Here we are doing our thing on our home turf. Hope you dig it!

Many thanks to David Tullis and Orrin Pratt for their work on this video.

Thank you to everyone who braved the crappy weather and come out to Icehouse last night. It was tons of fun. We unveiled a couple of new tunes, including two that we wrote during our songwriting excursion up north last month. In case you didn’t make it out last night, here are some pics. We’ve got some exciting gigs lined up over the next couple months. Stay tuned for more info.

Man, what a weekend! We performed with the entire Secret Stash Soul Revue at the Summit Brewing Company’s Backyard Bash in St. Paul, MN. The Lakers were the house band for the show which featured Wanda Davis, Jackie Harris, The Valdons, Willie Walker, Maurice Jacox, Sonny Knight, and master of ceremonies, Fancy Ray McCloney. Putting this show together has been a ton of work, but this weekend proved that it was all worth while.

With some members of the Revue coming from out of state, we had to squeeze in one solid rehearsal during which we could run the entire show top to bottom. We started rehearsing at Secret Stash at 6:30 Friday night and went until almost 11.

someone needs to make us look good! -photo by Casey O’Brien

Then we had to load in at KARE 11 TV at 6:45 Saturday morning for a live performance featuring Sonny and Maurice Jacox. We hung out for the entire two hour show and performed a couple tunes and a handful of short teasers. It was fun, and considering we only got about 60 seconds for a sound check, it sounded surprisingly good on air. You can watch it for yourself below.

Setting up -Photo by Bryan Highhill

Right outside the TV studio -Photo by Bryan Highhill

Looking pretty good for barely getting any sleep. -photo by Casey O’Brien

We loaded up all our gear and left the TV studio around 10:30. After a massive breakfast and a couple bloody marys it was nap time. We met up at 4:30 at the Summit Brewery in Saint Paul and hit the stage at 6 for a 90 minute set with the entire Soul Revue. What an awesome event. Everyone from Summit, the MN Music Coalition, and Spectrum audio were super accommodating. It was 95 degrees out, not exactly ideal suit and tie weather, but we made do.

Many thanks to our good friend Cory Wong for filling in for Blair on guitar.

photo by Bryan Highhill

photo by Bryan Highhill

a man this fancy gets his own theme music -photo by Heather Foss

photo by Casey O’Brien

Wanda Davis doing her thing -photo by Heather Foss

Maurice Jacox taking us back -photo by Heather Foss

The Valdons giving the folks a lesson in showmanship -Photo by Heather Foss

Fancy Ray McCloney..simply beautiful -photo by Heather Foss

Funky Drummer -photo by Heather Foss

This weekend The Lakers rhythm section went up north with Sonny to work on writing some new tunes. We stayed in a completely secluded little A-frame cabin in Mora, MN. Complete with the most impressive assemblage of perennial plants I’ve ever seen and plenty of free range cats and chickens, this place was like something out of a weird-ass dream (good weird, not bad bad weird!). Armed with liquor, our instruments, a portable recording rig, and a Califone record player for down-time entertainment, we spent the entire weekend completely submerged in the songwriting process. Not only was it a ton of fun, but we also got a lot accomplished. It’s so much easier to write when you leave all the distractions of day to day life behind.

For me I think the highlight of the trip came on Sunday morning. After a long night of enjoying adult beverages a few members of crew were moving a bit slow. I set up the Califone in the den that we had been playing in and started spinning a stack of gospel records I’d brought up with me. There was something about that music that seemed to bring everyone back to life. Before long we were sitting around learning these obscure gospel tunes and playing them together. Eventually we shut off the record player and started crafting our own gospel-influenced songs. It’s funny, everyone knows that gospel is the foundation of soul music, but I think most people that learn soul music today don’t spend much time with gospel. In my humble opinion, they’re missing out on something great. Sitting around a cramped little A-frame room with my friends playing this energizing, revitalizing music was one of the best experiences I’ve ever had playing music. My hope is that we can keep that feeling close and continue to blend it into our sound.

-Eric Foss
Drummer for The Lakers
Founder of Secret Stash

Here are some pictures from our trip….

