Huge thank you to listener Dean for reminding me that today is Neil Young’s 80th birthday! Would’ve slipped right through my fingers otherwise, so a few Neil Young songs of course plus an excellent Pixies cover of “Winterlong” (a big time favorite around here). Plus new music from Joshua Idehen, Detroit’s own MRKT, Smerz and more.

Check the playlist below and listen to the episode for two weeks after it airs using the player above.

In The Groove with Ryan Patrick Hooper playlist for November 12, 2025

• “It Always Was” – Joshua Idehen
• “Goatnoggin” – Goat & human language
• “Monotropa” – MRKT
• “Easy (Astrid Sonne EDIT)” – Smerz
• “Tie You Down” – HAIM & Bon Iver
• “Elderberry Wine” – Wednesday
• “Take It All” – Say She She
• “Love Hangover (12”)” – Diana Ross
• “Baby I’m Scared Of You” – Womack & Womack
• “Maureen” – Sade
• “Place in My Heart (feat. RYAT)” – Taylor McFerrin
• “Ibiza” – Butcher Brown
• “Wreck” – Neko Case
• “I Wish I Was The Moon” – Neko Case
• “Train Song” – Vashti Bunyan
• “My Love Mine All Mine” – Mitski
• “All Mirrors” – Angel Olsen
• “Transmission” – Joy Division
• “The Chills” – Peter Bjorn & John
• “Just Like Honey” – The Jesus and Mary Chain
• “All I Wanna Do” – Beach Boys
• “Play The Game” – Beach House
• “It Might Have To Be You” – Vulfmon & Evangeline
• “Hurts To Be Alone” – Norah Jones
• “Harvest Moon” – Neil Young
• “Winterlong” – Pixies
• “The Fool” – Steven Bamidele & Sly5thAve
• “Different Places” – Amber Mark & John The Blind
• “Nervous System” – Candi Carpenter
• “Good Ol’ Days” – Hayley Williams
• “Nice To Each Other” – Olivia Dean
• “The Ones We Loved” – Georgie Sweet
• “Constellation” – The Circling Sun
• “Sympathy Magic” – Florence + the Machine
• “Down By The River” – Neil Young & Crazy Horse
• “Hey Hey, My My (Into The Black)” – Neil Young

Listen to In the Groove with host Ryan Patrick Hooper weekdays from noon-3 p.m. ET on 101.9 WDET or stream on-demand at wdet.org.”

Three guests and three distinct flavors this week on MI Local, along with three new songs from Michigan artists!

We started off with a new track by the Traverse City based psych-rock/shoegaze duo known as Hail Your Highness, with “Treegaze,” from their new EP, “Wonderlust” that comes out this weekend.

Then we played “Black Cat Operator” by the Detroit-based darkwave-pop duo, Rogue Satellites, from their third “Horrors” EP, part of a series that they’ve consistently released around Halloween.

After that, we heard an interview I did with the eclectic, brilliant, multi-faceted singer-songwriter Laurel Premo, who’s based up in Traverse City, combining what’s been, for her, a lifelong admiration for American traditional folk styles with orchestral elements and Nordic arrangements.

Premo has been writing, arranging, and touring internationally since 2009. In 2021, she released “Golden Loam,” her first album as a proper solo-artist. On Halloween, she released the poignant EP, “Laments”—four orchestral folk pieces as odes of griefwork, exploring the possibility of grief being an ecstatic act that helps connect oneself with the tremendous energy and love that leads to these immense feelings, with a focus on how this love and loss is all about the deep connections we’ve forged.

You can hear my interview with Premo on this week’s show, and then stay tuned for the full, un-cut, podcast-length chat with her about this project in a couple of weeks, which will be close to the time when she’ll be releasing a music video for the first song on “Laments.”

Up next, we had The Muggs in studio to talk about their upcoming gig, opening for Blue Oyster Cult. The Muggs have been a Detroit blues/garage-rock institution for 25 years, born out of a high school friendship between its founding members, best known today as Danny Muggs and Tony Muggs.

Over the years, they’ve released several albums and gained worldwide acclaim, appearing on nationally broadcast television programs and touring Europe several times! The Muggs will be opening for Blue Oyster Cult at the Royal Oak Music Theatre next Saturday, Nov. 22.

My other guest this week, a returning guest to MI Local, is MRKT, a trio of prog-rock jazz-punk fusionists, who can tend to be a little reserved and taciturn in person, but on stage and on their recordings they turn in to frenetic awe-inspiring tornadoes of humans! They have a new album out this Friday and they treated WDET listeners to an exclusive listen of quite an epic track, titled “The Wheel!”

Check the playlist below and listen to the episode for two weeks after it airs using the player above.

• “Treegaze” – Hail Your Highness
• “Black Cat Operator” – Rogue Satellites
• “Outer Rim” – Twinn
• “On With The Show” – The Muggs
• “Applecart Blues” – The Muggs
• “Magnet & Steel” – The Muggs
• “Regional Deities” – MRKT
• “The Wheel” – MRKT
• “Vespre” – Ancient Language

A heavy dose of new music discovery from Chronixx, Don Was, Butcher Brown, Lawne, Detroit’s own MRKT, Momoko Gill and more.

