Sonny Smith feat. Neko Case - "Troublesome Affair"

I copped Sonny Smith's One Act Plays last summer after a Sunsets show in DC. The hand-drawn packaging caught my eye, as did the album title. I was imagining Smith showing off his acting chops with a few melodramatic monologues. Instead, what were originally written as plays were transformed into a series of comical and occasionally heartbreaking songs—and they don't dissapoint. With a supporting cast that includes Vetiver's Andy Cabic and Thee Oh Sees' John Dwyer (misspelled as "Dwire" on my copy), the prolific Smith delivers his usual impeccably crafted pop goods. A major highlight and selling point is the duet with Neko Case: "Troublesome Affair." With Case playing the "lonesome cheater" character, the two voices slowly waltz over a mellow strum of acoustic guitar as they get acquainted with each other's "sinful stares," "lonesome bodies," and eventually feed their "starving souls." Basically, Smith and Case have sad lonely sex. Apparently that makes for great music.

Originally released in 2005 on CD, One Act Plays is now being rereleased on vinyl by the good folks at San Francisco's Secret Seven Records in an edition of 400 hand-numbered copies. Pick it up here.  

Sonny Smith feat. Neko Case - "Troublesome Affair" (from One Act Plays)

Sonny & The Sunsets - "Pretend You Love Me" / Kelley Stoltz - "Caroline"

Two gems recently surfaced from San Franciscan vintage pop connoisseurs Sonny Smith and Kelley Stoltz. "Pretend You Love Me" is off Smith's third LP as Sonny & The Sunsets and it breaks from Hit After Hit's sun burnt 60s pop territory for the heartbroken country. According to Smith's new label, Polyvinyl, every song on Longtime Companion was written during his breakup with a girlfriend of 10 years. The warm bouncing bass, room-filling hits of slide guitar, and a touch of flute on "Pretend You Love Me" recall at times the Marshall Tucker Band or a softer Allman Brothers cut, but Smith's voice brings it all back home, and the song's laid back swinging vibe proves the perfect shelter for his melancholy. Stoltz, also the drummer for the Sunsets, recently released his newest single, the thumping "Caroline," as a vinyl single on French label Les Disques Steak. A muted bass, handclaps, and a few understated guitar and organ riffs provide the perfect backdrop for Stoltz's classic pop sensibilities as he pines over Caroline, the girl that's been "sung about so many times."

Preorder Longtime Companion from Polyvinyl and get instant access to the MP3s. Order Caroline from Les Disques Steak, which boasts fantastic cover artwork by Smith.

Sonny & The Sunsets - "Pretend You Love Me"

Kelley Stoltz - "Caroline"

Sonny Smith :: 100 Records Vol. 3

Sonny Smith has gotten some serious mileage out of his 100 Records project, using the 100 tracks from his various fictionalized bands to fill out releases like last year's excellent Earth Girl Helen Brown EP and Sonny & The Sunsets' even better, Hit After Hit. Smith is now on his third volume of material from 100 Records, which he's releasing on Spanish label Glitter End. The cover of the release is the 7" art for fictional band The Specktones, a piece which we first featured in the Analog Edition zine courtesy of Sonny back in 2011. Below, check out two cuts from Vol. 3, including one by The Sunsets' playfully named relatives, Danny Dusk & The Twilights.

Order the vinyl from Glitter End.

Danny Dusk & The Twilights - "Life Ain't Clear" (from 100 Records Vol. 3)

Sonny Smith :: This Is My Story, This Is My Song

I've been mesmerized by the music of San Francisco's Sonny Smith from the moment I first heard his breakout 2009 single, "Too Young To Burn." Whip-smart, playful, and timeless, Sonny's music draws on everything from classic folk singer-songwriters like Woody Guthrie and Jonathan Richman to Doo-wop, Beat poetry, surf-rock, and 50s girl groups. Releasing music under his own name, with his band the Sunsets, and in fictional groups that utilize a revolving cast of friends like Earth Girl Helen Brown (Heidi Alexander of the Sandwitches), Zig Speck and His Specktones (Ty Segall), and the Loud Fast Fools (Tim Cohen of the Fresh & Onlys), Sonny has earned a reputation as one of contemporary music's most prolific and creative talents. And Sonny doesn't just churn out records—he makes consistently great ones, like this year's superb Hit After Hit. Don't believe me? Dial the time machine back 10 years and play This Is My Story, This Is My Life—his second release, and a classic.

Video: Sonny & The Sunsets - "Reflections On Youth"

Sonny & The Sunsets have released a video for "Reflections On Youth," one of the many highlights off their latest LP, Hit After Hit, which I've already gushed over here. The video features Smith and the rest of his Sunsets playing around a mystical orb which eventually transforms the musicians back into their former young selves—back to a time when stealing sodas and candy bars was all the rage. Watch Smith's psychedelic nostalgia after the jump.

Review: Sonny & The Sunsets :: Hit After Hit

Hit After Hit may not have a classic once-in-a-generation caliber single like Tomorrow Is Alright's "Too Young To Burn," but the second full-length from Sonny and The Sunsets is a remarkably executed affair that registers as this group's strongest statement to date: A magnum opus of playful, whip-smart and vintage minimalism of 50s and 60s-inspired California pop sunshine.

