By Seth Sommerfeld
Language is a living and breathing organism. It ebbs and flows as generations come and go — holding up certain linguistic rules while discarding others as fresh slang and world events reshape our verbiage. And nothing has reshaped our modern lexicon quite like the internet. The world wide web not only created enough new terms relating to itself to fill a dictionary, but it also cranked the speed at which we share new slang and meme syntax up to warp speed. And while most of internet language evolution is focused on keeping up with the new, occasionally something online will hit just right and reshape how we collectively view the past.
Enter: yacht rock.
Back in 2005, a group of comedic filmmakers (J. D. Ryznar, Hunter D Stair and Lane Farnham) created a short film mockumentary series called Yacht Rock, which was posted online by Channel 101. The term „yacht rock“ was their own creation, defining the smooth Los Angeles soft rock sound of the late 1970s and early 1980s — the type of easygoing tunes that would sound great leisurely resting on a boat in the San Pedro Channel (despite none of the bands of the era actually sporting any nautical aesthetics).
The web series arose after its creators forensically noticed how much overlap there was between musicians in that scene including acts like Steely Dan, The Doobie Brothers, Kenny Loggins, Christopher Cross and Toto. The web series hilariously followed the over-the-top imagined adventures of The Doobie Brothers‘ Michael McDonald and Loggins as they interacted with other acts from that era while writing sweet, sweet music.
But a funny thing happened over the subsequent two decades since Yacht Rock first arrived for viewing on our laptops — the jokey term to lovingly send up a then-often dismissed era of music retroactively became the definitive genre term to define that style of music nearly 35 years after its heyday.
Defining yacht rock is a bit of a tricky proposition, so much so that it’s not uncommon for folks to draw parallels to the 1964 Supreme Court case Jacobellis v. Ohio for which Justice Potter Stewart famously wrote that while it’s not easy to say exactly when a potentially obscene film rises to the level of hardcore pornography: „I know it when I see it.“
While people will actually argue over whether a song qualifies as yacht rock, the general sonic framework of the genre is soft melodic rock with R&B flair and jazzy chord changes with a mellow, often introspective lyrical bent. In a lot of ways it was a widely successful white adaptation of Black funk and R&B music with the edges sanded down.
And the creators of Yacht Rock weren’t entirely fabricating a musical movement out of thin air — there was a scene composed largely of session musicians who played on early Steely Dan albums that fed into a distinguishable sound with touchstones like bouncy key parts played on Fender Rhodes electric pianos, Michael McDonald’s deeply soulful baritone voice, and lyrics that eschewed rock machismo for wistful musings from the perspective of sensitive sad sacks (yacht rock being proto-emo music could be an essay of its own). But it was also a genre that was focused more on musicianship and songwriting than image, so when MTV arrived in the 1980s and shifted the pop music paradigm from album-oriented rock to visually appealing stars, the golden era yacht rock faded into the Pacific Ocean seabreeze.
Yacht rock’s vocabulary adoption wasn’t an instant viral thing, but a slow trickle. Music critics (a prime demographic for the web series) began to reassess the musical period through the lens of yacht rock. In 2015, Sirius XM Satellite Radio launched a Yacht Rock station. Cover bands started emerging just focusing on yacht rock music (Yachtly Crew is set to play the Coeur d’Alene Casino on July 3). And just last year HBO Max released a documentary detailing the after-the-fact genre called Yacht Rock: A Dockumentary.
As that documentary showcases, while it’s uniquely strange to have one’s music redefined decades after its creation, most of the musicians who’ve been labeled as yacht rock artists have warmed to the definition (though, notably, Steely Dan’s Donald Fagen f—ing hates the label). While there’s a certain undercurrent of ironic comedy that the term yacht rock still carries over from its web series origins (for example: none of these dudes were wearing captain’s hats like so many yacht rock fans now do), most of the musicians who made the music seem to mostly be pleased new generations have revitalized interest in their songs. Sometimes you just gotta be happy with what you yacht.
Spokanites looking to sail the sonic seas of yacht rock are in luck as some local music mainstays are putting on a Yacht Rock Tribute show at the Chameleon on Thursday, April 24.
The show is the brainchild of Portland-based drummer Tyrone Hendrix, who’s a member of Allen Stone’s band alongside Spokane’s own Blake Braley (keys) and Tristan Hart Pierce (guitar). Hendrix thought it would be fun to play yacht rock hits at his bar (Alberta Street Pub) with his Portland pals, and brought his two Spokane-based Stone bandmate buddies to be a part of the group for a show in January. It was such a good time that they decided to run it back out here in our neck of the woods.
„Being a musician for over 20 years now, I became kind of a student of looking at musicians who play on records. And I noticed a lot of the musicians that have played on some of the biggest records were all part of the yacht rock bands — even though I look at them as musicians not yacht rockers,“ Hendrix says. „I’ve always wanted to be like a studio musician. And these guys played on the biggest records: Off the Wall, Thriller, Steely Dan’s Aja. I grew up off this stuff, so I’ve always been intrigued to play it. And when I found the opportunity to do it, I called up some of my friends up here in Portland, but also Blake and Tristan. Because during Allen Stone soundchecks, we’d play around with [The Doobie Brothers‘] „What a Fool Believes“ and things of that nature. And Blake was just killing it. So I’m like, ‚You know what? This is a perfect opportunity for us to get together and make something happen.‘ And the show down here went very well, so I told Blake, ‚Yo, we need to do this in Spokane.‘ And he found the spot.“
With a set that spans around 20 to 25 tunes including staples from bands like The Doobie Brothers, Christopher Cross, Toto, Steely Dan and deeper cuts from acts like Ambrosia and George Benson, the Yacht Rock Tribute is set to be a lively night celebrating the belated yacht rock boom.
„I don’t really know why yacht rock is having a moment, but it definitely seems like it is. I heard a quote that [yacht rock] ‚is not rocking the boat, but you’re cruisin‘,'“ Braley says. „Big trends come and go. Like a few years ago, the ’90s were really big. And the ’80s had a moment for a bit. Then this is late ’70s stuff. But the music is just really good, too. The music has always been good, and maybe it’s just having a spotlight after so long.“
Braley has the somewhat inevitable task of singing the Michael McDonald songs as part of the tribute show. While it’s a blast to sing the tunes, it’s difficult because his voice is so distinct that it can almost seem like a comedic impression if a singer doesn’t nail it.
„Any chance I get to do my Michael McDonald impression is fine with me,“ Braley says with a bit of a laugh. „It’s hard, because I like doing the McDonald thing, but it feels a little too much sometimes.“
The extended Stone crew’s Yacht Rock Tribute show looks to offer a slice of easy-listening escapism to at least offer a brief patch of smooth cruisin‘ in the choppy waters of our current times. To quote Christopher Cross, „Well, it’s not far down to paradise, at least it’s not for me / And if the wind is right you can sail away, and find tranquility…“ ♦
Yacht Rock Tribute • Thu, April 24 at 8 pm • $20 • 21+ • The Chameleon • 1801 W. Sunset Blvd • chameleonspokane.com
The original print version of this article was headlined „Too Yacht
To Handle“
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