Kay Bank Studios was a recording studio in Minneapolis, Minnesota at 2541 Nicollet Avenue, now Creation Audio. Daniel Heilicher and his brother Amos started in a business together in the 1930s, distributing and stocking jukeboxes. In 1954, they founded Soma Records ("Amos" backwards), and started producing records in cooperation with Vernon Bank, owner of Kay Bank Studios. [1]
Eventually a number of huge hits would come out of their efforts at the studio, including the Fendermen's "Muleskinner Blues", Dave Dudley's "Six Days on the Road", the Trashmen's "Surfin' Bird", [2] and The Castaways' "Liar, Liar". Those last two singles were hits from Minneapolis's golden, mid-1960s era of teenage rock, and their success inspired countless garage bands to entertain dreams of one-hit-wonderdom.
Among those who traveled to Minneapolis to record were Bobby Vee's band the Shadows ("Susie Baby"), and Chad Allan and the Reflections (later the Expressions, who became The Guess Who), who recorded "Shakin' All Over". [1]
The principle record labels who used Kay Bank services for recording, pressing and distribution:
Applause, Bangar, Garrett, Golden Wing, Kay Bee, Lodestar, North Star, Pleasant Peasant, Re-Car, Soma, Studio City and Twin Town.
Kay Bank employed a matrix starting with the letters KB followed by a 2,3, or 4 digit number. In the year 1960, Capitol records used the letters kb (lowercase) for their custom records division. These can be identified by the dash between the letters and numbers, which Kay Bank does not have. Beginning in December 1964, the matrix dropped the KB letters in favor of the year of production followed by a dash and a four digit number, such as 5-5477. This can be interpreted as the 5477th record produced by Kay Bank, in the year 1965.
In the 1980s, the Nicollet Avenue building would become the headquarters of influential independent record label Twin/Tone Records. [3]
In 2015 the historic recording studio was incorporated as a 501(c)3 nonprofit by Eliot Skinner.
The Jayhawks are an American alternative country and country rock band that emerged from the Twin Cities music scene in the mid-1980s. Led by vocalists/guitarists/songwriters Gary Louris and Mark Olson, their country rock sound was influential on many bands who played the Twin Cities circuit during the 1980s and 1990s, such as Uncle Tupelo, the Gear Daddies and the Honeydogs. They have released eleven studio albums, with and without Olson, including five on the American Recordings label. After going on hiatus from 2005 to 2009, the 1995 lineup of the band reunited and released the album Mockingbird Time in September 2011; Olson left the band for the second time after the tour to promote the album. After another hiatus in 2013, the 1997 lineup led by Louris reunited to play shows in 2014 to support the reissue of three albums originally released between 1997 and 2003. Since then, the band has continued to tour and record, releasing the albums Live at The Belly Up in 2015; Paging Mr. Proust, co-produced by Peter Buck, in 2016; Back Roads and Abandoned Motels in 2018; and XOXO in 2020.
The music of Minnesota began with the native rhythms and songs of Indigenous peoples, the first inhabitants of the lands which later became the U.S. state of Minnesota. Métis fur-trading voyageurs introduced the chansons of their French ancestors in the late eighteenth century. As the territory was opened up to white settlement in the 19th century, each group of immigrants brought with them the folk music of their European homelands. Celtic, German, Scandinavian, and Central and Eastern European song and dance remain part of the vernacular music of the state today.
Nicollet Mall is a twelve-block portion of Nicollet Avenue running through Downtown Minneapolis, Minnesota, United States. It is a shopping and dining district of the city, and also a pedestrian mall and transit mall. Along with Hennepin Avenue to the west, Nicollet Mall forms the cultural and commercial center of Minneapolis.
Nicollet Avenue is a major street in Minneapolis, Richfield, Bloomington, and Burnsville in the U.S. state of Minnesota. It passes through a number of locally well-known neighborhoods and districts, notably Eat Street in south Minneapolis and the traffic-restricted Nicollet Mall in downtown Minneapolis.
The Trashmen were an American rock band formed in Minneapolis in 1962 and are best known for their biggest hit, 1963's "Surfin' Bird", which reached No. 4 on the Billboard Hot 100. The original line-up of the group featured guitarists Tony Andreason and Dal Winslow, bassist Bob Reed, and drummer Steve Wahrer.
Nicollet Park was a baseball ground located in Minneapolis, Minnesota, United States. The venue was home to the minor league Minneapolis Millers of the Western League and later American Association from 1896 to 1955.
KTLK – branded News/Talk AM 1130 and FM 103.5 – is a commercial radio station licensed to Minneapolis, Minnesota. It broadcasts a conservative talk radio format to the Twin Cities radio market and is owned by iHeartMedia, Inc. The studios are on Utica Avenue South in St. Louis Park.
