Sonny Smith's Earth Girl Helen Brown Gets Vinyl Release

Sonny Smith is set to release more songs from his massive 100 Records project, this time from the spacey 60s-inspired R&B of fictionalized group Earth Girl Helen Brown. As on the Sonny & The Sandwitches release, Smith is again accompanied here by the Sandwitches' Heidi Alexander. Blogger label Forest Family will release the six-song 10" EP from the duo March 1st, but you can pre-order the vinyl goods now.

Here's the Earth Girl backstory courtesy of Smith: Helen Brown was born in Vancouver, Canada, but raised in an Athens, Georgia-based religious cult, and was blinded in one eye from a childhood baseball injury. As an adult, she dropped out of Evergreen and traveled the country for a while as a nomadic psychedelic folksinger, before forming her first band One Eyed Tramps. For years, she lived alone in a mountaintop in southern Alaska, where she befriended a Cherokee Shaman (later revealed as a fake) who encouraged her to pursue a frustrating academic career. Rampant drug use, frequent fainting on stage, and occasional self-inflicted knife wounds on stage led to more interest in her stage antics than her music. However, a few sides did emerge in the late ’90s (recording dates unknown), which feature a unique mix of country, girl group, R&B, and ghoulishness. Crude and amateurish at best, these recordings are appreciated for their sincerity and intensity of feeling.

Earth Girl Helen Brown - "Hit After Hit" (from Story of An Earth Girl)

Earth Girl Helen Brown - "I Wanna Do It" (from 100 Records Vol. 2)