Today, Detroit-born, New York-based Michael Younker unleashes his new EP Date Nite Denim, which includes the titular title track, and gets ready to celebrate in Brooklyn tonight, details below. Listen to Date Nite Denim here.

Michael Younker’s music bursts with sarcasm that doesn’t take much energy to detect, heavy riffing guitars and straightforward but wild 80s rock n roll drums tell half the story already: that we are here to have a good time. He gets the point across with honesty, simplicity, levity, and precision.

Date Nite Denim, swiftly and with a pointed upwards tilt, follows last year’s deceptively un-self-conscious DEVO-esque debut EP Sweet Things. Since then, things are simultaneously getting more cleaned up, juiced up, and messed up. Date Nite Denim is pop songs you can’t stop singing in the shower, but it wears light-wash, worn-in Levis of old fashioned rock ‘n roll that delivers riff after juicy riff. There’s a bravery in the humor and an often-unreachable self-awareness in this brand of rock;

Michael Younker’s approach to music yanks the lo-fi origins of garage rock / big riffin’ into clarity. It feels like you’re riding a dirt bike in a shopping mall; like pulling out a Hungry Man TV dinner in a busy 4-star restaurant on a Friday night or eating Pop Rocks as you’re giving the most important speech of your life.

Of the EP, Younker says in earnest, as always, “The best part about making this record was involving such a huge cast of characters. Between getting in the studio with my whole band, the dozen background vocalists, and the teams that went into making the album arts – I collaborated with so many talented people, and walked away with exactly what I wanted. That’s not always an easy feat with so many cooks, but it was really energizing to have the trust of all my friends and colleagues. And for them to help me fullfil my vision so perfectly.”

Collaborators on the new music include John Zimmerman (drums) and Hunter Jayne (lead guitar), who play in The Muckers and Triathalon, respectively. To Michael, they’re best friends of a decade. Zimmerman and Younker pull song titles out of hats and write based off of only that, while he and Jayne have egged each other one with a flow of, “Oh, you wrote a great song? Watch this.” Now all on the same page, they’re having so much fun with it.

Photo by Chad Chilton
(Hunter Jayne, Michael Younker, John Zimmerman, Scott Dence)

The new music to come is wrapped up intrinsically with the polished artwork Michael sketches up and brings to life. You don’t need a video to see the song in action. A production designer by day, he’s well-attuned to visual storytelling with just one frame: there’s as much urgency in each guitar lick as there is in the parsed down lyrics — and just as much in each detail of a the artwork, hitting the sweet spot between overthinking and rushing through.

Michael Younker’s voice sits somewhere between Christina Halladay’s brutally charismatic full throttle feeling and the bratty, sassy, tossing-aside cadence of Broncho’s Ryan Lindsey, landing him somewhere near Wavves or Cyndi Lauper on “She Bop.” you’ve got the omni-present Ramones, Violent Femmes, Billy Childish that you’d expect. But, the unashamed big rock motifs on The Donnas’ Spend The Night. It’s in part thanks to this all over, self-admittedly half-blind curious wandering through sound that makes the Michael Younker experience so exhilarating. “Hmm…what if I did a Thin Lizzy song?” he asks, not really knowing much about Thin Lizzy.