yacht rock band chicago

Simply Yacht Rock Featuring Mark O'Dette

Chicago music cruise - oasis of the seas 8 day cruise - march 22 - 29, 2025, hours of music, songs you don't know, enjoying your favorite memories. one song at a time..

• Sings all the songs, and you will too!
• Plays select guitar parts
• Self contained - brings everything to perform
• Click HERE for EPK

@markodette

You can listen to a few songs i perform.

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Mark o'dette celebrates his 100th show joined by a large group of fans at one of his favorite rooms, mark performed for nearly four straight hours to celebrate his 100th performance of simply yacht rock.

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TALENT PROFILE

Anchors Away

• Cover Bands , Music , Yacht Rock
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Sailing Smooth with the Best of Yacht Rock Live!

Anchors Away was founded in 2018 as a passion project of founder/band leader and percussionist Jim Pallucci. Jimmy grew up hearing all of this music on the radio and it made a lasting impression. It inspired not only his growth as a musician, but his desire to bring the live performance of these songs to audiences who share his fond and lasting memories of this golden era of popular music. 

Knowing that this style can be the most technically challenging of the pop genre, Jimmy set out to recruit some of Chicagoland’s finest and most experienced musicians. Today’s lineup represents the culmination of Jimmy’s efforts to bring the best yacht rock experience to the music stages and venues of the Midwest. Anchors Away uses no “tracks” or pre-recorded music of any kind. What you hear is real music created in real time by real musicians. Every show is live, without a net!

With only a couple of years’ worth of live performances (obviously hindered by the shutdowns of 2020), Anchors Away is rapidly gathering momentum, and emerging as the premier Yacht Rock band in Illinois.

So, what is Yacht Rock you ask?

The general online consensus sums it up like this:

Yacht rock (originally known as the West Coast sound, or adult-oriented rock) is a broad music style and aesthetic commonly associated with soft rock; one of the most commercially successful genres from the mid-1970s to the mid-1980s. Drawing on sources such as smooth soul, smooth jazz, R&B, and disco, common stylistic traits include high-quality production, clean vocals, high musicality, and a focus on light, catchy melodies.

What You Can Expect to Hear:

Love Boat Theme –  Player – Exile – Jay Ferguson – Hall & Oates – Ace – Nicolette Larson – Firefall – Little River Band  – Olivia Newton-John – Little River Band  – Santana – Carole King – Carly Simon – Seals & Crofts – Frankie Valli – King Harvest –  Redbone – Christopher Cross – Robbie Dupree – Looking Glass – Paul McCartney & Wings – Gerry Rafferty – Climax Blues Band  – Elton John & Kiki Dee – Blues Image  – Smith – Toto – Loggins & Messina – Three Dog Night – Eric Burdon & War – Stealers Wheel – Blondie – The Ozark Mountain Daredevils – Boz Scaggs – Orleans – and more!

Learn More About

Anchors Away, founded in 2018 by percussionist Jim Pallucci, is a premier Yacht Rock band in Illinois, delivering live performances of 70s and 80s soft rock with some of Chicagoland’s finest musicians. The band is committed to authentic, real-time music, capturing the smooth, catchy melodies of the golden era without any pre-recorded tracks.

Anchors Away is: 

Jim Pallucci – Percussion & Vocals

Jeff Kissel – Drums

Joe Rocha – Bass & Vocals

Kevin Flannagan – Saxophone, Flute & Vocals

Rich Fulfs – Guitar & Vocals

Brooke Fauver – Vocals

Paul Heinz – Keyboards

Jimmy O’Connell – Vocals & Guitar

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Chicago’s first Female-Fronted Yacht Rock Band

This - Is - It. What started as a name that appeared in a dream has become a smooth reality.

The Yacht Rockettes are the world’s first female-fronted yacht rock cover band based in Chicago. This 7 member band features all the smooth rock hits of the genre including songs from Michael McDonald, Hall & Oates, Toto, Christopher Cross, Player, Ambrosia, Captain and Tenille, and more… The Yacht Rockettes are available for all your nautical or soft rock event needs. Yacht parties, weddings, festivals, and corporate events. Let the Yacht Rockettes play all you lovers into the night...

© 2019 Leroy Ellington Productions, All Rights Reserved.

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Dina DiCostanzo, lead vocals

Keely Vasquez lead vocals

April Nelson, lead vocals

Jim Barclay, drums

Michael mahler, vocals & guitar.

Kara Kesselring, keyboards

Chris Gorcik, bass

Jeremy peters, guitar & vocals.

Bill Fornari, woodwinds

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Yacht Rock-ettes

Cover bands.

THIS IS IT! The Yacht Rock-ettes is a 7 piece, a female-led cover band specializing in smooth, soft rock from the late '70s and early '80s. This 7 member band features all the smooth rock hits of the genre including songs from Michael McDonald, Hall & Oates, Toto, Christopher Cross, Player, Ambrosia, Captain and Tenille, and more. Our show features tight arrangements and harmonies, an all-pro backing band, and, as the name implies, two elegant, sexy, powerhouse female vocalists! Whether you need music for a club, a festival, or a private party, let the Yacht Rock-ettes play all you lovers into the night!

• Michael McDonald
• Hall & Oates
• Christopher Cross

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A full-service event company with a mission to create memorable events our clients are proud to host.

WE ARE YACHT ROCK™ (the band😊) is proud to present the greatest soft rock, pop and dance hits of the 70’s & 80’s…plus some amazing 1-hit wonders (songs you forgot how much you love by artists you can’t remember). This musical genre which has come to be known as “Yacht Rock” has exploded in popularity in recent years….with its own dedicated SiriusXM Radio Station and legions of fans of all ages…and WE ARE YACHT ROCK (the band) captures all that is good/fun/dance-able/sing-able about this great music!!! Made up of professional musicians and vocalists, WE ARE YACHT ROCK has already performed at venues across Florida…from Miami Beach to Marco Island to Fort Myers to Bonita Springs to Tampa to Leesburg to Orlando and into Alabama….WE ARE YACHT ROCK (the band) continues to grow in popularity and is in greater demand than ever with shows booked as far as 18 months in advance. Homeowners Associations, Gated Communities, Festivals, Fundraising Events, Corporate Events, Weddings, Performing Arts Centers….at Amphitheaters, Hotels, Botanical Gardens, on Beaches, on Yachts…….we have seen so much over these past few years and look forward to discussing your event!