Check the playlist below and listen to the episode for two weeks after it airs using the player above.

In The Groove with Ryan Patrick Hooper playlist for November 5, 2025

• “8 Ball” – Underworld
• “Roscoe (Beyond the Wizard’s Sleeve Remix)” – Midlake
• “Visions (Ela Minus Remix)” – José González
• “Futures (feat. José González)” – Zero 7
• “The Magician” – Andy Shauf
• “Jump Into The Fire” – Harry Nilsson
• “Hold You in My Arms (20th Anniversary Remaster)” – Ray LaMontagne
• “Genesis” – Chronixx
• “Hold Me” – Sault
• “Beyond” – Leon Bridges
• “For You (Many Selves Version)” – Kadhja Bonet
• “Ritual Union” – Little Dragon
• “African Rumble” – Timo Lassy
• “Nubian Lady” – Don Was
• “Colors of Autumn” – Nujabes
• “N8 Medley (Live at Audio Gold)” – Lawne
• “Survivor” – Chronixx
• “Espionage (feat. Charlie Hunter)” – Butcher Brown
• “Flex FM” – Joy Orbinson
• “Bodysnatchers” – Radiohead
• “Kenya” – Os Ipanemas
• “Monotropa” – MRKT
• “Babystar (Momoko Gill Remix)” – Matthew Herbert & Momoko Gill
• “HOURS:AFTER” – Butcher Brown
• “BIG POPPA” – Kassa Overall
• “I Can’t Help It” – Michael Jackson
• “I Love You Too Much” – Stevie Wonder
• “Messages From The Stars” – The RAH Band
• “The Darkness That You Fear” – The Chemical Brothers
• “Dream Of You” – Lionlimb & Angel Olsen
• “Get Me Back In the Game” – LL Burns

Listen to In the Groove with host Ryan Patrick Hooper weekdays from noon-3 p.m. ET on 101.9 WDET or stream on-demand at wdet.org.”

I always get hung up on genres! I can’t help it—it’s just that they’re such an effective cue to describe, or at least set expectations, as to what a band sounds like, what their style is, etc. It’s kind of like the music journalist cheat-code. Anyway, I’m really stoked to introduce WDET listeners to MRKT this week on MI Local, a band that I attempted to describe as prog-punk-space-jazz-fusion. 

MRKT is comprised of Ben Van Camp on vocals and drums (and occasionally other instruments,) Nolan Tillis on Moog bass, electric piano, synthesizers, and Lowrey organ), and their newest member, Ben Green on an electric wind instrument, which is, basely-put, a synth that you play like a saxophone.

Now, when it comes to the experience of seeing MRKT live, we won’t mince words: it’s intense! It’s intense to behold them, as performers, and it’s quite a trip for your ears and your mind! But it’s also captivating, because in that sensibility of jazz, the trio seems to have an almost telepathic connection amidst furiously fast tempos, breakneck time-signature changeups, and detours into improvisational jams.

Tune in to the show this week to hear the band discuss their process, as well as premiere their brand new single, “Monotropia.” We also talk about just what genre, exactly, this band might fit into, if any at all!

You can see MRKT live this Saturday at Third Man Records.

We also heard new music from:

• Soul-pop singer/songwriter JonPaul Wallace, with “In Your Head,” a new single from his forthcoming EP, Lemon Days, with collaborator/producer Bryan Iglesias.
• New dreamy electro vibes from the super-melodic bedroom-pop songwriter known as Street Pattern, with “Sunshower.”
• The premiere of a new subdued ballad of heart-heavy confessionals from the pop-rock ensemble, The Ethan Marc Band, with “Familiar Hell.”
• A rocking cover of Leonard Cohen’s “Everybody Knows” from Detroit-based rock trio The Pandys, off their new EP.
• A stellar prog-rock track from the newly re-energized Detroit-based group known as Art In America, with “Running By.”
• We also double-dipped into the Marquette music scene, with experimental indie-sounds from Liquid Mike and adrenaline-pulsing pop-rock from Addicus.

Stream the show above, where you’ll hear my interview with MRKT, and find the full playlist below!

• “Sunshower” – Street Pattern
• “In My Head” – JonPaul Wallace
• “Everybody Knows” – The Pandys
• “Familiar Hell” – The Ethan Marc Band
• “A Better Day” – Tim Kish
• “Reach Me” – RAWHIDE GIRL FIGHT
• “Seeing Double” – C.A.D. & the Peacetime Consumers
• “Sorry! I Forgot Again” – Addicus
• “Crop Circles” – Liquid Mike
• “Running By” – Art in America
• “Monotropia” – MRKT
• “Ring Round with the Yellow Page” – MRKT
• “As the Matchsticks Fall” – MRKT