Friday night’s crowded awards show at The Intersection honored Michigan’s best albums and songs of the year, with 25 performances on two stages. See the complete winners’ list.
Jammie Winner: Emma Loo kicked off performances on the Stache Stage Friday night and won a pair of awards, too. (Photo/Kendra Kamp)
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Traverse City indie-folk favorites The Accidentals and Grand Rapids garage rock/pop band FLUSHED landed top honors at the 2017 WYCE Jammie Awards on Friday night, with the inventive, genre-melding Emma Loo sweeping listeners’ choice prizes for her solo album.
Winning Combination:: The Accidentals, who also joined Ralston Bowles on stage early in the evening, won the Big Jammie of the Year. (Photo/Kendra Kamp)
The 18th annual Jammie Awards show – billed as West Michigan music’s biggest night of the year – certainly drew a big crowd of fans and musicians who packed The Intersection in Grand Rapids to cheer performances by more than two dozen regional acts, with awards presented by WYCE-FM (88.1) in 18 categories.
The Accidentals, who also performed on the main stage to close out the awards show, won the “Big Jammie” for album of the year for their “Parking Lot EP” and song of the year for “Michigan and Again,” a tribute to the Great Lakes State that racked up hundreds of thousands of view on YouTube last year. (Watch the video online here.) They closed out their late-night set Friday with a version of the song, inducing the happy crowd to sing along.
FLUSHED, a Grand Rapids trio that plays what it describes as “fuzzy, sugar-coated riffs,” earned honors for best album by a new artist for “Care Less,” which also won the critics’ choice award in the same category. (Listen to its album online here.)
Meanwhile, Grand Rapids’ Emma Loo – who hosted performances on the smaller stage in The Stache on Friday night along with guitarist Sam Kenny – impressed WYCE listeners, who chose her “Ancient” debut recording as album of the year and best album by a new artist in online balloting. (Check out their video for the song “Abduction” here.)
The Jammie Award Winners
With more than 1,400 people on hand, other winners included Seth Bernard, Greensky Bluegrass, Thornetta Davis, Rick Chyme & Nixon, Dante Cope, The Macpodz, Norty, Channing & Quinn, The Muteflutes, The Crane Wives, The Bootstrap Boys, Jesse Ray & The Carolina Catfish, Billy Strings, Heaters, The Go Rounds and PARTS.
Dante Cope (Photo/Kendra Kamp)
“It’s going great. This is my first Jammie Awards running the show and there’s no doubt I’m nervous, but I’d be crazy not to be,” said Quinn Mathews, station manager for WYCE. “It’s the greatest night for West Michigan music, and everybody seems to be having a great time. If everyone’s having fun and I’m the only one who is nervous, then I guess we’re doing pretty well.”
Appropriately enough, the Jammie Awards celebrating Michigan’s best music – which always teems with back-stage reunions and musical camaraderie – came two days before Sunday’s 59th annual Grammy Awards, which will honor national and international artists. And the mood, as always, was upbeat and celebratory, with numerous special guests joining nominated artists on stage. (Check out the photo gallery below.)
There were several ties for awards this year: Channing & Quinn and The Muteflutes shared honors for best contemporary folk album, Jesse Ray & The Carolina Catfish and The Bootstrap Boys for best roots/revival album, Dante Cope and The Macpodz for best jazz album, and Heaters and The Go Rounds for the critics’ choice prize for album of the year.
In addition, the radio station for the first time honored some of its volunteer programmers, with Oscar Zuniga, Nanette O’Connell, Capt’n Kurt and Dick Destiny inducted into the WYCE “Programmer Hall of Fame.”
Return for more Jammie Awards coverage and photos at Local Spins on Saturday. – Matt Marn contributed to this report.
PHOTO GALLERY: The 2017 Jammie Awards at The Intersection
Photos by Kendra Kamp and Anna Sink
THE ACCIDENTALS
HEATERS
EMMA LOO
Copyright 2017, Spins on Music LLC
