105 Live listeners will be familiar with Lawrence instrumental funk-jazz outfit The Yards. Host Nick Carswell has featured multiple tracks from the band on the show and a February 2025 live set at The Bottleneck was recorded and broadcast on the show alongside an interview with founding members Bradford Hoopes (keys) and Kelly White (drums).
To celebrate their 25th year as a band, the current four members (including Michael Hamm on guitar and Mario Vlasic on bass) set aside a couple of days in late May to hang out, recount old stories, and play music together at Crooked Road Farm in Holton, Kansas.
The band invited good friend, guitarist, and engineer Mark Murtha to record the sessions (as well as to play on a couple of tracks) then selected their favorite moments from the weekend to create this new album. Crooked Road Sessions is scheduled for release on all major streaming platforms beginning November 5th, 2025.
But for now, enjoy this exclusive premiere of the album opener "Apostrophe", credited to keyboardist Bradford Hoopes:
The Yards' Kelly White spoke with 105 Live's Nick Carswell about the making of this new record and their 25 year musical career!
Nick Carswell (NC): Congratulations on 25 years and this new record! How did this album come to be recorded on a farm in Holton, Kansas?
Kelly White (KW): My 18 year old son operates a CSA (community supported agriculture) program on our 60-acre farm in Holton. He operates under the name "Crooked Road Farm LLC" (named for the oldtimer's slang referring to an unmaintained county road that borders part of our property). My wife and I bought the farm from her grandmother in 2003 and have lived there ever since.
On the property there is a guest house that has been empty since Grandma Novena passed in 2023, and it makes for a beautiful, quiet, isolated recording space. I've recorded lots and lots of drum tracks there for different projects over the last couple of years, and when The Yards started looking for a place to record this new album, I thought it would be perfect! Mark Murtha brought his portable rig, we set up the living room for the band, the kitchen for the engineering room, the bedroom and closets for isolating speakers, and there you go!
NC: The Yards are celebrating 25 years as a band. What has changed in that time for you? What keeps you together as a band?
KW: Personnel has changed for the band over the years. The list of prior members is long: Bradford and I along with Brian Baggett (guitar), Tom Johnson (bass), and Eric Johnson (guitar) recorded the debut album in 2000. Danny Rojas played drums for a stint in 2002-2004 when I was living in Mexico. Brian Mitchell played guitar on a few early gigs before Michael Hamm took over in 2003. Bass players have included Dave Shelton, Chris Shaw, Chris Handley, Brad Maestas, Floyd Gardner, and finally Mario Vlasic who has been with us since 2021.
Over 25 years we've all grown more mature, more experienced, more versatile, more confident and willing to experiment. What's always, always stayed the same is our love of writing funky original music and playing it together as good friends. The Yards are much more than a band. At this point, we're all family. We find true joy in spending time together both on stage and off.
NC: What's coming up for the band?
KW: Our December show at Lucia will be our album release party. We'll be playing the album in its entirety and selling physical CDs, the profits of which will be donated to the Elizabeth Ballard Community Center to assist needy families during the holidays. Additionally, we've committed to the third Thursday of every month at Lucia during 2026, and we have return visits in the works for The Ship, Nighthawk, and The 1909 Club in the KC area. The "Shows" tab on our website is always the best place to find our up-to-date performance schedule.
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Thursday November 13th: Lucia in Lawrence (with special guest Dave Gnjoek on sax)
Saturday November 15th: The 1909 Club in Lee's Summit
Thursday December 11th: Lucia in Lawrence
Learn more about The Yards at https://theyards.band/