At Prestigious Concert Venues like:

• Kravis Center in West Palm Beach
• Arts Garage in Delray Beach
• Mizner Amphitheatre in Boca Raton

For Corporate events at:

• Westin Beach Resort - Ft Lauderdale
• Lowes Hotel - Miami
• JW Marriot Turnburry Resort - Aventura
• Lady Biscayne Yacht at Eden Roc - Miami
• JW Marriot - Marco Island
• Four Seasons Hotel - Orlando
• Marina Jack – Sarasota
• Bayside Academy – Daphne, Alabama
• JP Morgan Chase
• TIAA Insurance
• And so many more...

For the cities of:

• Coral Springs
• St. Pete Beach
• Boynton Beach

And at prestigious Country Club Communities like:

• Loxahatchee Club in Jupiter
• Bonita Bay Club in Bonita Springs.

WE YACHT ROCK pays tribute to the music you know and love by accurately re-creating these timeless classics by bands like Hall & Oates, Billy Joel, Fleetwood Mac, Chicago, Paul Simon, Seals & Crofts, America and Little River Band….as well as the biggest “one-hit-wonders” of that era like “Brandy”, “Baby Come Back”, “Dancin’ In The Moonlight” and “Thunder Island”! It’s a trip down memory lane that will have you singing, smiling and dancing all night!!! Amazing vocal harmonies, excellent musicianship, saxophone, flute, catchy lyrics, songs that make you feel good……that’s Yacht Rock. WE ARE YACHT ROCK!

WE ARE YACHT ROCK offers several different public and private show formats, can provide all backline, PA and lighting if necessary and has several options for our “Look”.

Yacht Rock 1

90 Minutes One 90-Minute Set

Yacht Rock 2

120 Minutes Two 1-Hour Sets

Yacht Rock 3

120 Minutes One 2-Hour Set

Upcoming Public Events

Come visit one of our upcoming shows!

While We Are Yacht Rock maintains a very busy schedule, very few of our shows are open to the public…but here are a few future public events:

Fresh Friday's Downtown - Sarasota

Federal Highway Sarasota, FL

Valencia Reserve

Boynton Beach, FL

Mizner Amphitheatre

Boca Raton, FL

Arts Garage Performancing Arts Center

Delray Beach, FL

Kings Point

Tamarac, FL

The Ship has Sailed (Previous Engagements)

• Diplomat Hotel - Hollywood,FL
• JW Marriot - Marco Island, FL
• Ocean Reef Hotel - Key Largo, FL
• Loxahatchee Club - Jupiter, FL
• Wellington Amphitheatre, FL
• City Of Parkland, FL
• Bayside Academy - Daphne, AL
• Valencia Reserve – Boynton Beach, FL
• Breakers Resort – Palm Beach, FL
• Boca Resort – Boca Raton, FL
• Ritz Carleton Orlando
• Ritz Carleton Miami Beach
• Kravis Center
• Friday Night Soundwaves at Las Olas Park
• Bacon & BBQ Classis at Fairchild Gardens
• JW Marriot Turnburry Resort, Aventura, FL
• Rock The Park – City Of Plantation, FL
• Mizner Amphitheatre - Boca Raton - FL

Past Corporate Clients

Just to name a few...

Sample just some of the classics we play.

Baker Street

Diamond Girl

People everywhere feeling good about these tunes!

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Thomas Deck 5 Best Songs: Critic's Picks

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Tim Remembers His 'Good' Tom, Talks New Album

London event 2017: 10 must-see showcases, dark 'elimination' album for fans at uk sessions.

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Coming Soon

AMERICA’S FAVORITE YACHT ROCK BAND!™

Winner – 2023 best of las vegas – tribute act – las vegas review journal, 2023 best tribute act – vegas411, 2021 wami – best tribute artist 2019 wami – new artist of the year.

Imagine that it’s 1981 and you’re cruising the Atlantic shores of the Hamptons with your friends. Bikinis are fluorescent, polo collars are popped, and boat shoes are rocked sockless. In the background, your booming sound system is playing the soft-rock sounds of Olivia Newton-John, Toto, Kenny Loggins, The Carpenters, Michael McDonald, Hall & Oates, Christopher Cross, and Air Supply.

The Docksiders are made up of music industry veterans – led by 3-time Grammy™ nominee, Kevin Sucher. Their unique tribute act of your favorite “soft rock” songs of the 70s and 80s – now defined as Yacht Rock – have been entertaining thousands of people for years and the revival of this genre and audiences are only getting bigger.

The Docksiders just completed a 50+ show run at The Rio All-Suite Hotel & Casino in Las Vegas… and now Headline at Notoriety Live on Fremont St.

Show stopping hit song after hit song, costume changes, and production, is only topped by their world-class performance.

Take some time to discover our many videos on our  YouTube Channel  and stop by our  Facebook page  for additional entertaining content!

Keep it SMOOTH friends – Thanks for stopping by our website!

“GET ON THE BOAT!!!! The Docksiders show defines Yacht Rock!! They are the total experience of this genre of music! So yes, get on the boat, have a beer, have some pizza, and party with the the greatest Yacht Rock Band in the country …The Docksiders!” – Tony Orlando – Legend

“in a short amount of time, this dazzling couple has made a meteor-sized impact on las vegas entertainment. they’re everywhere, doing everything, and winning hearts wherever they go. erin and kevin sucher truly are gifts to our city. please support their efforts, along with the amazing colleagues, band members, friends, and collaborators who join them in making our city a brighter and happier place.” – sam novak – vegas411, “i just wanted to drop a note to tell you how much i loved the show last night. i seriously wish i could book this band, like, every other week. you are so fun to listen to, and you sounded fantastic. really on point with vocals and musicianship. thanks so much for coming to omaha, i hope to get you back here at some point down the road” – erika hansen, booking manager – omaha performing arts center.