John, the engineer, took this pic from his loft-control room

boom box

Brandon, the free range kitty loves soul records

takin’ ‘em to church

This last Friday before Labor Day is a busy one for many folks gearing up to take advantage of the last weekend before summer unofficially begins the transition to Fall. And with a long weekend just a few hours away, we are excited to share that 89.3 The Current has made “Hey Girl” by Sonny Knight their Song of The Day. While supplies last, you can get a free download of “Hey Girl” from The Current website!

Download it here!

Whether you’ve got a long drive to the cabin, a backyard BBQ, or a night of relaxing and listening to tunes in store, I can promise that Sonny Knight & The Lakers will make great companions.

Hope you enjoy it as much as we do!

~ Will

This is a video from the 2 sessions that made up the Hey Girl 7”. We cut a few other sides during these sessions as well. The setup for the sessions was simple as all get out… band live with Sonny doing guide vocals. The philosophy behind getting the sound was pretty simple, and I’m not going to bore you with technical details*. Get everything sounding good in the room, and then mic it up. Put it on tape, then mix it down. The Lakers are a great group, so any compression or eq-ing by me on any of these tracks was merely to keep me busy rather than necessity.

Vocals were redone afterward simply because this was my first session in the room and I didn’t really know how vocals would have turned out with the whole dang band in there. The sessions were real easy. I got nice and tuned, and just yelled over the intercom between takes.

-John Miller, Studio Dad

* Technical Details
15 ips, +3
Drums: RCA 44bx + beyer M160 (summed down to one channel)
Bass: Sennheiser 421
Guitar: AKG d200e
Horns: RCA 44bx
Organ: Shure KSM44 (You really only need one microphone for a Leslie.)
Sonny: Shure KSM44
(that’s six tracks for those playing along at home)

Well we just couldn’t wait any longer. Our debut single is being pressed right now, but in the meantime, we thought we’d give you a chance to hear the A-side for yourself. The lyrics to “Hey Girl” were written back in the 70s by Sonny. One Saturday early this year Sonny and I met up at the Secret Stash offices to kick around some song ideas. I started playing this sort of boogaloo riff and Sonny just jumped right in with these lyrics that had been in his head for decades. I recorded the whole thing on a little 4 track machine I have for demoing out ideas. We tinkered with it for while and eventually brought it to our new band, The Lakers. Casey O’Brien (bass) took it and added some much needed flair to it and really helped shape it into what you hear today.

This recording of “Hey Girl” was produced in our new studio. I built the studio in our Uptown, Minneapolis office space with help from my parents (my Dad can build anything). We’re in the basement of a 100 year old building (with surprisingly high ceilings) so the actual room has a very distinct sound to it. It’s funny because Sonny’s first ever recording was done just a few blocks down Lake Street from our office in the basement of a record store that no longer exists.

Our Chief Engineer, John Miller, moved his gear into the space and has since run all of the sessions conducted at Secret Stash. “Hey Girl” was one of the first things we ever recorded in the new studio. All of the instruments were recorded live in one room direct to tape. Sonny did scratch vocals but then we laid down the keepers the next day.

Anyhow, I could go on for days about this, but instead, why don’t you just lace up your dancing shoes and give this new track a listen….

-Eric Foss
Secret Stash
The Lakers

The Secret Stash Soul Revue will headline the Summit Brewing Company’s annual Backyard Bash on Sept 7th, 2013. Sonny Knight will perform alongside Willie Walker, Maurice Jacox, The Valdons, Wanda Davis, and Jackie Harris.

Saturday, September 7, 2013
Summit Brewing Company: 910 Montreal Circle, St. Paul, MN 55102
Noon-8pm behind our brewery at 910 Montreal Circle, St. Paul
$18 in advance/$20 at door (includes fees)
21+ only (No exceptions. EVERYONE must show an I.D.)
Rain or Shine (no refunds)
50% of ticket sales goes directly to the Minnesota Music Coalition (MMC), a nonprofit service organization dedicated to supporting Minnesota’s independent music community.

Live music by the Secret Stash Soul Revue, Haley Bonar (full band), The New Standards, Lizzo (featuring Lazerbeak), Night Moves,and Charlie Parr & Friends. Hotpants DJs will be spinning Rare Soul, Deep Funk vinyl between sets. David Campbell from 89.3 The Current and Ellen Stanley from the Minnesota Music Coalition will be our hosts.

Sonny Knight has been busy this summer laying down some seriously soulful tunes. Much more info to come, but here are a couple of photos to gaze upon in the meantime…