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LP
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MY 003LP
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Limited restock, last copies... An original sealed pressing of Michael Yonkers's Michael Lee Yonkers from 1974. Self-recorded in 1971 and '72, Michael Lee Yonkers has often been referred to as Michael's "country" album. It is many folks' favorite of his early works, and is likely the weirdest. The roughhewn quality of these recordings has caused listeners to make comparisons with other "real people" outsiders like Grudzien and the Holy Modal Rounders, but there are more obvious, well-known comparisons (Townes Van Zandt) that are at least as appropriate. There are clear references to various classic country stylings in these songs, even as Michael's unique distillation of their influence lends a delightfully skewed mischievousness to the proceedings. Released in 1974 and rescued from deep inside Yonks's storage space/weirdo museum.
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NN 020LP
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Currently out of print on CD, Michael Yonkers's Grimwood finally receives its long-overdue vinyl re-release (with download code included). Yonkers's first four LPs were released simultaneously in 1973, but it is Grimwood, his first, that regular commands the biggest bucks on the collector-scum market. Recorded in 1969, less than a couple years after the material eventually released as Microminiature Love, Grimwood sounds like it emanates from another universe entirely. Straightforward on the one hand, yet fascinatingly and psychedelically abstruse on the other, Grimwood remains an essential "outsider" document that sits comfortably (and irreplaceably) alongside Spence, Grudzien, Tweddle, and a few select others. "It would seem that Yonkers followed a trail that psychologically parallels the sun life highway, and his private flight took place in a presumably small hut, nestled on a lemonade lake, and from his chimney wafted rainbow smoke, in the fantastical haven of the mystical, mythical grimwood town for which the rec is named, as he attempted to allow light / space into areas of his psyche that hadn't seen enough of either in some time." --Karl Ikola, liner notes to 2007 CD reissue
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LP
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MYS 017LP
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"Do you know the numbers on people who are in it for life? They're small. Real, real small. Kids & jobs come along to make regular adults out of most musicians. Even the ones who get that glossy magazine coverage or score that signing bonus can usually be found selling insurance 10 years down the line. A select few balance against family time. Fewer still find jobs teaching, and often have no energy left for their own stuff. Nobody, and I do mean nobody, just keeps going. It's too hard. Michael Yonkers makes the energizer bunny look bad. He started making his own distortion (by slicing speaker cones) in the mid-1960s, built his own pedals, souped up his own guitars, and he's still making distortion now that he's in his late 60s. Even more unusual, his sound has gotten, if anything, cruder along the way. This is a collection that Yonkers put together from CD-s that he gave out to friends once a year between 2001 & 2008. What's here are hard rock songs, and they're goddamn well-written. Most of what you'll hear are huge, scratched up, convulsive whorls of distortion piled all on top of themselves until you can barely discern the pitch underneath. Wow...The guy also ran a record & ephemera shop named Loonland during the 80s. He's been a sheep breeder & a dance choreographer. He's built a home studio or two, at least one of which had to work while he was confined to a hospital bed that was installed in his house. Yonkers suffers from adhesive arachnoiditis, a nerve swelling that seizes up your back, brought on by a 1971 accident where 2000 lbs fell on him, and permanently exacerbated by a nasty dye used to get xrays of the spine.... His voice has aged a little, but It's still got a vibrato to it, mostly masked by the guitar here. But it's better suited for these lyrics, as they're a kind of burned & haunted you rarely hear." --excerpt from Angela Sawyer's liner notes. Silkscreened and hand-painted covers. Limited edition one-time pressing.
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DC 580LP
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2022 restock. "There's yet another musical color revealed on the uber-rare private press, Michael Lee Yonkers, which was home-recorded in 1971 and '72, while Michael was working in an unheated, hundred year-old warehouse. He ran the forklift and drove the truck for the company, hauling extremely heavy loads of industrial surplus and scrap metal. His co-workers almost exclusively listened to country and western music, which inspired him to create and perform an oddly countrified set on weekends, when he would play in coffeehouses and at house parties. Yonkers would do an acoustic set of original 'country' and 'rock' music for the first part, then he would get out an 'electronic music machine' that he had built himself and play 'electronic music' (quotes all added by Michael himself). Michael Lee Yonkers is a recording of some of the 'country' songs he was doing at the time, as well as a few songs he wrote for the children at the house parties (like 'Mrs. Jennings Fruit Fly Farm,' recorded live, where you can hear the kids going nuts). The tracks were recorded on a variety of tube-type, reel-to-reel tape machines, which give them a unique analogue sound that begs comparisons to outsider hillbillies like Peter Grudzien, Holy Modal Rounders, and The Legendary Stardust Cowboy, as well as beloved longhair outlaws like Townes Van Zandt and Kris Kristofferson (ok, even one St. Johnny Cash too). The original art and labels have been faithfully reproduced and, with a discreet remastering touch, the tracks sound better than ever."
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LP
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DC 428LP
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Repressed. "As of late 2009, the legend of Michael Yonkers has taken its place among the great stories of underground rock and roll music. He'd been playing rock and roll for nearly forty years when Microminiature Love was finally issued in 2003 (Sire had taken a pass way back in 1968). A thousand noise-rock ears pricked up -- for Yonkers, a reclusive Minneapolis dancer-musician with a handful of self-released records over the years, had seminally prefigured proto-punk/metal/noise through his own brand of amped up garage rock. Since the revelation, Michael has picked up where he left off, exploring blown-out frequencies with collaborators around the globe, and his work has claimed a seat next to immortals like The Fugs, Velvet Underground, Sonic Youth and even ol' Jimi. What a lot of folks STILL don't know is that Michael put aside his hand-built fuzz boxes and bellowing vocal style in the 1970s to record and self-release some truly curious albums of lilting loner-folk music, including Grimwood, Goodby Sunball and Michael Lee Yonkers. Of this holy trio of albums, only Grimwood has yet seen reissue. Throughout this time, Yonkers layered madrigal-like vocals, simple acoustic guitars, and used electricity in only the most subtle of ways - all to serve his somber, mesmerizing songs. This brings us to Lovely Gold. Planned as the fourth LP in his 70s trilogy, it was never released - a true crime, because it is an exotic work of homespun brilliance. Recorded in 1977 on a four-channel 'tube type' tape recorder that Michael built himself by combining parts of other machines, it is perhaps his most multi-faceted solo album. The trademark Yonkers chug appears (though more stripped-down and dreamlike) and even some spraying acidic guitar on the title track, but the sweeping choral voice arrangements on gorgeous hymns like 'Will It Be' are entirely unique and indeed lovely creations. What's more, while digging through his archives Michael located previously lost cuts intended for the album, including the harrowing, near-Krautrock glide of 'Nevermore.' Utilizing original photos and the exact layout specs/fonts/and notes of the planned 1977 Lovely Gold release, a lost classic at last becomes available -- once again! How many more reside in the Yonkers vaults? Only time (and Michael) will tell..."
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