See why everyone is calling The Docksiders

America’s favorite yacht rock band™.

Upcoming Shows

Booking Info & More

August 30, 2024 at The Taste of Melrose Park, IL

Start time @ 5:30pm to 7:00pm- Main Stage

September 1, 2024 at the Buffalo Grove Days Festival

Start time @6:00pm to 8:00pm

Friday, September 13, 2024 at Winfield River Walk

Start time @6:45pm to 9:00pm

September 14, 2024 in  Downers Grove, IL  for Oktoberfest at Main Street next to the Burlington tracks

Start time TBD

Friday, September 20, 2024  in Oakbrook Terrace at Terrace Park

Start time @7:00pm to 10:00pm

October 5, 2024 at Stage 119 in Elmhurst, IL

Start time @8:00pm to 11:00pm

November 27, 2024 at Johnny Cabs in Burr Ridge

Start time @7:30pm to 10:30pm

November 30, 2024 at Evenflo Bar in Geneva, IL

Start time @9:pm to Midnight

Saturday,  December 14, 2024 at Ballydoyles in Downers Grove

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ANCHORS AWAY

Chicago, IL 

Phone: 630-417-3654

Email: [email protected]  

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Things To Do | Yacht rock is docking in Chicago. What’s yacht…

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Things to do | yacht rock is docking in chicago. what’s yacht rock, and why do i want a pina colada all of a sudden.

Victor Hilitski/for the Chicago Tribune

Musician Sean Hughes rehearses with the Yacht Rockettes at the School of Rock in Evanston on April 7, 2019.

Lead vocalist Christine Mild during rehearsal of the new band the Yacht Rockettes at the School of Rock, a music school, in Evanston on April 7, 2019.

Co-creator and lead vocals Dina DiCostanzo rehearses with the Yacht Rockettes at the School of Rock in Evanston on April 7, 2019.

Gordon Patriarca rehearses with the Yacht Rockettes at the School of Rock in Evanston on April 7, 2019.

The new band the Yacht Rockettes rehearse at the School of Rock in Evanston on April 7, 2019.

Lead vocalist Christine Mild rehearses with the Yacht Rockettes at the School of Rock in Evanston on April 7, 2019.

The Yacht Rockettes rehearse at the School of Rock in Evanston on April 7, 2019.

From left, Jim Barclay, Gordon Patriarca and Patrick Martin rehearse with the Yacht Rockettes at the School of Rock in Evanston on April 7, 2019.

Co-creator and drummer Jim Barclay rehearses with the Yacht Rockettes at the School of Rock in Evanston on April 7, 2019.

Gordon Patriarca adjusts settings of an amplifier prior rehearsal with the Yacht Rockettes at the School of Rock in Evanston on April 7, 2019.

Musician Kevin Gawthorp rehearses with the Yacht Rockettes at the School of Rock in Evanston on April 7, 2019.

In the span of four days beginning Saturday, three nightclubs will feature cover bands playing what is billed confidently as “yacht rock,” on the assumption that potential ticket buyers will know exactly what that means.

Having such faith in a genre defined after the fact is not what a fool believes. In the years since the heyday of Kenny Loggins, Michael McDonald, Toto, and so many other purveyors of “rich jazzy textures and irresistible melodies,” as Rolling Stone put it, yacht rock has become an out-of-left-field — sorry, an in-from-a-distant-mooring — cultural force.

How did smooth, slickly produced pop-rock explode (gently! melodically!) onto the scene with all the power of the rains down in Africa? And how did it meet in an accidental, synthesizer-backed harmonic convergence in the Chicago area this month, with shows booked independently at House of Blues Saturday (Yacht Rock Revue), City Winery Monday (Yacht Rock Night with Maggie Speaks) and Wire in Berwyn Tuesday (The Yacht Rockettes)?

Here’s the lowdown:

“You want me to give you like a little rap that you can work with?”

The voice on the other end of the phone sounds uncannily like the voice on 1980 yacht rock classic, “Steal Away.” The New York accent is more pronounced than on that single or on “Hot Rod Hearts,” but, yeah, it’s Robbie Dupree alright.

“I think it was six years ago. It might be as long as seven. I got a phone call from Brian Ray, who is Paul McCartney’s guitarist and bass player. He started out, you know, playing with me on the first record and all of that.

“Anyway, he was (playing) on a cruise, a Weezer cruise. He called me up and said, ‘Hey, the most popular thing on the cruise was this band from Atlanta called the Yacht Rock Revue.'”

In other words, even amidst bands playing original music, people were saying “I can go for that (yes can do)” most fervently to a group dedicated to revisiting a particular tranche of 1970s and early ’80s Top 40.

Granted, they were on a boat. And Weezer was there. But still.

It is a Sunday night at School of Rock in Evanston, and a group of musicians who look considerably older than the typical SOR student is letting it rip on Orleans’ “Still the One.”

The Yacht Rockettes formed last year because the title came in a flash of inspiration during yoga class to Dina DiCostanzo, one of the lead singers. Her friends on Facebook and her husband Jim Barclay, a drummer, loved the idea, a female-fronted yacht rock band that would give them a marketing hook for playing songs laden with musical hooks. The combination of yoga and yacht rock is perhaps not surprising.

The show at Wire will be their second gig, and they are here to add a few new tunes to the repertoire: “Sailing,” by Christopher Cross, a yacht rock superhero in part because he’s still touring, in part because he had a massive hit called “Sailing”; “This Is It,” the 1979 Kenny Loggins paean to affirmative living now (!) feat. Michael McDonald; and “Escape (The Pina Colada Song),” because it’s almost a prerequisite for a yacht rock show.

DiCostanzo and fellow lead singer Christine Mild have their lyrics on iPads perched on music stands. Mild handles the Loggins parts, while DiCostanzo takes the distinctive tone of McDonald, a husky soul timbre that is “higher than you think,” she says.

“Did you just call him ‘Kenny Longings’?” keyboardist Sean Hughes asks DiCostanzo as they prepare to begin on “This Is It.”

