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Adam McGrath Releases Solo Album Wrecker Sons
Adam McGrath marks May 1st - May Day - with the release of his second solo album Wrecker Songs, a powerful tribute to the 75th anniversary of the Maritime Union of New Zealand. Inspired by the stories, struggles, and enduring solidarity woven through the union’s history.
To celebrate the release, McGrath is performing three special shows, including two at The Loons on May 1st ( sold out) and May 2nd, tickets still available, followed by a May 3rd performance in Dunedin at the Dunedin Folk Club. Wrecker Songs is available now on all streaming platforms, on CD. Vinyl available for preorder.
McGrath says, Wrecker Songs started like all good things should start, over a beer in the union hall standing behind Jordan Luck! A conversation with Lyttelton MUNZ Secretary Gary Horan about why and how records got made became an idea about what they could do once out in the world, what they could be; about how folk records had to reach beyond the internal maladies that are the usual fodder for singer-songwriters, further into the world in which they inhabit.”
McGrath notes, “My dad joined the merchant navy as a young teenager and spent his life between pubs and construction sites at sea. Also, the work we’ve done for unions over the years suggested there were songs to find within the scope of the Maritime Union and the Seafarers’ and Watersiders’ unions that preceded it. The songs run the gamut from fight songs to lonesome songs, drinking songs, unemployment songs and the little shared experiences of women within and close to the Maritime Union movement.
With the world seemingly on fire, the rise of fascism, a New Zealand government in the pocket of the moneyed, unemployment on the march and people as isolated from each other as they’ve ever been, it’s important to roll our sleeves up and get busy working our row with as much empathy, solidarity and history in our packs as we can.”
Recorded and played with help and support from his Eastern bandmates as well as his brothers and sisters in the Union, ‘Wrecker Songs’ promises to be another strong marker in the McGrath/Eastern canon.
May 1st & 2nd
The Loons Lyttelton
(May 1st sold out, tickets still available for May 2nd)
May 3rd
Dunedin Folk Club
Check out all things Adam McGrath below:
Adam McGrath is a folk singer and yarn spinner stationed wherever he can get a key! He is the winner of the 2024 Aotearoa/New Zealand Folk Artist of the Year Award at the Aotearoa/New Zealand music awards. Described by RNZ as a “National Treasure” and the Herald as “NZ’s toughest minded songwriter”, Adam is more widely known as lead singer and songwriter with one of NZ’s most loved roots/country bands The Eastern. He spends 8 months a year on the road between NZ, Australia, Europe and parts beyond. With The Eastern and solo he has shared stages with and opened for Fleetwood Mac, Steve Earle, Old Crow Medicine Show, Paul Kelly, Jimmy Barnes and many, more. His song Hope and Wire was the inspiration behind Gaylene Preston’s TV series of the same name and he is known for his service orientated approach to music in the years since. Described as “maybe part folk singer, part preacher, part boxer, and part rodeo clown he is however all heart”. Raucous, tender, roof and spirit raising a McGrath show goes straight for the spirit level in all of us, looking deep for the good parts and hoping to reach all the thoughtful bits that matter.
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