Working For The Weekday highlights some of the top music stories from the previous weekend. Today, we’re covering MJ Lenderman singing with Magnolia Electric Co., an expensive corporate holiday party, Taylor Swift’s new documentary series, and more.
Cameron Winter covers This Is Lorelei
Everyone’s been fawning over MJ Lenderman’s cover of This Is Lorelei’s “Dancing in the Club,” and rightfully so. It rules. But what if indie rock’s favorite white boy of 2025 paid the Nate Amos Universe a visit? While playing a sold-out show at the Palace Theatre in Los Angeles, Cameron Winter not only debuted a new song called “Sandbag,” but the Geese frontman put “Where’s Your Love Now” into his setlist. Paste chose “Where’s Your Love Now” as the 19th-best song of 2024, with contributor Grace Robins-Somerville writing, “Over a tinkering instrumental arrangement, Amos lets anger, shame, recovery, and gratitude exist alongside each other, embracing the contradictions that come with moving on without letting everything go.” Winter elected to perform the song during the show’s encore, after running through the tracklist of his debut album, Heavy Metal. On December 11, his Carnegie Hall performance was filmed by Paul Thomas Anderson.
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MJ Lenderman performs with Magnolia & Johnson Electric Co.
People think MJ Lenderman is his generation’s Jason Molina. It’s a comparison the guitarist/singer-songwriter hasn’t been able to escape. Well, if you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em, right? Sort of. Lenderman got on stage with Magnolia & Johnson Electric Co., Molina’s former band plus Will Johnson, at the Grey Eagle in Asheville last weekend. They played “The Dark Don’t Hide It,” which is my favorite song from What Comes After the Blues, personally. Earlier this year, Lenderman covered Songs: Ohia’s “Just Be Simple” for Run For Cover Records’ recent tribute compilation, I Will Swim to You: A Tribute to Jason Molina. Check out the footage below, captured by @mindfuzzarchive and @phishonphilm on Instagram.
LCD Soundsystem play “Too Much Love” for the first time since 2011
Saturday night marked the end of LCD Soundsystem’s 12-date residency at the Knockdown Center. For the final three shows, James Murphy and his band played “Too Much Love” for the first time in 14 years. LCD kept its promise, playing music from their 20-year career, including “Dance Yrself Clean,” “All My Friends,” and even parts of their 45:33 release from 2006. A lot of the material coming out of New York in the mid-2000s hasn’t held up too well for me, but LCD Soundsystem is an exception. Whenever the band gets back to Los Angeles, I hope they’ll consider dusting off “Too Much Love” again. Brooklyn Vegan took a video of the residency performance. See it below.
Taylor Swift’s Eras Tour doc premieres
A behind-the-scenes look at Taylor Swift’s record-breaking Eras Tour is currently airing on Disney+, and the first two episodes are available to stream now. Two episodes will be dropping weekly between now and December 26. Swift also shared a new concert film, Taylor Swift: The Eras Tour – The Final Show on Friday, which is apparently different from the Eras Tour concert film because it features content from The Tortured Poets Department. I watched the first two episodes of the documentary, and they’re fine! It’s mostly a “how did this big, successful thing get made” kind of film, not an investigative report on the tour’s impact on the economy, pop music, or inflated ticket sales on the resale market—which was to be expected. There’s a moment where the filmmakers sort of paw at how the Eras Tour played into Ticketmaster’s corruption, but they never go all the way with it. But if you’re like me and fascinated by the effort and labor that went into making Swift’s billion-dollar tour work, you’ll enjoy sitting through the first two episodes and getting a peak behind the curtain. In episode two, we meet Kam Saunders, an ever-charming and great backup dancer, and he becomes a main character you can’t help but root for. I didn’t know his name before, but now I think he’s one of the coolest people that Swift has brought into her universe.
Embarrassing money-grab or all the rage? Eldridge Industries holiday party features big names
Eldridge Industries held a holiday party on Thursday night, and chairman Todd Boehy invited some pretty big names to play the holding company’s event. Slash and his band the Dirty Bats (Chad Mith, Duff McKagan, Andrew Watt) headlined, and Anthony Kiedis, YUNGBLUD, Eddie Vedder, Brandi Carlile, and Bruno Mars showed up, too. The function was held at the Capitol Theatre in Port Chester, New York, and I wish I could know the figure it took to get some of these folks into the building. I guess this is the type of starpower you can afford when you’ve got stakes in DraftKings, the LA Dodgers, Fanatics, own the rights to the Golden Globes, and are a co-controlling owner of Chelsea F.C. YUNGBLUD sang with the band during a cover of “War Pigs” and “Start Me Up,” while Kiedis performed “Ace of Spades” and “Search and Destroy.” Carlile sang lead on her own song, “The Story,” and Zeppelin’s “Black Dog.” Vedder and Mars sang five songs each. The former was leading the Dirty Bats through Pearl Jam songs while the latter went to work on “Whole Lotta Love,” “Roxanne,” and “Smells Like Teen Spirit.” Everyone came out at the end to perform “Johnny B. Goode.” This had to be one of the most expensive karaoke parties ever, yeah?
Bret Michaels biopic coming next year
If you asked anybody what artist they think really needs a biopic made about them, who wouldn’t say Bret Michaels, Pennsylvania’s greatest Southern cosplayer? The first rock concert I ever went to had Poison on the bill, and that meant a lot to me then. I also was a religious supporter of Rock of Love. What a program. But, sadly (or not), I don’t think a Bret Michaels biopic will be any good. I’m imagining it’ll be closer to the musical equivalent of that Reagan biopic Dennis Quaid was in last year. But I’ll be seated regardless, just to have a laugh. Unbroken: Then, Now and Forever is slated to release sometime in 2026 and will feature a book companion. Michaels shared some insight about the project on Instagram, writing:
“UNBROKEN Then, Now and Forever – the biopic and the book officially coming 2026. If I can survive rocking out on shag mustard-colored carpet on my first guitar (‘technically a ukulele’ lol) and remain as excited now as I was then, and survive the highs, the lows, good people and the downright maliciousness in the business I’ve chosen to be in and still get to rock with my friends with a smile on my face on the stage today. That is THE IT FACTOR – the intangible spirit that keeps me unbroken!!!”
