This week’s edition of the Guest Playlist comes from an erudite music maven and musician whose song roster ranges from hip hop to blues, from The Casket Girls to The Handgrenades and Heaters.
Presenting: The Local Spins Guest Playlist
The second installment of the Local Spins Guest Playlist, a new website feature in which some of the region’s musicians offer up their Top 10 lists of current song favorites, is a scattershot treat.
Support our coverage of
West Michigan's music scene
Troy Reimink
It comes courtesy of Troy Reimink, a member of the Grand Rapids band Ghost Heart, co-host of a weekly new-music show on WYCE-FM (88.1), a music/video librarian for AMI Jukeboxes and a counter duty guy at Vertigo Music.
The writer and musician also happens to be a true music-holic, as you can tell from his eclectic lineup of melodies.
By the way, West Michigan musicians invited to contribute playlists are given only one caveat: at least one of the choices must be a local or Michigan-based act. Hey, it is Local Spins, after all, and Reimink had no trouble including a couple of Mitten gems: Grand Rapids’ Heaters and Detroit’s The Handgrenades.
THE LOCAL SPINS GUEST PLAYLIST: TROY REIMINK
“Here are 10 songs I love right now. Most are new, a few are not.”
1. The Casket Girls, “Day to Day” (2014) – A few months ago I watched this band play an amazing set at Founders to almost nobody, and since then this scuzzy and delicious song has become my favorite thing in the universe.
2. Geeshie Wiley, “Last Kind Words Blues” (1930) – I can’t recommend highly enough that everyone spend some time reading the New York Times’ recent in-depth piece on esoteric, early 20th Century African-American blues music and some of its most mysterious practitioners — key among them Geeshie Wiley, whose bone-chilling signature song has haunted me since I first crossed paths with it.
3. Nothing, “Hymn to the Pillory” (2014) – One of my South By Southwest highlights this year was walking into a random windowless bar on a beautiful Austin afternoon and having my face nearly blown off by this Philadelphia band (because that’s where every great band is now apparently from), in whose hands the shoegaze torch burns brightly.
4. Heaters, “Lowlife” (2014) – Managing to stand out in a crowded psych-rock field, this surging act gets my vote for best Grand Rapids band of the moment.
5. Lucinda Williams, “Are You Alright” (2007) – It’s not new, but this devastating song from Williams’ 2007 “West” album reappeared on my radar thanks to its recent use in “True Detective,” and it’s my current thinking-about-that-certain-person track.
6. The Handgrenades, “Two Years (Too Long)” (2012) – While living on the east side of Michigan, I became somewhat obsessed with this band, whose sharp garage-pop craftsmanship and three-part harmonies soundtracked a year’s worth of discomfort and discovery. I listen to them every time I go back.
7. Robyn & Royksopp, “Do It Again” (2014) – Paraphrasing Tina from “Bob’s Burgers”: Everything Robyn does makes my heart poop its pants.
8. Against Me!, “Black Me Out” (2014) – I remove my hat to the great and courageous Laura Jane Grace, who recently came out as transgender and early this year released a concept album about her transition — the beautiful and confrontational “Transgender Dysphoria Blues” — that stands among the most powerful rock records I’ve heard in the last few years.
9. Schoolboy Q, “Los Awesome” (2014) – I’m embarrassingly behind the curve on 2014 hip-hop, but this standout from one of the year’s most-discussed albums grabbed me with the immediacy of its production, its structural inventiveness and unhinged lunacy of Schoolboy’s vocal performance.
10. Band of Horses, “Dilly” (2010) – This deep-ish cut from a mostly overlooked album should be taught in classes as an example of how to waste zero space en route to the perfect song. It came out four years ago, and since then hundreds of great tracks have entered and left my brain, but I still can’t stop listening to this one.
Email John Sinkevics at jsinkevics@gmail.com.
Copyright 2014, Spins on Music
