Young James Long

In 2003 P.W. Long, formerly of Mule and Reelfoot, was recording a solo record in Dallas.

Kirkland James, who had played guitar with Tenderloin and had also toured as lead guitarist for Alejandro Escovedo, was producing the record and playing slide guitar on some of the tunes.

A young Dallas drummer, Taylor Young from the band Hi-Fi Drowning, was brought in, at the suggestion of recording engineer Stuart Sikes, to play drums on some tracks.

James and Long dug how the kid played. They had a few riffs and song fragments they had been working on anyway and were looking for a drummer for a new project. So the three of them, James, Long and Young (none of which can remember how they came up with the band name) holed up in a north Dallas rehearsal spot and began to woodshed for a few weeks before embarking on a summer-long weekly residency in 2003 at Muddy Waters, a venue in the Lower Greenville district in Dallas.

Even though Young was soon wooed away by hard-touring acts Polyphonic Spree and Young Heart Attack for a couple years, YJL recorded the tracks for what would be become “You Ain’t Know the Man,” a 5-song EP released in Europe only in 2006. YJL managed to squeeze in a European tour in 2007.