MJ Lenderman has shared a new music video for his Manning Fireworks single “Wristwatch.” In the hilarious Lance Bangs-directed clip, Lenderman makes many failed attempts to clear a low overpass while driving a pickup truck loaded with various items: basketballs, brightly-colored pool floats, and more. Watch Lenderman and members of his band the Wind star in the visual below.
“I had been drawn to make things with Jake for a while, and spent the late summer listening to the songs that would make up Manning Fireworks,” Lance Bangs said of the collaboration with Lenderman in press materials.
The director continued: “The imagery of characters caught in persistence without progress that has recurred in his writing was there in ‘Wristwatch’ and that song was the one I went back to the most while listening to the batch of recordings. I had seen low clearance bridges in this part of North Carolina in my past travels, a mismatch between the train trestles that were built in the first half of the 20th Century and the modern 13ft height of most tractor trailers. Durham has a notorious one called the ‘Canopener’ that is featured on a website and Youtube channel 11foot8.com by Jurgen Henn, who has captured 186 crashes since April of 2008. I took measurements and designed plans to add a few more crashes to Jurgen’s tally.”
Lenderman recently announced the reissue of a 2021 collaborative six-song EP with Wednesday. Revisit Pitchfork’s 2023 interview “Low-Key Indie Rocker MJ Lenderman Wants to Tell a Bigger Story.”
