Smith, Sonny

Smith, Sonny

Sees All Knows All

Empty Cellar

Sonny Smith (Sonny & the Sunsets) has written a monologue, an hour long story, called SEES ALL KNOWS ALL. A tale of LOVE, SEX, DRUGS, SPACESHIPS, ROMANCE, HALLUCINATIONS, BITTER TEARS and CHAMPAGNE. A story set in a fast-disappearing San Francisco. A bohemian quarter-life crisis (in six parts) told by a man who never had anything to gamble with, but his life. As Sonny put it "Sort of a Spalding Gray typa thing if Spalding Gray had a band and wasn’t himself but was me."   Sonny premiered SEES ALL KNOWS ALL live with a band at The Lost Church in San Francisco. The run lasted five nights and each night featured a different musical guest: Kelley Stoltz, Tim Cohen (Fresh & Onlys / Magic Trick), Kyle Field (Little Wings), Alexi Glickman (Sandy's), & Sun Foot (Chris Johanson). It was very much a San Francisco thing. A nod, perhaps, to both Eggers and Ferlinghetti. Indeed, excerpts from this story have been published in San Francisco's reknown literature, arts, and culture magazine, The Believer.   Narrated by Smith, this audio recording of SEES ALL KNOWS ALL features sounds made by a talented group of local musicians including Kelley Stoltz, Shayde Sartin, Rusty Miller, James Finch, German Carracosca, Jordi Llobet, and Sonny himself. The result is a Joe Frank meets Michael Hurley meets R. Crumb production: a dry, witty, autobiographical look at the meaning(s) of life from an underdog with deep nostalgia for America's lost folk culture and a strong sense kinship with...

Smith, Sonny

One Act Plays

Secret Seven

***A new album from SONNY SMITH, performed without THE SUNSETS, but with guests NEKO CASE, EDITH FROST, MARK EITZEL, RICO BELL, JOLIE HOLLAND, ANDY CABIC, JOHN DWYER, and others. “The songs on One Act Plays started out as real one act plays written for the theater. But in writing them I began to make them songs at some point. I can’t remember when this mysterious shift happened. However, ultimately the plays as songs were performed on stage in a play called The Dangerous Stranger, so somehow it came full circle. The Dangerous Stranger was supposed to be about reality being the dangerous intruder of fantasy, and fantasy being a dangerous intruder to reality. I can't remember if the play was successful at conveying this idea at all. That was the kinda stuff on my mind at the time I guess. I had a few influences at the time I was writing them. One was Terry Allen's Juarez, a concept record with recurring characters. Also I was really into Sam Shepard at the same time so I was reading a lot of his stuff. A few of the songs, like 'Eddie and Rita' even have some stage directions lifted directly from one of his plays. The song 'Following Father' took a bunch of facts from my dad's cousin, a Texan who always had some get rich quick scheme that never lasted. I was trying to make some kind of Tennessee Williams like thing apparently. Epic! Large! Family! Redemption! Well, anyway, most...

Smith, Sonny

100 Records Volume Two - I Miss The Jams

Turn Up

***NOW AVAILABLE ON CD!!! Sometimes the community rallies around an individual and the results are undeniable. There is a long and winding back story to the SONNY SMITH’s (SONNY & THE SUNSETS) 100 records project, but all that you really need to know is that Sonny Smith, one of the brightest lights in SF's neu-Garage scene, has recorded an album that is one for the ages. Sonny wrote 200 songs that make up 100 conceptual 7-inch singles for a multimedia art show that traveled around the US this past year. Although Smith penned all the music he attributed his masterful tongue-in-cheek brand of laid-back garagepop tunes to mystical musicians like ZIG SPECK, EARTH GIRL HELEN BROWN and THE LOUD FAST FOOLS derived from Smith’s imaginative prose. Along with producer MARC DANTONA, Sonny assembled a “Wrecking Crew” of players the SF scene got together to record songs in basements and apartments around the city and a whole other team of visual artists contributed artwork for each record cover. Here you have 10 songs from the Sonny Smith’s 100 Records. Recorded on vintage gear, with local heroes such as TIM COHEN (FRESH & ONLYS), KELLEY STOLTZ, TY SEGALL, and members of THE SANDWITCHES and CITAY all contributing, this new music sounds as though it could be from a bygone age, one at once more innocent and more dangerous. While the artwork and the concept are both wonderfully original and compelling, it's the tunes that stand out here. Earth Girl Helen Brown's "I...

Smith, Sonny

Sonny & The Sandwitches (aka Throw My Ashes Off The Pier When I Die)

Empty Cellar

***Not long ago, SONNY SMITH (SONNY & THE SUNSETS) survived a near-drowning off the coast of Northern California. The experience affected him profoundly and led to a wealth of output including a play, a novel, and a stack of songs. Sonny's critically acclaimed 100 Records project is itself a direct product of Sonny's fight with the sea. A novel he began, Adelard the Drowned, broke into 100 pieces. Four of those pieces come as songs on this 7-inch EP, each bound to the next by a twisted braid of water and death. Through the fog and the haze, however, there lies in these songs a shared sense of redemption, transformation, or reawakening. Featuring appearances by HEIDI and GRACE of THE SANDWITCHES and a long-lost band called THE TRANSIENTS, this record features Sonny's songwriting at its strongest, staring death in the face. Perhaps, this is in part why the ocean gave him back. Recorded in San Francisco and mastered by PAUL OLDHAM, each record includes a comic book, four full-color covers, and a high-quality digital drownload.