After some debate over how to handle the second verse, and whether they’ll go full-reggae during the bridge, they finish a third take of the Loggins tune, the vocals coming together at the end on an exultant, “This is it!”

Hughes exclaims, not without a touch of wryness, “That was it!”

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It goes like that throughout the rehearsal: Songs that are harder to learn than you might imagine, despite how smooth, even syrupy, they might have sounded on the radio. And band members who are wrapping their rock-loving hearts around the notion of playing this stuff without irony.

“There’s a chord in ‘This Is It’ that is ridiculous,” Hughes tells his bandmates. He’s already said that as a music fan, he never had much love for “Sailing,” but as a keyboard player, it’s impressive.

“These are like real soft, soothing melodies,” Barclay says, “but the drum parts are pretty kicking and, you know, lots of production stuff’s happening. If you’re gonna really do it right, you have to have about 80 musicians because there are like string parts and multiple keyboard parts.”

“Does anyone really love this song unironically,” guitar player Patrick Martin asks about “Escape,” the Rupert Holmes tale of a couple each placing classified ads for a new love only to — spoiler alert — find each other again over the pineappple-rum drink in the parenthetical.

“Drunk people,” says DiCostanzo.

“(Bleeping) adulterers,” says Hughes.

“Ashley Madison subscribers,” says Barclay.

It’s kind of a plodding melody, but the story satisfies, and they play it twice, because they know the crowd will practically swoon in nostalgia for it. Being a yacht rock band can be about delivering pleasure more than receiving it.

On “Sailing,” horn player Kevin Gawthorp handles the shaker and the triangle like he’s delivering a guitar solo.

“It’s really all about the triangle,” he says.

The Yachtfathers

Yacht Rock Revue, who’ll be at House of Blues Saturday as part of a national tour sponsored by LiveNation and SiriusXM, are, it is fair to say, the admiralty of the yacht rock bands. They got on board this musical vessel almost by accident.

Nick Niespodziani graduated Indiana University and he and his IU band Y-O-U relocated to Atlanta. They toured some, got some of their original songs in commercials, opened for well-known acts, he explains, but they weren’t making a living.

Niespodziani, a talented vocalist who had entered IU thinking he’d sing opera, was in law school, and other band members were thinking about getting real jobs, too, he recalls. But they did have a regular Thursday night cover gig at an Atlanta club.

Niespodziani says it started, sort of, via temp jobs: “Our drummer, Mark, and I, we were both secretaries in the same insurance office. He had this mix that he called the ‘Dentist Office Mix’ that we would play in our cubicle to try to annoy the other people. And it was all like, 10 CC and Player. Orleans. And as it turned out, it didn’t annoy them. They loved it. And so we were like, man, wouldn’t it be kind of funny if we did a whole show of songs like that?”

They were going to call it something like “Seventies AM Gold.” But they discovered the web series “Yacht Rock,” from 2005 , one of the first viral successes of the Internet era. Each episode in the comedy series purported to tell the story of how a yacht rock hit was born, with the actors playing Loggins, ex-partner Jim Messina, McDonald and so on. John Oates, in the series, is kind of a thug, Daryl Hall his stooge. It still holds up. (And the show’s writers now have a podcast called “Beyond Yacht Rock,” because of course there’s a podcast.)

But the musical point is: This juggernaut of a cover-rock genre takes its name from a web comedy series, and that series seems to have taken its name from the Loggins and Messina LP “Full Sail,” which gets held up at the start of each episode.

When the band that would become Yacht Rock Revue played its first yacht rock gig, in 2008, the crowd at the club responded like the workers in the insurance office, “and then it kind of went crazy from there,” Niespodziani says.

Slowly, he recalls, he got over his conflicted feelings about playing these songs rather than ones he’d written.

“In 2010 everybody was into everything being ironic,” he says. “And so there were people in the crowd that were kind of elbowing each other like, yeah, this is funny, right? But that’s not the vibe at all anymore. Now it’s people who just genuinely love Hall and Oates.”

His own stance evolved along a similar path, and the shows moved from a touch campy to more celebratory. The crowds kept coming. Yacht Rock Revue bought a van. They got an office and people to work in it. They developed a Beatles act and a Prince act, and they bought a club so they’d have something to fall back on when yacht rock dried up. It hasn’t.

“As it turns out, yacht rock is super sustainable and not going anywhere,” he says. The SiriusXM Yacht Rock channel supporting the tour is on the air in warm months, he notes, and there is talk of it going year-round.

YRR has sold out a 6,500-seat venue in Atlanta and has performed with many of the original yacht rock musicians at their annual yacht rock festival. And, Niespodziani notes with something approaching wonder, the band members have health insurance and 401K plans.

“You know, we’re playing a Gary Wright song or a Pablo Cruise song, but we’re playing it with the intensity of an AC/DC song,” he says. “There’s something about it that connects when you bring that kind of energy.

“It’s weird to be up there playing a Kenny Loggins song and seeing, you know, crazy ladies out there who look like they’re ready to eat each other’s brains or something. They just get wild. You never knew this soft rock could bring that out of people, but it kind of gives them a sense of empowerment, like, I can’t believe this band is playing these songs, and now I can do whatever I want and drink whatever I want.”

The Canon and the Credo

“The kind of genre-defining song, I would say, is ‘What a Fool Believes,’ by the Doobie Brothers,” Niespodziani says. “In terms of songs that we play that really connect with the crowd, there’s only one song that we have to play every show or people will riot, and that’s ‘Africa,'” the Toto hit about almost nothing that has since been covered by Weezer. “We can’t really get off stage without it.”

The genre has been defined as California musicians in the late 1970s, many of them working on each other’s records. Steely Dan is a pillar, too. “We define it much more broadly,” he says. “It’s just kind of mellow, catchy tunes” from that general era. “It can’t have big heavy guitars in it. It can’t be politically oriented.”

The Yacht Rockettes define the genre as songs between 1975 and 1983, but they’ll stretch it to do Phil Collins’ “Easy Lover,” even though he’s British, or the Hughes Corporation’s “Rock the Boat,” even though it’s kind of a disco tune. There’s room for looseness, Barclay says, considering “it’s a term that was coined 30 years after the genre existed.”

