Yacht Rock Revue Do Something Somewhat Original for a Change

OK, boomer… so you just forced yourself to watch the Grammys again, and you shook your head and waved your fist and perspired through the underarms of your holey old Doobie Brothers T-shirt and cursed the whole damned time, muttering, “Who is this? I’ve never heard of any of these people!!!” Well, I’ve got some bad news for ya. You’re gonna have to keep on waitin’ for whatever mythical rock ‘n’ roll renaissance you’re hoping for that’s never coming and even if it did you’d never recognize it ’cuz all you do is sit at home complaining and never take the initiative to actually seek out cool new music. But lo, you can at least pretend to relive your glory days through the magic of Tribute Bands! That’s right, any of your favorite old crappy groups (well, a cheap facsimile, but who really notices?) can be cheered on any night of the week at nightclubs and pub crawls and chili cookoffs throughout the land. And if your favorite band happens to be Pink Floyd or Led Zeppelin, you truly hit the jackpot, with upwards of three dozen different tribute bands to choose from based on those two alone!

But… what if… what if your favorite band is Ambrosia? Or Player? Little River Band? Gino Vannelli? Toto? Pablo Cruise? Or even the aforementioned Doobies? Where can you go, you lil’ rebel you, to satiate your never-ending hunger for soft-rock schlock? Well, we have a thing right here in Atlanta, Georgia, called Yacht Rock Revue that plays all that stuff and more. They used to be in original bands, but nobody really cared, so they came up with the hot concept of forming a combo that mines a playlist of ‘70s/’80s AM Gold for people that never had to endure it the first time around. That’s right, boomer – their audience largely consists of guys and gals who were mere infants, if even born at all, during the soft-rock heyday. But don’t you fret – this band’s safe for you, too, and better yet they don’t muck it up with anything outside the box, like all that non-music you suffered through on the Grammys – or any original music at all, for that matter!

Until now. Yes, I’ve heard concerned rumblings that, in the wake of their touring success (that’s right, my boomer friend – these dudes tour the country, and sell out theaters!) the Yacht Rock Revue crew have decided to incorporate original songs into their repertoire, albeit original material blatantly in the winky-wink tongue-in-cheek nostalgic style that’s been their cash cow. I’ve even listened to a smuggled bootleg cassette tape purporting to be the band’s debut album (out Feb. 21 and titled Hot Dads in Tight Jeans, is that some sort of a joke?) and it has a bunch of smooth disco-lite songs about margaritas and dancing and bangin’ that makes me wonder if they’re mocking this music as much as paying tribute to it. Regardless, I doubt if anyone takes it seriously enough to care. This could prove to be the band’s undoing… or it could catapult them into becoming a new (old) sensation. History does nothing if not cover, er, repeat itself. For whatever it’s worth, this is the present-day future of rock ‘n’ roll.