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
caTuplets
#TrashCatTuesday – Episode 20 This weeks theme is a bit of a silly one. We, as musicians will often reuse certain things that we’re good at. Matt is really good at the arpeggiated triplets. He uses them a lot with The Trash Cats because it provides a good full sound, some counter rhythm to my Read more about caTuplets[…]
Tiny Changes
#TrashCatTuesday – Episode 19 Making tiny changes is a theme of all of our lives whether we realize it or not. As humans we tend to think about the big and the grand, but we all need to realize that making a lot of small changes is how we make the big changes. Scott Hutchison Read more about Tiny Changes[…]
The Ghosts of Ides Sets Past
#TrashCatTuesday – Episode 18 The Ides of March is a festival in Duluth, MN in which local bands choose a band that has influenced them and prepares a cover set of their music. I’ve done this festival for the last 7 years and Matt has been at my side for quite a few of those Read more about The Ghosts of Ides Sets Past[…]
Location Location Location
#TrashCatTuesday – Episode 17 There are a lot of songs about places. A place can be a home. It can trigger memories of a specific time. It can even be a villain in your story (I’m talking about you Winnipeg!). This weeks selection is all about places. Whether it’s a place you don’t want to Read more about Location Location Location[…]
Wonder Women
#TrashCatTuesday – Episode 16 When you cover Amy Winehouse, the #1 rule is to not try and sing like her. You’re going to fail. Just sing like yourself singing an Amy Winehouse song. This weeks songs don’t have a lot in common. It’s one of the first themes we came up with when we had Read more about Wonder Women[…]
Growing Pains
#TrashCatTuesday – Episode 15 We’re all victims of nostalgia, there’s no doubt about it. Some people clutch to childhood and try to hang on to it forever, some try to replicate their past victories as much as possible, and some of us just mourn what was lost. The journey is pretty overwhelming at times, for Read more about Growing Pains[…]
Crowd Pleasers
#TrashCatTuesday – Episode 14 We’ve played a lot of shows. And a lot of those shows have been 2, 3 and 4 hour bar sets. In doing so many of those you really start to hone in on some crowd favorites. Never the ones to play Wonderwall or Wagon Wheel, we’ve tried to reach a Read more about Crowd Pleasers[…]
Mental Health 2
#TrashCatTuesday – Episode 13 A few weeks back we did a really heavy episode on the subject of mental health. Songs of suicide, sadness, crippling depression. There was a point in the middle I almost broke. Watching it back later to cut the sound together was rough. We received a lot of messages about that Read more about Mental Health 2[…]
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[…]