“The only thing that’s funny about it,” Dupree says, “is that the audience is all under 30 years old. So the audience looks the same as it used to look back in 1980. You know, only the song and me got older.”

The music is popular now, the performers think, partly because live music is doing well and cover or tribute bands in particular are on the rise. So is a certain mellowness.

“You hear a lot of bands now trying to capture some of that vibe,” Niespodziani says. “The new Tame Impala song that came out last night actually sounds like a yacht rock song.”

And the music was quality, adds Dupree, who is still making original music: “These bands all had really good singers, really good songs and really good musicians. I mean, it was a serious situation. The second thing is I think that the popular music of today is not as innocent. These are songs that talk about boyfriends and girlfriends and romance and all of that.”

But there may be bigger factors in play.

The soft rock arose, Niespodziani thinks, in reaction to the likes of Led Zeppelin, Cream and the harder, blues-edged music of the late 1960s and early ’70s and to the seriousness of the Vietnam War and Watergate.

“People were like, man, let’s just vibe out to music that you can sit on the beach and drink a margarita too,” he says. “I think that in many ways people are feeling the same way now, which is maybe why our band has continued to grow.”

And he wants it to keep on growing. Irony isn’t the yacht rock thing, but it is certainly ironic that Yacht Rock Revue has noticed in recent years bands in cities around the country that seem to have soaked in their act and are essentially doing a tribute to the tribute band.

“It gets a little old,” he says. “I’m like, Go find your own, unoriginal idea, you know? But if anybody wants to challenge us to a Yacht Rock Off, I welcome the challenge.”

And even more, Yacht Rock Revue is taking some of its earnings to chase down that original dream the band members had coming out of college.

“We just finished recording an album,” he says. “It’s all originals.”

[email protected]

Twitter @stevenkjohnson

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Sail Away: The Oral History of ‘Yacht Rock’

This story was originally published on June 26, 2015

I n the late 1970s and early 1980s, musical artists like Kenny Loggins, Michael McDonald, Steely Dan, Toto, Hall and Oates, and dozens of others regularly popped up on each other’s records, creating a golden era of smooth-music collaboration.

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And on June 26th, 2005, an internet phenomenon was born. In 12 short but memorable episodes — first via the the short-film series Channel 101 and then online — JD Ryznar, Hunter Stair, Dave Lyons, Lane Farnham and their friends redefined an era and coined a term for the sultry croonings of McDonald, Fagen, et al.: “yacht rock.”

As “Hollywood” Steve might say, these guys docked a fleet of remarkable hits. This is the story of Yacht Rock, told from stem to stern — a reimagining of a bygone soft-rock renaissance, courtesy of hipsters with fake mustaches, impeccable record collections and a love of smoothness. Long may it sail.

The Michigan Connection JD Ryznar (Director, “Michael McDonald”): I moved from Ann Arbor to L.A., and ended up making friends with all these other guys from Michigan, like “Hollywood” Steve Huey, Hunter Stair, and David Lyons. Pretty much every weekend I’d have “Chinese Thanksgiving” at my apartment — we’d eat BBQ chicken and burgers, drink beer and listen to records of what I called “yacht rock.” You know, like Michael McDonald is singing background vocals and like there’s guys on boats on the covers; it feels like you’re on a yacht listening to it. And the guys were like, oh, we know this music.

Dave Lyons (“Koko”): You know how, in the Seventies, these big bands started playing arena rock? We liked the idea of these smooth bands playing “Marina Rock.” I thought it was a better name.

“Hollywood” Steve Huey (“Hollywood Steve”): What I mostly remember is JD playing Journey records all the time. He was so into Journey that he had photocopied a photo of Steve Perry and pasted it onto his liquid soap dispenser. He wrote “Steve Perry Soap: Clean as all fuck” on it.

Lane Farnham (editor, “Jimmy Messina”): JD and I had talked about Journey for a year before we did Yacht Rock. In the third episode, that whole “you need to fly like a pilot” bit? Those are direct lines from Steve Perry in this crazy documentary we found. He’s coked to the gills, in the Eighties, just blabbering about who knows what. We got a kick out of that stuff.

Ryznar: My musical tastes are not that interesting, and they never were.

Huey: I turned 30 right before we started doing the series, and I thought, well, this is a nice round number. What do 30-year-olds do? I feel like it’s time I get into Steely Dan. I bought most of the catalogue and was like, This is my new identity. I’m gonna unwind, start listening to Steely Dan, and leave parties early.

Channel 101 Hunter Stair (“Kenny Loggins”):  At the time, JD had helped me get a job at a production company, and he asked if I wanted to shoot this thing they were doing for something called Channel 101. I didn’t know anything about it, but I saw that it was started by Dan Harmon and Rob Schrab — who I knew because I had a copy of Heat Vision and Jack [the failed 1999 pilot they wrote that became a huge underground hit, directed by Ben Stiller and starring Jack Black ]. So I was super pumped.

Ryznar : It was a cool scene at the time: Justin Roiland had [Channel 101 series] House of Cosbys, Dan Harmon had Laser Fart. Our friends Drew Hancock and Wade Randolph, who would go on to play Hall and Oates, they had a show about a regular guy who got angry, and turned into a smaller, shirtless weaker guy who didn’t turn green or anything.

Drew Hancock (“Oates”): That was called “Man to Man: Metamorphosis Ultra.” It was the lowest stakes Incredible Hulk show you could possibly have.

Justin Roiland (co-creator of Rick & Morty and House of Cosbys, “Christopher Cross”): Every single month you’re making something, and then you’re testing it in front of a live audience. You see what works, what doesn’t work.

Ryznar : It was a January 2005 screening where we started the school of Channel 101, where you’re showing the stuff you made in front of 200, maybe 300 people. And then they put it on the “internet,” which was very hard to do back then. There was no “YouTube.” Listen to Old Man Ryznar here.

Farnham: JD and I would go down to the beach and play something called “smash ball” — there’s no rules to the game, so we’d just make them up. And he said, this is fucking hilarious, we should make a short film about this. So we got Hunter to direct SmashBoys — and it was funny.

