the matthew show: Buy

A Brighter Place in the Sun is the second single from the new podcast series The Band That Never Was. Check out all the episodes here:

thebandthatneverwas.com

Follow us on Twitter for the latest.

Two versions for your enjoyment:

Square is the first single from the new podcast series The Band That Never Was. Check out all the episodes here:

thebandthatneverwas.com

Follow us on Twitter for the latest.

When I began this album in 2005, I wanted to create something truly new. Inspired by documentary photographers like Walker Evans & Bill Brandt, as well as musicians with documentary tendencies such as my friend Paul of Mocha Lab, I set about creating an album of what I like to call docu-pop. February is the result.

I sat down with five friends, all of whom were in the place of reflection that comes with leaving your twenties behind, without quite knowing what to do with the unrealized dreams that accompanied them. The resulting dissonance was the subject of our conversations, which I recorded at length and pored through extensively in the following months. In doing so, I found wisdom, humor, insight, and often very surprising realizations. We tackled the nature of hope, disappointment, and ugly truth, all in the spirit of adapting George Orwell's "power of facing unpleasant facts" for the new millennium.

The same sorts of thoughts were shaping my songwriting at the time, and as I began recording the new songs, I matched them with pieces of the aforementioned conversations. What emerged was a case study of five people, each at critical points in their lives, asking the old question: Is that all there is? Accompanied by songs exploring the same territory, the album is as much a documentary as it is a collection of pop songs.

One day in late 1999, I sat in a Dallas deli booth with my friend & hero Little Jack Melody, talking about our respective bands. I was throwing him some cockamamie fit of theory having to do with what I thought my band’s target demographic was, how hard it was to pick the Radio Song, and who knows what else. I don’t even remember. What I do remember was Little Jack dithering over his Reuben & chips and rather absently saying, "I don’t know, all I ever wanted to do was make an album I liked."

Strange as it may seem, this completely blew my mind. I had spent a little shy of a decade working so hard on the upward climb, so hard on winning over sports bar crowds, so hard on the rock-n-roll dream, that I had forgotten what it was that had made me want to write songs in the first place. I really wasn’t interested in rocking the house. I wanted to make an album I liked.

So as they say on the television, I busted up the band, cobbled together a studio, and proceeded to make... what? Well, it’s an album. It has fast songs, slow songs, songs with drums, and songs without them. There are guitars, household objects, sounds from the backyard, whatever I like. And lots & lots of melodies.

Interestingly, what came out of this project is a document of sorts. A document of my life to date. Dayjobs, gigs, self-important doormen, fear of hipness, whatever.

But truly, honestly, what you see before you is an album I like. And since everyone believes in their own good taste, I happen to think you’ll like it as well.

A wonderful Warren Zevon tribute album featuring the matthew show's version of the classic Mohammed's Radio.

the matthew show's instrumental tune The Wandering Jew, Part II is featured on the 2005 season DVD, and instrumental versions of his texas songs Old Enough and Mountaintop 4th of July are included on the 2006 season DVD.