Local Spins Summer Playlist No.6: Festival fun with Edward Sharpe, The Accidentals, Ben Folds, Greensky Bluegrass, Andy Frasco

Local Spins photographer Anna Sink delves deeply into the groovy world of outdoor music — and many Michigan-bred artists — for this Top 10 list that spotlights bands playing summer spectacles.

 

EDITOR’S NOTE: As part of the celebration of Local Spins’ fourth anniversary this year, we’ve asked some of our writers and contributors to create Top 10 playlists of favorite tunes for summer — right as the music festival season starts to really heat up. The only caveat: At least one of the picks must be a local or regional artist.

For her list, Local Spins photographer and contributor Anna Sink did more than just pick one local artist: She picked four — The Accidentals, Greensky Bluegrass, Heaters and Public Access — as part of Top 10 roster geared heavily toward the summer festival and outdoor concert season. It’s a groovy way to get into the spirit of things, especially with Electric Forest this weekend.

1. “Parking Lot,” The Accidentals (featuring Rick Chyme) – The string-shredding solos by young multi-instrumentalists The Accidentals combine with the powerful and purposeful wordsmithing by rapper Rick Chyme to create this track, which also might be my favorite piece of Michigan music collaboration. The live performance of this song is like nothing else you’ll ever experience from a local band; even thinking about it gets me pumped up to kick-start the summer concert season.

2. “Uncomfortable,” Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeros – As a fangirl who waited an entire long year in tense anticipation of the release of this band’s new album, “PersonA,” I naturally had to include this track, especially in light of the news that the Zeros will be playing at Frederik Meijer Gardens & Sculpture Park in July. This song boasts a couple of key elements that represent why I love this band so much: They’re political but poetic, real and raw-sounding, yet precise in production, and able to show their dark side while at the same time uplift an audience and truly emotionally move a listener. This intense track challenges preconceptions folks may have had about this band’s sound, in a feisty way that you can’t help but respect.

3. “Don’t Need It,” Seratones – There are only so many contemporary female-fronted rock ‘n’ roll groups that reach out and really grab me and rock me, and this new Louisiana band has done just that for me. The Seratones’ debut album “Get Gone” was just released this month, and I already can’t get enough of the slightly dirty, deep-but-raw rock ‘n’ roll vibe of their sound. This track in particular combines elements from such a wide range of rock genre variations that attract me: It gets grungey, it gets psychy, it gets bluesy and soulful and maybe even a little punky, and it will probably get stuck in your head, too.

4. “We Live Dangerous,” The Reverend Peyton’s Big Damn Band – This song brings me right back to the South: It sounds like summer and sweat and slide guitar. If you’ve never seen them live, Rev. Peyton and his Big Damn Band take southern rootsy blues to a new rowdy level, complete with overalls and a face-melting washboard player. Lots folks felt the Southern heat last weekend when they caught the band live on a scorching day at Founders Fest.

5. “F10-D-A,” Ben Folds – Most of the tracks on Ben Folds’ latest album, “So There” show a new, complex, more orchestral version of the piano master’s songwriting skills. But this song could be my favorite on the record, because the old snarky Ben Folds shines through the rest of the album’s full-symphony sound. One thing (among many things) that makes Folds a genius is his ability to write beautiful music paired with humorous words, while keeping the comedy smart and subtle. Fans of classic Ben Folds Five (and fans of Folds being funny) will definitely like this one. Contain your excitement as best you can till you see him perform here in July at Meijer Gardens.

6. “My Recovery,” Andy Frasco and the U.N. – Anyone who was at Andy Frasco’s show at Founders – or either of his two stops at Bell’s within the past year – will know how ridiculously raunchy and rule-bending his live shows are, in addition to the great musicianship backing up Frasco’s stage shenanigans. Recently, the group released “Happy Bastards,” which has just as much party and soul, if not more, than their previous studio albums. This gospel-inspired closing track about self-motivation is what I really love to hear from Frasco: surprisingly uplifting and genuinely inspirational get-up-and-dance songs that can be part of the same album as raunchier selections.

7. “Leap Year,” Greensky Bluegrass – Bluegrass and summer partner together perfectly, and this summer, Kalamazoo’s own Greensky Bluegrass will be especially sweet on us Michiganders. The band recently played a three-night stint at Bell’s Brewery in Kalamazoo, will play Electric Forest this weekend and unleash back-to-back, Friday-Saturday sets at Hoxeyville in August. Not only did this Michigan-bred band first introduce me to the wild world of progressive bluegrass, it’s continued to be a staple artist in my contemporary collection by putting on one of the best live bluegrass shows I’ve ever seen, year after year after year. Plus, this year is indeed a leap year, so this track was meant for summer 2016!

8. “Jennifer Guerra,” Public Access – This trippy new Michigan band made an impressive debut this spring, and I am really looking forward to what I’ll be seeing from the members of this project this summer at various Michigan festivals. This track is reminiscent of the psychedelia I hear in Pink Floyd; one of my favorites from the super-group’s self-titled 2016 debut (and one of the 10 tracks titled with names of NPR personalities).

9. “I Got A Thing,” Hanni El Khatib – Although this one is a bonus track from his first album, San Fransisco’s Hanni El Khatib just released a brand new three-song EP that’s a little more exploratory than his typical bluesy, dirtier-version-of-Dan Auerbach sound. Personally, I think his oldest recordings still rock harder than anything and I will most definitely be blasting this song this summer.

10. “Levitate Thigh,” Heaters – This track is another one on the list that just straight up reminds me of summer. It’s got that heavy swampiness with energetic riffs that combine in a way that just sounds like heat. If you haven’t yet caught Heaters perform live since they’ve been back from their European tour, don’t worry, they’ll be playing around the area regularly (including a show Saturday at The Pyramid Scheme in Grand Rapids) and they plan to release a juicy new album this summer that’s more exploratory than their previous releases.

ANNA SINK: The Local Spins Playlist on Spotify

Copyright 2016, Spins on Music LLC