Lyons: Two paddles and a ball that you hit back and forth on the beach. We turned it into a soap opera .

Stair : We started playing Kenny Loggins’ “Playing With the Boys” [from Top Gun ] on repeat as we drove a convertible around Playa del Rey. Just to get in the mood.

Ryznar : There were some Phil Collins music cues, I think. A lot of sports music from Eighties movies — “You’re the Best Around” and whatnot. We used a great Kenny Loggins song for the climax. It’s from Caddyshack II . . .

Stair : “Nobody’s Fool”! It ended up winning the Best Failed Pilot of that year; we lost by eight votes to the Lonely Island guys, who did “The ‘Bu.” They just stuck their middle fingers up at everybody and said, we didn’t make a show but we made a hilarious music video. That was the night I had the idea for Y acht Rock.

Christening the Ship Ryznar : Hunter and Dave Lyons came up with an idea for a show about a couple of jewel thieves who lived on a yacht and listened to that music.

Stair : That was actually called Steal Away.

Lyons: I believe Hunter and I were talking about a private eye detective team called Loggins & Loggins that lived on a houseboat and solved mysteries — like Simon & Simon.

Ryznar : I said: How about we play Kenny Loggins and Michael McDonald as they co-write “What a Fool Believes” together? We had Stevie Nicks in there originally, for some reason. And then Drew Hancock and Wade Randolph said, we want to be Hall and Oates. I had gotten into the H&O song “Portable Radio” pretty hard. I needed to introduce it to the world. That was very important to me.

Stair : The seed of Koko the manager is . . . there’s a Doobie Brothers album that has a sweet looking manager dude on it. I remember sitting there with JD and being like, look how awesome this guy is.

Ryznar : Dave Lyons invented the Koko character while out drinking with Hunter one night. He just put on a bunch of garbage Seventies clothes he had around the house, and had a little stupid whistle around his neck. All these little touches — that’s what Dave is so great at.

Lyons: No, [Dan Harmon] wasn’t an immediate fan. That’s because he doesn’t get music. Just listen to the theme song for  Community — it’s terrible. Dan looks at things differently than most people, and I don’t think he loves music the way we do. But he came around. He came to really enjoy it. [Harmon would eventually play record producer Ted Templeman in two episodes.]

Ryznar : We thought maybe people would get it, maybe they won’t. But we submitted it. At the prime time panel, everybody but Dan Harmon like it. I think that because he’d never heard of the guys, he didn’t realize how much that music had meant to other people. People knew who everybody was. That’s why we put Hollywood Steve in there to say, hey, this is the deal. Hollywood Steve was a friend and an actual music critic. If you look up a lot of Nineties rap albums on All Music Guide, chances are Hollywood Steve wrote the review.

Huey: I was a published music writer, and that lent me a voice of authority that I might not have otherwise had amongst a hardcore group of music nerds. “Oh this guy’s viewpoint has to be legitimate! He’s published.”

Steve Agee (“Steve Porcaro”): Channel 101 at that point in time was really known for people making videos kind of purposely shitty. So we couldn’t tell if it was made to look bad on purpose.

Hancock: When Wade and I saw the first episode, we were like, eh, this isn’t very good. We didn’t like it. I didn’t understand it. So when it had this meteoric response, I was very surprised.

Ryznar : So Yacht Rock got screened, we were very nervous, and it went over like gangbusters. Just bona fide love from beginning to end from the audience. And we got voted number one on our first try, which hadn’t been done too often on Channel 101.

Stair : It got the biggest laugh of the night. As soon as it was over, we knew we were in. We weren’t totally sure it was going to be number one, but we knew we’d be up there.

Ryznar : A lot of people wanted parts. People had ideas. So we got to work with people we wanted to work with. Before we even knew we were picked up for a second episode, Hunter came up to me and said, “Uh, just talking to Doug Benson. I told him he could play Peter Cetera in the next episode.”

Lyons: The thing about the Channel 101 screenings, they’re always at a place that serves lots of alcohol. And after we saw how well it went over, we’re all drinking at the bar; Dan Harmon is doing a show with Sarah Silverman [ The Sarah Silverman Program ] at the time, and Doug was there with her. Yes, Hunter promised him the role of Peter Cetera. Which is great casting.

Episode Two: The Songwriting Contest In the second episode, Hall and Oates challenge Loggins and Messina to songwriting contest. It ends with the creation of some of the greatest smooth music ever.

Ryznar : I mean, imagine if you saw Hall and Oates where Oates, with all that hair and the mustache, was the top, and Hall was the bottom? They were sort of the opposite of the smooth California scene. So they sort of made the perfect antagonists.

Huey: The only reason they were picked as antagonists is because they’re from Philadelphia, which is a mean place.

Hancock: The wigs we got from our friend Willy, who just happened to have two of the most perfect wigs ever.

Wade Randolph (“Daryl Hall”): The Hall wig is named the De Carlo. I don’t know why.

Hancock: I remember for the mustache, I think I tried a regular handlebar mustache but it just wasn’t thick enough. So I just ended up taking a lock of the wig and fashioning a mustache out of that.

Stair : And Justin Roiland coming in, doing “Sailing.” The way the whole thing flowed, it’s so fast and perfect. I think that was Yacht Rock ‘s the finest hour.

Roiland: JD asked me, would you play Christopher Cross? I’d never heard “Sailing” before, believe it or not. I remember the first few listens going I don’t get the appeal of this fucking song. It’s an acquired taste.

Huey: We didn’t quite know what we had at that point, and so you kind of had to establish the value system. Smoothness is the main value in this world. The second episode, when that screened for the live audience, I’ve never seen a Channel 101 audience go that apeshit for anything. I remember walking out of the screening going, we’re rock stars! Granted, it’s only this one room, with like 300 people in it, but in that one room of 300 people, I think we might be rock stars.

Koko Makes His Final Voyage Lyons: As soon as we got in for the first one, JD called me and said here’s the idea for the second one: I’m gonna kill off Koko. Well, thanks a pantload, JD. He’s like, no it’ll be great. You’ll come back later as a ghost or something.