KQRS-FM is a classic rock radio station in the Twin Cities region of Minnesota. The station is licensed to suburban Golden Valley, transmits from the KMSP-TV tower in Shoreview, and is owned by Cumulus Media, with studios in Southeast Minneapolis in the Como district.
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The Twin Cities Marathon is a marathon in the Minneapolis–Saint Paul area which normally takes place the first weekend in October. The race is often called "The Most Beautiful Urban Marathon in America" due to a course that winds through downtown districts, then along parkways that hug lakes and waterways all throughout dense urban forests in the neighborhoods of both cities.
Nicollet Island is an island in the Mississippi River just north of Saint Anthony Falls in central Minneapolis, Minnesota. According to the United States Census Bureau the island has a land area of 194,407 square metres (0.075 sq mi) and a 2000 census population of 144 persons. The island makes up a large part of the city-designated Nicollet Island/East Bank neighborhood. The island is named for cartographer Joseph Nicollet, who mapped the Upper Mississippi in the 1830s.
Twin/Tone Records was an independent record label based in Minneapolis, Minnesota, which operated from 1977 until 1994. It was the original home of influential Minnesota bands the Replacements and Soul Asylum and was instrumental in helping the Twin Cities music scene achieve national attention in the 1980s. Along with other independent American labels such as SST Records, Touch and Go Records, and Dischord, Twin/Tone helped to spearhead the nationwide network of underground bands that formed the pre-Nirvana indie-rock scene. These labels presided over the shift from the hardcore punk that then dominated the American underground scene to the more diverse styles of alternative rock that were emerging.
WCCO is a commercial AM radio station located in Minneapolis, Minnesota, and owned by Audacy, Inc. Its studios and offices are located on Second Avenue South in Downtown Minneapolis. WCCO features a news/talk format, with frequent newscasts and sports programming. Local hosts are heard most hours of the day and evening, including Chad Hartman, Vineeta Sawkar, Paul Douglas, Jordana Green and Adam Carter, Jason DeRusha, and Henry Lake. Overnight, two syndicated shows are carried: Our American Stories with Lee Habeeb and America in the Morning with John Trout. World and national news is supplied by CBS News Radio. WCCO is the flagship radio station for the Minnesota Twins baseball team.
Grain Belt is a brand of beer brewed in the American state of Minnesota, by the August Schell Brewing Company. The beer has been produced in a number of varieties. Grain Belt Golden was the original style introduced in 1893. The current offerings are: Grain Belt Premium, first introduced in 1947; Grain Belt Premium Light; Grain Belt Nordeast, introduced on April 7, 2010; and the newest offering, Grain Belt Lock & Dam, introduced in 2016. It was originally produced by the Minneapolis Brewing Company which formed with the merger of four smaller brewers in 1891. Soon after introduction, Grain Belt became the company's flagship product. It was brewed at the original Grain Belt brewery in Minneapolis, Minnesota until 1976. A series of other owners followed, and Schell took over the product line in 2002.
Stevens Square is the southernmost neighborhood of the Central community in Minneapolis. It is bordered on Lyndale Avenue on the west, Franklin Avenue on the south, and Interstates 94 and 35W on the north and east, respectively. The portion west of Nicollet Avenue can be referred to as Loring Heights; the portion to the East as Stevens Square.
The Gestures were a teenage American rock band based in Mankato, Minnesota. The members of the band were Gus Dewey (guitar), Tom Klugherz (bass), Dale Menten (guitar/vocals), and Bruce Waterston (drums).
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Soma Records was an American record label, based in Minneapolis, Minnesota, and owned by wholesale record distributor Amos Heilicher. The Soma name was "Amos" spelled backwards. Heilicher, along with his brother Danny, was also in the jukebox and wholesale record distribution businesses, and owned the Musicland chain of retail music stores.
Ed Ackerson was an American musician and producer from Minneapolis. He produced or engineered dozens of records including works by prominent artists such as The Jayhawks, The Replacements, Motion City Soundtrack, Soul Asylum, Golden Smog, Dave Davies of The Kinks, Wesley Stace, Mason Jennings, Mark Mallman, John Strohm, Brian Setzer, Lizzo, Pete Yorn, The Wallflowers, Rhett Miller of The Old 97s, Jeremy Messersmith, and Juliana Hatfield. He owned a recording studio in Minneapolis, Flowers, and co-founded the Susstones record label. Ackerson led several notable Twin Cities pop/rock bands including Polara and The 27 Various, and released several solo records under his own name. He was also a prolific producer of albums by Twin Cities bands, and was regarded as one of the linchpins of the Minnesota music scene.