, national public radio, live, performance, tiny desk, tiny desk concert, tony desk, tiny concert

Elle Mannion | January 29, 2025

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 and The Wind, told us that when they play their songs stripped back like this, they refer to themselves as MJ Lenderman and 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