045/ The ten minute wig-out that wasn't + Oliver Gray's new SXSW memoir
A funny thing happened on my way to get MJ Lenderman’s new album Manning Fireworks…
Over the weekend I made the tactical error of listening to this wonderful album on The Dreaded Spotify, though I already knew I’d be buying it on vinyl. I couldn’t resist. I pulled up Lenderman’s page, let Manning Fireworks buzz out through my shitty laptop speakers.
This breaks one of my self-imposed cardinal rules: if you already know you love it, DO NOT stream it first. Okay, yeah, if you’re not sure the LP is worth purchasing, knock yourself out, check it out on The Dreaded Spotify (usually on headphones) to decide if you really, really want it. But if it’s already on the shopping list, be patient.
No zealot like a convert. Breaking the rule tripped me up badly. Here’s the problem: Manning Fireworks has eight songs of usual length, then a ninth song that was listed on The Dreaded Spotify as being ten minutes long. Wicked, thought I, suddenly super-excited. Jake is ending with a massive wig-out. Exactly what I’d do if I made his kind of music and was about to become a big star. We’ve already had three singles upfront, all doozies. That ninth song is called ‘Bark At The Moon’ so I began imagining a vast, sprawling Warren Zevon-ish, J Mascis-ish noodle-fest.
But no. Manning Fireworks does not end with a wig-out, instead ‘Bark At The Moon’ is a normal length song (albeit a terrific one) followed by six minutes of not interesting guitar feedback and ambience. What the actual fuck. Out of nowhere, sold short.
To be fair to me, his self-titled debut from 2019 has long songs on and they’re sublime.
But still, feeling that way about it is so incredibly stupid: it’s a nine song record, they’re all fucking great. A palpably excellent album, no filler, not too short, overall. Moreover, it’s Lenderman’s fourth solo record in five years, there’s a sensational live LP, alongside his work in Wednesday, plus his contribution to the Waxahatchee record. Jake cannot be accused of withholding.
Imagine if I’d obeyed the rule, purchased the vinyl, chucked it on, listened to these exact same nine songs, enjoyed a few minutes of sweet guitar drone at the end. I wouldn’t have an issue at all. I’d be thinking the feedback was well pitched to mellow the close. Hey, it’s me, I’m the problem, it’s me. I harshed the vibe. The sole reason it lodged as a negative was my own misconception, from The Dreaded Spotify pre-listen, which re-jiggled expectations.
Upshot: I haven’t actually bought Manning Fireworks yet. I walked right by.
Doofus. I wish I didn’t bother with The Dreaded Spotify, just toddled off to Family Store, or Resident. Because I love this album. Really love it. I’m sliding down a slope towards ordering everything Lenderman has released and going completist fangirl. But… I just… can’t stop thinking about the massive wig-out I believed he would end with. Goddamn.
And because I didn’t buy it, I’m still listening to the thing on The Dreaded Spotify, like an amateur.
I finished writing this and discovered he’s coming to Brighton in Spring.
So, treats.
Here’s Lenderman returning as onstage guest with Waxahatchee for ‘Right Back To It’, I believe for the first time since doing Colbert’s TV show. This is from Hopscotch Festival in North Carolina.
I am confounded by the instinctive artistry of Jake’s low harmony part on that song, which he composed on the hoof in the studio, doing something entirely different to what Katie and producer Brad Cook had asked for.
There are also a bunch of jams from Jake’s own set on YouTube. Here’s ‘She’s Leaving You’. Here’s ‘Wristwatch’. What a song.
There was a Wednesday gig nearby as well. Jake sings lead on their Drive By Truckers cover ‘Women Without Whiskey’.
Enough.
•
Oliver Gray’s new street-level memoir of SXSW
The great Hampshire music and travel author Oliver Gray just published Austin Healing, a memoir of his decades attending South By South West festival, in Texas. You can order it here.
Austin Healing is SXSW and the city of Austin experienced at sidewalk, bar and club level, at its most true and unadorned, through the eyes of a genuine obsessive, as Gray puts himself through it — year after year — for that purest of reasons: to fall in love with great live music.
I think it’s his ninth, or even tenth book. Gray always writes beautifully, on travel, music, anything else. So I already knew Austin Healing would be a charming read. But I absolutely gulped this book down. It’s very funny, yet also contains some of the most insightful and considered writing on South By South West’s unique melting pot — and that obsessive, addictive pleasure of a fucking great band smashing up a tiny room — that I’ve read.
He’s not written an establishment endorsement, nor a quasi-official history of the official event itself, rather an observational accounting of lived experience, a city bursting with the life of a thousand music artists, mirroring Gray’s own taste and sense for exploration.
Oliver Gray was a teacher and mentor to me, way back when I started out doing music, and he remains the kind of lifelong friend you don’t see often enough, but instantly pick up with wherever you left off. But that’s not why I need to plug his work. I think he remains one of our most foolishly overlooked non-fiction authors, particularly on music: he doesn’t have a critic’s snarl, and he’s not swayed by who’s cool, or how the industry works. Funnily enough, he’s also specifically a live music guy, less interested in studio recordings and great albums than that immediacy of communion of the live show.
Gray’s prose isn’t florid — yet it is vivid. He has the gift of being straightforward without losing colour. And he’s one of those rare writers who just gets music itself, at a deep level. If there’s a singular reason why Oliver Gray is not a better known author (he writes, as well as promoting music, strictly as a hobby) it’s perhaps that he remains too humane for his subject matter. Nevertheless, he’s published a bunch of non-fiction gems across travel, music and education and everything is worth reading.
icymi —
• Sur-fuckedy-prize, the MAGA bigots at the CMAs are snubbing Beyoncé and aggressively un-cancelling the racist Morgan Wallen. Yawn. Corporate country music remains in the anti-creative doldrums, even as an expanding group of diverse, interesting performers work their arses off to try to decolonise it. It’ll go down, but only kicking and screaming.
• The late great Neil Kulkarni on Chart Music Podcast (YouTube clip) on that band everyone’s been talking about but it already bored of.
• Back to good music. If you haven’t seen it the excellent doc Charli XCX: Alone Together is up on BBC iPlayer. Even if you’re no not remotely a Charli stan, this is one of the best films made to unpack the connection between an artist and their Internet fan culture, while at the same time, it’s one of the finest docs I’ve seen of anyone trying to deal with Covid lockdown. Charli XCX uses her quarantine to attempt to make an album, collaborating in real time with her fans at every stage of the process.
• Griff covers Charli XCX ‘Apple’ for Australia’s Like A Version sessions.
• English Teacher cover Billie Eilish ‘Birds Of A Feather’ at BBC Maida Vale.
• New 22 Grand Pod interview with Matt Tong on why he quit Bloc Party.