Stair : So JD wanted this guy Koko to have this totem at this fight; I suggested a trident, since it’s more nautical. But Anchorman had come out, and they had the fight scene with the trident. We still needed something, so we settled on a harpoon.

Lyons: In the second one, I’m supposed to get run through with my own harpoon. And Hunter showed up with a child’s little trident, taped to the handle of a barbecue fork. I was like Hunter, we can do better than this. So my roommates had a woodshop in the backyard; I went out there and drilled some holes, made some dowel rods, and wrapped the handle in rope. When I showed up with it, everyone said holy shit — you made a fucking harpoon, dude! It also split in the middle, so you could run it through someone. And that episode elevated Koko to this mythic level that nobody expected, least of all me.

Stair : You can’t kill Loggins. You can’t kill McDonald. These are real people. Koko had to die.

Lyons: My thought is that Koko fell on his own harpoon and martyred himself. I like to think that Koko was the Jesus Christ of Yacht Rock. [ Pause ] That’s going to sound arrogant. How about: Koko died to deliver smooth music to the rest of the musicians.

Huey: I don’t think it was ever decided who killed Koko until the very end. The important thing is, like Jesus, he died for a cause. Which, in this case, was smooth music. But you know what’s gonna happen if you’re in the middle of a melée with a bunch of guys from the mean streets of Philadelphia. You’re going to die of a harpoon injury. That’s why they call it the city of harpoon murders.

Randolph: I always assumed it was Oates.

Wyatt Cenac (“James Ingram”): Who killed Koko? You know, very good question. If I had to go with anybody… I’d say maybe Loggins and McDonald together. That’s the secret twist. I think they’d been slowly poisoning him for years, and the harpoon was just to throw people of their scent.

Ryznar : I don’t know. Is Tony Soprano dead? Hollywood Steve took the “Koko” answer to his grave.

Stair : I would never name names. Only Hollywood Steve knows for sure, and someone would have to give him big Hollywood dollars to spill.

Any Port in a Storm After 10 stellar installments, including a guest appearance by “Cleveland” Drew Carey ,  a case for Jethro Tull (the 18th century farmer, not the band) to be considered smooth and a primer on how Michael McDonald influenced Nineties G-Funk , Yacht Rock was canceled by Channel 101 after “FM” — about a gang war between the Eagles and Steely Dan. But help was on the horizon.

Ryznar : The record at the time was 12. We really wanted to beat it — but we didn’t. There might have been Yacht Rock fatigue in the audience.

Lyons: It’s not one of my favorites. I’m not a fan of the Eagles, and not a lot of people get Steely Dan.

Huey: Some people come back to Channel 101 month after month after month. But you always get some new people in there who don’t know what’s going on. You cross your fingers that general audience goodwill is enough to get you by this month. Unfortunately, in this case, it wasn’t.

Ryznar : It was heartbreaking, man. Because the great thing about Channel 101 is, you can feel when the audience isn’t into it. And the audience was not into this. I knew the 101 days were over as soon as the screening was done.

Stair : Nowadays, things have two- or three-year runs at Channel 101. Back then, 10 episodes was a lot.

Ryznar : Not even two weeks after we were canceled, I got an email from someone who booked a bar in Chicago — The Empty Bottle — and wanted to screen all the Yacht Rocks. I forget if they flew us out or if we just happened to be there, but we screened all the episodes back to back. There was a line down the block; the place was filled to capacity. People were quoting lines.

Huey: The show had started to go viral. Working lower level jobs in reality television, and then walking into a bar and being the most famous person in that room didn’t match up with my everyday experience at all.

Cast Off . . . Again After successfully touring the country, JD & co. starting making new episodes, beginning with Footloose. Featuring the likes of Jason Lee and Wyatt Cenac, it tells the story of how Loggins being kidnapped by Jimmy Buffett led to one of the Eighties’ most rockin’ soundtracks.

Huey: Yeah I was really excited to get back into it, because I didn’t really have too much else going on at that point. Let’s do that thing that made me semi-famous again!

Ryznar : We did the Footloose episode. And it turned out even better than I could have imagined. It was nice, since we weren’t limited to five minutes, even though we tried to keep it close: one of the keys to Yacht Rock is jamming everything into five minutes. I had done some work with Jason Lee, who would quote lines every time I saw him. So I asked if he’d play Kevin Bacon, and he was throwing chairs around.

Lyons: We kept talking about the stories that we never got to tell, one of them being Footloose. And I hate Jimmy Buffett ‘s music; I think it’s a soundtrack to date rape. I think it’s garbage music for people who have no interest in listening to anything good.

Ryznar : We portrayed parrotheads being brainwashed idiots. You kind of have to be if you’re into Jimmy Buffett. Or just want to be so tuned out of life, that like hey, whatever — kick back with flip flops, drink some margs, listen to some sweet Jimmy Buffett music and let him paint a rosy picture of a reality that does not exist.

Lyons: I always like that artists like Bertie Higgins, Rupert Holmes and Andy Kim have an authentic longing in their music. Buffett is a rich dude getting richer off of the lack of taste of the poor and stupid. He represents the lowest common denominator in music, even worse than country singers profiting off of 9/11. To summarize: I’m not really a fan.

Ryznar : You might be able to argue that Jimmy Buffett music is about escaping from a dark place, but there’s no soul in there. So we just wanted to make him an absolute idiot. Our good friend Vatche Panos, who is super funny, really hit a home run with that one.

Cenac: I remember when we were shooting that, I had no idea there was a song called “Cheeseburgers in Paradise.” Much less that people actually listened to it and liked it.

Ryznar : I hope he doesn’t mind me telling this story, but Wyatt Cenac had just auditioned for The Daily Show , and he was flat broke.

Cenac: Yeah, I was definitely very broke. That isn’t why I did it. I did enjoy it. But there was also a part of being broke where you’ll do anything.

Ryznar : And then a month later, he becomes Wyatt Cenac, the international sensation.

Cenac: Do I want to say that Yacht Rock was the thing that changed my life? Someone can say it. You can find someone to connect the dots and make that leap on the Internet.

