Dave's Music #147 - The Wishful Thinkers Hall of Fame - The Matchsellers

With all the music I've been listening to since Bandcamp Friday Dec 2022 Edition, it was really really hard to pick an album that would take up the mantle for on the first review after it.  Truly excellent songwriting, (sometimes the quirkier the better) will win my heart, The Matchsellers won with easily on how much I love their entire release. So who are we talking about?  I'm going to open this straight up to their BC description of the release because truly I love the way they write music and BIOs.

Over the course of the last decade, the Matchsellers have proven themselves to be one of the most creative and note-worthy Bluegrass groups to emerge from the Midwest. On their ambitious new record "The Wishful Thinker's Hall of Fame" (released Oct 28, 2022), the group masterfully shows that “art for art's sake” has a place in the folk multiverse. The core musical partnership of Andrew Morris (Guitar/Vocals) and Julie Bates (Fiddle/Vocals) began when the two met in Leipzig, Germany. They were two lost American Midwesterners on Fulbright Scholarships working as Cultural Ambassadors to Germany. Now, nearly 10 years later, they are still lost. Unsure of anything in the real world, the duo creates elaborate musical universes that are even more absurd and tragic than our own. Or are they?

The Wishful Thinker's Hall of Fame introduces the listener to a cast of characters, all of whom are inductees into an imaginary “Wishful Thinker's Hall of Fame”. There are Texans and Hoosiers, idiots and poor souls who are down-on-their-luck, lovers and leavers and a pile of tater tot nachos (see “The Hot Mess”). As a companion piece to the music, Andrew has created a pamphlet for the Hall of Fame class of 2022 induction ceremony. Each song is attached to a character, a Wishful Thinker, who is being inducted into the Hall of Fame. With a dream-like surrealism, the fantastic characters have sometimes mundane sometimes bizarre stories. Portraits of the characters were crowd sourced by Matchsellers fans and friends. 

Morris and Bates are joined on Mandolin by Brian McCarty (Greg Blake Band, the Bluegrass Missourians) and on Bass by Brandon Day (Kansas City Jazz Bassist). Recorded in just 2 days by engineer and musical powerhouse Clarke Wyatt, the quartet's newest album sounds as free, joyful and powerful as ever. The band is at the apex of its songwriting and musicianship.

Willi Carlisle is a fan of The Wishful Thinker's Hall of Fame. He proclaims, “Morris' plaintive bawl and humor accentuates some of the best flatpicking in the biz (and it gets experimental here, too) while Bates gets a lot of good work done on the fiddle and folksy, mellow vocals on this new record. With vaudeville and virtuosity (and able production by Clarke Wyatt), this new offering pipes along with genre-hopping energy."

The Matchsellers are a rare breed that is truly in it for the sake of the art and that's it. In a recent interview frontman Andrew Morris explained, “Sometimes, I feel like music is a kind of disease. It infects you and you can’t get rid of it. I really wish that something else had taken over me. Something where I could make a bit more money. Something that wasn’t so difficult. But I don’t really have a choice. You got to eat what the lunch lady gives you.” 

I mentioned in the BC Dec post that having Willi rep for them made a difference to get the first listen or two, but really it was the songs that won me over.  I did reach out to the group to ask if there were any unwritten lines or reviews I should read before diving deep into the recording, here's some notes from Adam:

I've also been obsessed for the last decade of my musical career with the notion that art can be funny. Or put in other words, humor is just as valid or "serious" of an emotion as agony. I love Roger Miller and John Hartford's weird stuff. And it's just downright fun. I think you can have fun and hopefully get a message across at the same time. One of my favorite authors is a master of this. He's a swiss author named Friederich Dürrenmatt, who is relatively unknown to Americans. But his works are borderline pulp fiction crime thrillers, but always deal with very fascinating moral dilemmas. Or Philip K Dick is another example of someone who accomplishes this blending of entertaining and earnest. I hope that "The Wishful Thinkers' Hall of Fame" leaves folks feeling something. Laughing and contemplating.

