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In early 2000, keyboardist Bradford Hoopes and drummer Kelly White began chatting about making a good old-fashioned funk record. Bradford and Kelly had already worked together for a number of years in the Topeka-based variety band EZ Pieces, but they wanted to do something other than cover tunes; something original, danceable, super funky, and kind of old school. Something akin to The Meters.
So they booked a single day (Sunday, November 5, 2000) at Z'gwon,th Studios in Lawrence, Kansas, assembled some of their favorite players (Tom Johnson engineering and playing bass, Tom's brother Eric Johnson on guitar for the morning session, Brian Baggett on guitar for the evening session), then showed up at the studio with little more than a general groove-based aesthetic and a few basic song ideas.
The result of that one-day session was The Yards' self-titled debut album, a magical mix of eleven songs in eleven different keys (they were shooting for all twelve but simply ran out of time and energy), mixed, mastered, and burned to CD for local distribution before they turned off the lights and locked the doors.
In the years since that fateful Sunday, The Yards have undergone a number of personnel changes (Michael Hamm took over the guitar chair in 2003, and most recently Mario Vlasic became the band's bassist in 2021), but no matter the lineup, they've always continued to record new music and perform live as often as possible hoping to share their musical joy and enthusiasm with as many listeners as possible.
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