Huey : We did one more, and I didn’t feel like the last episode came together as well as it could have for whatever reason. I think Footloose was a more cohesive episode. Also the original idea for the finale was Gene Balboa was going to kidnap all these people from the “We Are the World” session , take them to an island, and force them to write soundtrack hits for him. Anyone who tried to escape would get hunted down like in The Most Dangerous Game.

Ryznar : That was a hard one to write — the space battle, Hall and Oates shooting lasers, Loggins starting his soundtrack phase. I’m proud of killing off Hollywood Steve and making it a pain drug-induced hallucination. I think that let us go nuts with it. The “We Are the World” part was a fun shoot. You just look around and go, wow, I know so many talented people that are bringing so much to this thing.

Stair : The Hollywood Steve “character” was on morphine, not Huey. Well, he might have been on morphine, I don’t know. That’d be an awesome salacious story about Yacht Rock. Just write that, it’s even better.

Huey : When I was using, it did get increasingly harder to tell where the character stopped and I began. Once you’ve been on VH1’s “100 Greatest Songs of the Nineties,” the public expects you to maintain a certain image, and I guess I got caught up in a myth. [ Pause ] I’m kidding. But I did murder a homeless woman. Just to see what it felt like.

Farnham: One of my favorite moments of all of Yacht Rock is when Giorgio Moroder is whispering into Kenny Loggins’ ear about “the Danger Zone.” I love that. It’s such a good moment.

Ryznar : Loggins going soundtrack is kind of like the end of Yacht Rock. If “Sailing” is one of the greatest yacht-rock songs ever, and that’s in Episode Two, it’s all death from then on. “Danger Zone” — there’s just nothing smooth about that song at all. By 1985, Michael McDonald had released his last great album. The Doobie Brothers were done. Toto didn’t have any more good songs in them. Steely Dan was broken up. It was over.

How did the actual musical artists react to their portrayal in the show? John Oates (speaking to the Seattle Weekly in 2007): “I think Yacht Rock was the beginning of this whole Hall & Oates resurrection. They were the first ones to start to parody us and put us out there again, and a lot of things have happened because of Yacht Rock. “

Ryznar : People actually contacted me and wanted to see if I wanted tickets to [their] shows at the Hollywood Bowl. We went backstage and met Hall and Oates. There’s a picture out there somewhere of Drew Hancock and Wade Randolph with Hall and Oates — and it’s awesome.

Randolph: I don’t know who contacted who, but Oates had seen the show and was apparently a fan of it. Hall didn’t give a fuck about us at all. He was just like whatever.

Hancock: Oates actually understood what we were doing. First of all, he’s the shortest dude on the planet. I’m 5’8, and he looked at me and said, man you’re way too tall to play me. I think he’s 5’4 and had thick heels on too.

Cenac: Oates is the unsung hero in that group. The moment he decides to turn the jets on, watch out.

Lyons: The only negative thing I’ve ever heard from any of the actual people we’ve portrayed was that Kenny Loggins wasn’t a huge fan. My wife met him once, and said my husband played Koko in Yacht Rock. He just got all, huh. Not mean, not nasty. Just: Huh.

Stair : I’m not sure Loggins liked it, [but] I know his son did. A lot of the kids of the guys in the show like. You know, some serious artists. Michael McDonald, I’m pretty sure he liked it.

“I met Steve Porcaro at a book-release party, and he asked, ‘Do you guys hate us?’ We’re writing a love letter to this music and we meant no ill will toward anybody. Except for Jimmy Buffett.”

Michael McDonald (speaking to Time Out New York in 2008): “I thought Yacht Rock was hilarious. And uncannily, you know, those things always have a little bit of truth to them. It’s kind of like when you get a letter from a stalker who’s never met you. They somehow hit on something, and you have to admit they’re pretty intuitive.”

Lyons: Did JD tell you the story of when we went to see Steely Dan? We got contacted by somebody in their camp, I don’t remember who, but they gave us four or five tickets to see them in Irvine. We were in the third or fourth row, and Michael McDonald was the opening act. Those guys got recognized at the concert. Later, when Michael McDonald came out to perform with Steely Dan, they were all wearing captain’s hats. They were singing the song “Showbiz Kids”: “Showbiz kids, showbiz kids making movies themselves/Showbiz kids, don’t give a fuck about anybody else.” And during that line they threw their hats on the ground and stomped on them. We just looked at each other and went, oh my god, they know who we are.

Agee: About a year ago, I was at Largo, and one of the guys that works there is married to Steve Porcaro’s daughter. He was like, yeah, Steve is actually here tonight; he loves Yacht Rock, and said he wanted to meet me. I cut out early because I was honestly too nervous.

Stair : I met Steve Porcaro at a book-release party, and he kind of pulled me aside and asked, “Do you guys hate us?” And I was like, oh no, I hope that’s not the impression we gave anybody. We’re writing a love letter to this music and we meant no ill will toward anybody. Except for Jimmy Buffett.

Farnham: I actually worked with an editor who was good friends with the Toto folks, and they said it’s uncanny how close some of these stories are. Apparently there’s a lot more truth than we know.

Agee: So I can see how bands would be like, oh, they’re making fun of us. But I’ve known JD for awhile now, and I know for a fact that he loves that music. I don’t think someone who hated what’s now called yacht rock . . they wouldn’t spend so much time making videos about it.

Stair : The way I always looked at Yacht Rock was that we kind of did what the Blues Brothers did. We took the music that we really loved that we weren’t really part of, and reintroduced it to our own generation a little bit. The one thing that I hope we got across is that the music is really good, and that we were huge fans of it. The whole reason we did the show is because we loved it.

Lyons: I felt we always treated the music lovingly. It was always treated with respect; what we were trying to make fun of was all these guys hanging out and the ridiculous things they were into. I heard a story that Kenny Loggins got married in the nude. I don’t know if it’s true or not. But that’s the kind of late Seventies/early Eighties Southern California horse shit that is so delightful about Yacht Rock. Like wanting to find out what your root chakra is. That’s what’s funny about it. [ Pause ] I mean of course Kenny Loggins and Steve Perry are going to be into karate!

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