For me personally, I remember when Julie and I were driving to the studio in the morning before the first session. I had my head in my hands and was asking Julie "Why are we doing this again? We're not going to make any money. Our die-hard touring days seem behind us. It's never going to get in Rolling Stone

Well not until you came across the best unknown music blog in the industry that can get you into his version of the Rolling Stone.  (Dang this album is better than some of the stuff they write about.)  Now you've made it, so let's dive into them and I have permission to share the characters from each song:

1) Munot Heartbreak

You can thank their time in the EU for impressions, but you know the Mississippi looks like the Rhein without castles.. close your eyes and dream.  The bass that intros this song sucked me in, and I didn't leave until I bought the album.

Well there's a castle in Switzerland
it's called the Munot, it's on the Rhein in Schaffhausen
it's got a big old bell that rings every night
and if you listen closely it might wreck your life

the Rhein rolls
the bell tolls
I never shoulda left my hometown

credits

2) Badlands 

If you are a fan of bluegrass that moves with awesome pickin' and fiddlin', this one is for you; but for me this is good cookin' in the writin' too. Starts off with:

I was born in the badlands in a nuclear waste pit
my pappy whipped me with a belt buckle and I learned to like it
you see gettin whipped and gettin kicked is how it's gotta go
might as well take the beating and enjoy the feeling low

All the lyrics are in the BC Page. Plus this is a great time to introduce you to such Wishful Thinker Hall of Fame inductee the song is dedicated to, Fred Eisenberg.  Each song has an inductee with a link that takes you somewhere.  For Fred it takes you to a song about his girl friend Wanda Lou.   While I have permission to share all of these, there's some magic in buying the release and having fun with it yourself.

3) Downtown 

This song will always be a favorite and I've danced around the kitchen a few times already to it. Julie takes the lead vocal, writer, and has some fine fiddle with a cajun feel to it.  It's dedicated to Madeleine Chocteau who loves Mama's Fried Chicken.

4) ShakyMotor

My favorite kid's song is Woody Guthrie's "Take me a ridin' in the car, car", you know I love the wa-wa-wa motor.

You get a treat of a great video too that Julie gets to just in time.

5) Fall

Just sway and let your fall in love and is dedicated to Francica Cachoeira, why?  You'll have to buy the album to find out.

6) Time to Get a Straight Job

Another favorite of mine because of the writing... what song starts off with the first verse your storyteller dies and ultimately comes back as a frog, very much like "Oh Brother Where Art thou"  (We thought you were a frog)

Again they are back in the instrument warehouse for another live video.

7) The Parking Lot of my Mind

Such a sad place to be.

9) The Texans Stole Oklahoma Music

Another reason I bought the album.. damn Texans.  At least it gives the band a reason to have a lead in true bluegrass tradition.

10) Hot Mess

I do love a good sloppy mess of tater tots with cheese sauce and yes my favorite Taco John's dish is their Super Potatoes Ole (slathered with their great Super HOT Sauce), and need to get this recipe for this.

11) Roann

A sad way to end.. so it doesn't one more song left.

12)  Victory Bound

Hitch up those pants and let's kick some shit on the dance floor.

Bonus track that comes only when you buy the album, you can't even stream it before hand?  So I'll leave you with the Inductee and tell you it's a great song.

Here by the way is the whole album that would probably play for you three times until Bandcamp asks you to buy it.

Plus they aren't always as weird as their cover shot, see they clean up pretty good.

All my Reviews are both for you and me as I learn more about the artists when you slow down and listen.  Click here to see the past releases. You can find and follow us on Facebook  and as always Good Music has NO Expiration Date, so if you are listening to this ten years from now, it still will be awesome music.  If this is a first time visit, check out the index of themes for past Reviews and Playlist editions and for the Reviews alone, click here.  Find out why I do this here,  who I am here, and why I hate Spotify here.

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