New album Preserve Your Memories: A Simon & Garfunkel Journey available now on streaming services!
Preserve Your Memories Parts 1-4 is released as a single sound experience and as individual mini-albums.
Preserve Your Memories Mini-Album Parts 1-4
Preserve Your Memories: A Recording Journey
Through the windows of our Chevy station wagon, vast landscapes unfolded before us: endless plains, golden cornfields, towering mountains, dusty small towns, motorcycle convoys, serene lakes, even the frozen expanse of the Mississippi River. Music became the backdrop to these experiences. I’d wait impatiently for my turn to pick a cassette from the suitcase-like box in the front seat. With the world whizzing by, we sat and listened, the car becoming a moving concert hall.
It was the late 1970s. My family had embarked on a year-long journey across America, traveling by car from our East Coast home to the Pacific Northwest and back for my father’s work. At the time, I didn’t fully grasp what a profound gift these long trips would be for my musical formation and sensibility.
A Hazy Shade of Winter - Music Video
Photo: Sean Broedow
Biography
Michael Jacob Rinzel is a songwriter and multi-instrumentalist whose musical journey began in the 1980s in the DMV area around Washington, D.C. He first emerged with self-produced cassette releases as part of the bands Est X and Mushrooms. In the 1990s, he co-founded and co-wrote for the New York City group Poolsville, serving as the band's lead guitarist. His first solo project, Miguel and the Ocean Swell, was released in 2021, marking a new phase in his career.
During the 2020 pandemic, Rinzel recorded Strange Times under the pseudonym Est X, featuring guest vocals by his longtime collaborator and brother Mark Rinzel. In 2021, he revisited his archives, producing and mixing five digital albums of previously unreleased material from Poolsville’s 1990s recordings. That same year, he contributed both instrumentation and two original songs to a reunion album by the renamed Just Mushrooms.
With the 2025 release of his solo project, Preserve Your Memories: A Simon & Garfunkel Journey, Rinzel ventures into new territory. Though he had never worked in the tribute band circuit, he was drawn to the concept of creating a tribute album that reimagined the music of the iconic ‘60s folk duo. Over 2024 and 2025, he recorded, arranged, and performed 32 Simon & Garfunkel songs, crafting a sound-collage experience that unfolds like a concept album. The project is structured into themed segments—Bus, Snow, Spice, and Plane—each offering a distinct sonic atmosphere. Alternate mixes were created for both the smaller “mini-album” theme EPs and the full-length Journey album.
On the tribute project, Rinzel collaborated with longtime friends and musicians, including Joey Fortuna (his bandmate from Poolsville and Mushrooms) and his brother Mark Rinzel, who contributed guest vocals. Other special appearances include Andrew Widman (Just Mushrooms bassist), who played on “America.” Rinzel’s wife, Liz Arnold, and his daughter Lola Rinzel, also lent their talents to the project. All remaining instruments and vocals were performed solely by Rinzel, further solidifying Preserve Your Memories as a deeply personal and immersive tribute.