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Great to see our friend Clifton Curtis from the Valdons today. He stopped by to check out the new Valdons single we are about to drop, “Stop, Wait a Minute Girl” b/w “Whatcha Gonna Do”. We’ll be posting info on when you can snap up these two sides of sweet soul loveliness very soon so keep an eye out. In the meantime, Have a listen!!

Grand Ole Opry’s New Star by George Jones has been pressed and will be shipping out this coming Tuesday. We still have a handful of the limited edition copies left, so make sure to grab one on blue vinyl + bonus 45 before they run out!

Great to see one of our favorite mags, Wax Poetics get on board with our upcoming 7″ release of new music from Twin Cities Afrobeat band, Black Market Brass. Read what they had to say about the band and the recordhere.Pick up a copy of the new single from our webstore.

We are very excited to announce that Secret Stash has just inked an exclusive distribution agreement with SRD in the UK. Since the beginning our records have been available in the UK (and other European territories), but this is a game changer. Our new agreement with SRD means Secret Stash titles will be more widely available in the United Kingdom and for a much better price.

Since its formation in 1987 as a physical music distributor of Southern Records releases, SRD has become one of the biggest of its kind in Europe, delivering a service that specialises in both physical and digital distribution to shops, stores and online platforms. Always standing independently, SRD is now run by the people who have worked to make it what it is today. Secret Stash is thrilled join the SRD roster alongside Light In The Attic, Daptone, Tru Thoughts, and many other excellent record labels.

Here is to our new friends across the pond!

-Eric
Co-Founder, SSR

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