Meet the cats
The Trash Cats
The Trash Cats are Duluth’s premier acoustic cat rock duo. From foot stomping originals to tender 90’s alt rock covers, there’s something for everyone at a Trash Cats Show. The boys pride themselves on tight harmonies and great use of the space between the notes.
Matt Sjelin
Matt was born in the Twin Ports area of Duluth, MN. One of those rare birds who moved away to the Twin Cities and came back, he’s in love with the lake, and gets irritated when he lives in flatlands. By best recollection, he started piano lessons at age 6, which marks 2017 as his 30 year anniversary hunched over a keyboard.
Sean Mahoney
Sean was born and raised in St. Paul where he began playing saxophone at age 12. Sean moved to Duluth in 2001 to pursue a degree in music at The University of Minnesota – Duluth. It didn’t go great. Turns out that while invaluable lessons were learned in the fields of performance and theory, this was not the correct path for Sean.
Duluth, MN
On any given night there are probably in the neighborhood of 30 shows, open mics, hoedowns, hootenannies, punk rock mosh pits and various other performances. From big venues like Clyde Iron Works and The Rex, to coffee houses, restaurants and bar shows, to peoples basements, there is always something happening here.
The Trash Cats thrive on this. They are often found playing a 3-4 hour set at a Little Angies or Sir Ben's, but are equally as likely to be opening for rock bands at RT Quinlan's or....well Sir Ben's. With an ever-growing list of songs, The Trash Cats are one of those rare bands that fit in to almost any lineup.
Check Out Trash Cat Tuesdays Here
Silky Smooth Harmonies
Lotsa G and C chords,
Excellent capo useBlazing fast arpeggios
uses all 88 keysAlways on point
Upcoming Shows
Drop us a line, we'd love to hear from you!
Latest news
Are We a Punk Band?
#TrashCatTuesday – Episode 12 It is well documented that I was a skater in high school. My CD collection was vast and varied, but there was always a little extra skater punk and ska. Your Goldfingers, your Mad Caddies, Rancid, MXPX, NOFX. I went to Warped Tour when it was still awesome and saw EVERYONE Read more about Are We a Punk Band?[…]
All You Need is Love
#TrashCatTuesday – Episode 11 There have probably been more songs written about love than any other subject. This episode features just a few of them. I Wanna Hold Your Hand – The Beatles The Promise – When in Rome Jessica Marie – The Trash Cats West Tischer Rd. – The Trash Cats 500 Miles – Read more about All You Need is Love[…]
Mental Health 1
#TrashCatTuesday – Episode 10 10 Episodes! Feels like a landmark and we want to thank all of you for sticking with us through this journey. Now down to business. This was a tough one. We didn’t set out to play the most depressing set we’ve ever played, but it happened. There is some heavy material Read more about Mental Health 1[…]
Apocalypse MEOW
#TrashCatTuesday – Episode 9 “This is a song about the end of the world” It’s a phrase we say kind of a lot in out live shows. If we do 3 or 4 in a row people tend to take notice. It gets a few chuckles. The truth is, we know a lot of songs Read more about Apocalypse MEOW[…]
The Americats
#TrashCatTuesday – Episode 8 The best laid plans… Am I referencing our inability to learn the America songs we meant to? Or am I referring to the American Experiment itself. In both cases, things didn’t go the way they were meant to. We had high hopes of wowing you all with Simon & Garfunkle’s America Read more about The Americats[…]
Drinking Songs
#TrashCatTuesday – Episode 7 Pub rock? Bar band? Absolute perfection? We’ve been called ’em all. If you play an acoustic guitar it’s basically required that you learn a drinking song or 2. We know a lot of them, and have forgotten even more. This weeks selection is a few of our favorite drinking song. It’s Read more about Drinking Songs[…]
Radio Edits
#TrashCatTuesday – Episode 6 This weeks episode was born out of necessity. When you play as many dinner shows as we have over the years, you develop a keen eye for who is in your audience. Are we able to drop an f-bomb or 2? Or is that a 10 year old kid eating with Read more about Radio Edits[…]
Merry Misery
#TrashCatTuesday – Episode 5 Music has the power to evoke emotions in many different ways. Songwriters spend their lives trying to make a listener feel something with just the sound of a chord or melody. The fun can then come from matching these feeling inducing chords and melodies with lyrics…or sometimes mismatching This episode takes Read more about Merry Misery[…]
DADGAD
#TrashCatTuesday – Episode 4 DADGAD: Fun to say, and even more fun to play! On a recent live stream by Frank Turner, he spoke a bit about the alternate tuning he’d used to write and record a couple of our favorite tracks of his. Realizing that we had a couple of extra guitars laying around Read more about DADGAD[…]
The Dropouts
#TrashCatTuesday – Episode 3 One of our favorite tricks to pull out is to take the paws off the instruments for a second and just sing. There is a certain rush that one gets from singing A Capella, especially when you know you have to hit the chords on the instruments soon and simply hope Read more about The Dropouts[…]