The guitar riffs, vocal harmonies and grooves all harken back to images of a twisting and hip-shaking, bob cut, milkshake drive-in drinking youth that's been famously cemented in films like American Graffiti, Beach Party and later re-stylized in Pulp Fiction. But as openly derivative as Sonny Smith's musical diction is, the songwriting here never once comes across as a copy or inauthentic. On the contrary, Smith's voice is one of the most refreshing and original in contemporary pop music. When I listen to songs like "She Plays Yoyo With My Mind" or "Don't Act Dumb" (which employs the lyrics: "Saw you for across the room, talking to some dude / Saw you leave with him, thought you might be dumb too / Girl, don't act dumb"), I honestly don't know whether to barrel over laughing, applaud, or dance and sing-along (the answer is usually a combination).

Tim Cohen :: Magic Trick

I'll take the wide-eyed psychedelic pop wanderings of San Franciscans like Sonny Smith, the Sandwitches, Thee Oh Sees and Fresh and Onlys over the inundated hipster shores of Brooklyn any day. Whereas fads and trends have the tendency to dominate much of the independent New York music scene, the indie pop coming out of San Francisco of late has had a convincingly timeless tint. Fresh off his success with the Fresh and Onlys' latest LP Play It Strange (and its searing anthemic single "Waterfall"), bandleader Tim Cohen has thrown another fistful of sonic treats into the world via his third solo LP, Magic Trick. "What's the matter? You've never seen a man on fire? / Bring me water, if you want to keep me alive," sings Cohen on album standout "I Am Never Going To Die." The line is a typically humor-filled punch-line delivered with the songwriter's sly insight and melancholic disposition. Especially rich here is Cohen's voice, dipped in sweet reverb and delivered in a casual and deep resonance—a tone simultaneously warm in familiarity and refreshing in its distinctiveness. The album is out now on Brooklyn label Captured Tracks (yes, I know, geographic generalizations never really work out).

Tim Cohen - "Don't Give Up" (from Magic Trick)

The Sandwitches :: Mrs. Jones' Cookies

"...Is there any question the distinctive singing of Grace Cooper and Heidi Alexander represent mercy and severity? Roxanne Brodeurs’ beats the brazen pillars of the Flesh? Their latest effort is a sanctuary of spiritual illumination crossed with earthly splendor, a hushed witness to the perfect virtue of equilibrium, a flaming sword for the listener to thrust into the coronet of their adversary..." – Sonny Smith

Mrs. Jones' Cookies is a masterpiece, albeit a wholly deranged and out of this world one. Album-opener "In The Garden" brings Eden to life in a dangerous and temptation-filled world of cat-calling howls and seductive word play, including the head-turning phrase "I want you to lick my ass in the garden." What's clear throughout the album's ten tracks is that very few contemporary bands are capable of writing and performing music both this simultaneously sophisticated and out-of-sync with popular music. Time truly has no foothold or place in the world of the Sandwitches. Sure, there are aspects of 60s and 70s folk and psychedelia, but those tones and shades of familiarity all dance around on their heads in colors never before seen. Am I drooling yet?

2011 In Briefs: An Ongoing Saga

New Sonny & The Sunsets: Hit After Hit

Everybody Taste regulars Sonny & The Sunsets have announced their second LP, Hit After Hit, due out April 12th on Fat Possum. The album features several cuts Sonny Smith composed for his 100 Records project, including "She Plays Yo-Yo With My Mind" and "The Bad Energy From LA Is Killing Me" by respective fictional groups Weed and Durango Dexter & The Dolphins. The album's title also shares the name of a track Smith wrote for his side project, Earth Girl Helen Brown. While it may be hard to keep up with Smith's interconnected grab bag approach to releasing music, what's clear is the quality of his craft: timeless 50s and 60s-inspired instrumentation, an effortlessly cool and nonchalant vocal delivery, and clever lyrics woven together by a thread of simplicity.

Sonny & The Sunsets - "I Wanna Do It" (from Hit After Hit)

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)

Sonny & The Sandwitches - "Throw My Ashes Off The Pier When I Die"

San Francisco's Sonny Smith, the bright talent behind Sonny & The Sunsets and the vast 100 Records exhibition that's been traveling around the country, just announced that he will be releasing four songs from the latter project as a 7-inch. While many of the band's featured in Smith's 100 Records are fictional creations, Sonny & The Sandwitches is simply a collaboration with the fellow San Francisco band's Grace Cooper and Heidi Alexander. The record, due out on December 11th from Endless Nest, can be pre-ordered here. Grab the first of four tracks, "Throw My Ashes Off The Pier When I Die," below.

Sonny & The Sandwitches - "Throw My Ashes Off The Pier When I Die"

Here's another track from 100 Records: Earth Girl Helen Brown singing "Story of An Earth Girl"

Sonny Smith's 100 Records

Sonny Smith, the talented San Franciscan songwriter behind the great Sonny & The Sunsets, created 100 fictional bands and wrote and recorded an original song for each for the unbelievably fun project "100 Records." Along with the music, Smith pairs hilariously low-budget original album covers created by himself and fellow artists. To top it all off, the 100 songs can all be played on a jukebox built by Smith. "100 Records" was recently shown at San Francisco's Gallery 16 and is now at Brooklyn's Cinders Gallery through to September 5th. Check it out if you're in the area. If you're not, like me, then let's hope these songs get a release.

Sonny & The Sunets - "The Hypnotist" (from The Hypnotist 7")

New Sonny & The Sunsets 7-inch

Folk singer/songwriter Sonny Smith (a favorite here since the release of his excellent Tomorrow Is Alright) has released a new 7-inch with his band Sonny & The Sunsets on Future Stress Recordings. The single—which includes the great "Stranded" and three new tracks—is available in black or blue-yellow vinyl. The first 100 orders will receive a limited-edition comic, penned and illustrated by Sonny himself. Buy it here.

Sonny & The Sunsets - "Stranded" (from The Hypnotist [b/w] Stranded 7")