Grand Rapids Halloween band Garbage Angel plays SpeakEZ Lounge tonight, so Local Spins asked band members Morgan Foster and Troy Reimink for their favorite tracks to haunt the holiday.
Are You Spooked? You will be after you listen to this Halloween playlist.
SCROLL DOWN FOR THE HALLOWEEN PLAYLIST ON SPOTIFY
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Over the years, Local Spins has published a smattering of scary, spooky playlists by Michigan musicians, writers and venue operators, including Jennifer Bartlett of Lokella, Tommy Schichtel of The Concussions, Brian Haik of Hazy Past, Rob Bruce of Murder Party, Delilah DeWylde, Justin Stovepipe Stover, John Serba, Devin Dely and Ted Smith.
Today, it’s Garbage Angel’s turn.
Garbage Angel: Halloween fun. (Courtesy Photo)
Grand Rapids’ favorite (and maybe only) Halloween party band unfurls its roster of scary, creepy, eerie and fun covers of haunting classics — from “Monster Mash” to “Ghost Busters” — at 7:30 p.m. tonight at SpeakEZ Lounge for the Local Spins Wednesdays series. Details here.
To warm up fans for the evening and the weekend, we asked frontman Morgan Foster and guitarist Troy Reimink to concoct a playlist of their favorite chilling tracks perfect for Halloween hair-raising.
Are these tricks or treats? You decide.
And if you dare — and you’re still not completely creeped out — revisit our past collection of horrifying Halloween playlists online here.
For other Halloween weekend concerts and parties, check out Thursday’s “Amplified” newsletter for a roster of West Michigan’s musical haunts. Sign up for the newsletter and email updates here: https://localspins.com/subscribe-local-spins-mailing-list/.
MORGAN FOSTER
1. “Dragula,” Rob Zombie (1998) – Just such over the top dark heavy rock I can’t help but love it. One of my favorite things in the world is when people mash it up with famous movie scenes. The best is “Matilda.”
Watch/Listen: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EqQuihD0hoI
2. “Dead Man’s Party,” Oingo Boingo (1985) – So frantic, so goofy, so fun. It’s like Halloween in a nutshell.
Watch/Listen: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VpYhfuG4i7w
3. “Somebody’s Watching Me,” Rockwell (1983) – We didn’t start playing that one until a few years ago and it was like, “What have we been doing; this is so perfectly spooky.”
Watch/Listen: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7YvAYIJSSZY
4. “(Don’t Fear) the Reaper,” Blue Oyster Cult (1976) – This has sort of become the Garbage Angel unofficial anthem. It’s just perfect in its groove, in its message and in its beauty. Just a perfect song.
Watch/Listen: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dy4HA3vUv2c
5. “Running Up That Hill (A Deal With God),” Kate Bush (1985) – I loved this song for a long time and then “Stranger Things” bringing it back into prominence just made it a perfect Halloween song.
Watch/Listen: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wp43OdtAAkM
TROY REIMINK
1. “Red Right Hand,” Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds (1994) – When I first encountered “Red Right Hand,” in a famously disturbing episode of “The X-Files,” I had no idea its author would become one of the key artists of my life. Decades later, Nick Cave’s signature track has lost none of its nightmarish power or Old Testament gloom.
Watch/Listen: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RrxePKps87k
2. “Them Bones,” Alice in Chains (1992) – “Dirt” is a difficult album to revisit, not just because the compression on so much ’90s guitar rock literally exhausts the ear, and not just because of how Layne Staley, the band’s original frontman, would later die … actually, yeah, mostly that. “Them Bones,” the opening track, is unrelenting and unambiguously bleak in its assessment of the human condition and what it all adds up to (not much).
Watch/Listen: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zTuD8k3JvxQ
3. “Spooky,” Dusty Springfield (1968) – Spooky season can also be cozy season if you’re lucky enough to spend it with the right person. But Dusty Springfield, who recorded the best-known version, paints a scenario that is also terrifying: being in a situationship with a person who seems less interested in you and therefore holds all the cards. Vulnerability is scary; so is the inability or unwillingness to express it.
Watch/Listen: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fola80rQop4
4. “Somebody’s Watching Me,” Rockwell (1984) – The uncredited Michael Jackson vocal hook still feels like kind of a jump scare. But the creepiest thing about the one and only hit by Rockwell — a.k.a. Kennedy William Gordy (son of Motown founder Berry) — is that the surveillance state it imagined for comic effect largely materialized. Your TV is watching YOU, your Alexa device is spying on you in the shower, you have no privacy, and everyone acts like everything is normal. (*Wraps another layer of aluminum foil around his head.)
Watch/Listen: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7YvAYIJSSZY
5. “My Heart Will Go On,” Celine Dion (1997) – Nothing like a soaring love song inspired by a night when hundreds of people were pulled screaming into the depths of a watery grave, when the have-nots drowned as half-empty lifeboats floated away, when men, women and children froze to death while awaiting rescue. It turns out “Titanic” is a pretty intense rewatch — a reminder that mortality is the great class equalizer, and that all of our hearts will go on until, of course, they don’t.
Watch/Listen: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F2RnxZnubCM
THE GARBAGE ANGEL HALLOWEEN PLAYLIST ON SPOTIFY
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