Adam McGrath Releases Solo Album ‘Wrecker Songs’
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.
