McCarthy Trenching - Calamity Drenching

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Notes On McCarthy Trenching's Calamity Drenching:

A. McCarthy Trenching just bought a packet of cigarettes and a bottle of Old Overholt and came home to write this intro for the blurb on his new record (here we are). After having played a benefit concert for a little boy who was badly burned when he tipped a vegetable steamer over onto himself. After having made a promise to an old friend that no songs about horse racing would be played at the concert, on account of the cruelties of the sport, a promise which was broken.

McCarthy Trenching's latest songs tend to be centered around rejections: romantic ones, religious ones, rejections of high holidays and of higher education, the rejection that happens when a driver hits "eject" on her tape player and throws the cassette out the window. McCarthy Trenching is probably a couple deep right now.

B. McCarthy Trenching spent most of 2007 touring, with an extended opening slot on the Bright Eyes Cassadaga tour, a date here and there warming the stage with the likes of M. Ward, Victoria Williams, Jason Isbell, Mark Olson and even radio hit Peter, Bjorn & John. Then we came home for a bad Nebraska winter, spending most of our time shoveling snow and recording songs. The result is Calamity Drenching, a collection of songs about horse racing, the romance of cassette tapes (and losing that particular romance), piano practice, religious doubt, inclement weather, and Bar-B-Q. And there is an accordion solo titled after a line from Carl Sandberg's poem "Happiness." We think it's a worthy follow-up to our self-titled Team Love release from 2006 – it captures a more concentrated period of songwriting and recording, but contrary to what "Detritus" implies, we have not quit drinking.

C. Disappointment is rife, but solace is also to be found: in friendship, in music, in horse racing, and in cutting close to the bone in all endeavors.

D. Having lost faith in Catholicism and Romantic Love, what does one look to? Such unreliable sources as friends, music, beer, bar-b-que, and gambling. Not bad, right?

E. Calamity Drenching collaborators include: Steve Bartolomei (Mal Madrigal), Ben Brodin (Before the Toast and Tea), Stefanie Drootin (The Good Life, She & Him, Bright Eyes), Tim Jensen (The Golden Age), Pearl Lovejoy Boyd (Outlaw con Bandana), Ted Stevens (Cursive, Mayday), Orenda Fink (Azure Ray, Art in Manila) and Phillip "Too-Tall" Shaffart, who says "Trench is Omaha's best songwriter, no big deal."

F. McCarthy Trenching prefers to record at home, since there is so much snow-shoveling to do during the winter. All of the songs were recorded on 8-track tape machines, mostly in the living room, because that's where the piano is.

G. Dan McCarthy's multi-instrumental talent can also be heard on Bright Eyes "Cassadaga", Maria Taylor's "Lynn Teeter Flowers", Cursive’s “Happy Hollow”, The Good Life's "Album of the Year", and Tilly and the Wall’s “Bottoms of Barrels" and "o".

H. So far in 2008, McCarthy Trenching has circled the states once already with The Felice Brothers and Justin Townes Earl and plans to visit every nook and cranny.

Editors Note: Team Love would like to interject that they believe, despite Dan's humble portrayal above, Calamity Drenching is a monumental follow-up to the self-titled Team Love release last year – exploring the power of piano driven songs and weaving clever tales of rejection and disappointment - wrapped in the feeling of solitude one can only experience in the depths of a midwestern Winter.

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