Sonny & the Sunsets, Kelley Stoltz
Recommended
It tracks that Sonny & The Sunsets’ upcoming LP, Hairdressers from Heaven, was produced in Portland with the help of the Shins’ James Mercer—in the work of affable Bay Area indie rocker Sonny Smith, it’s not hard to find shared musical DNA with the Shins, even when Smith’s aural experiments echo with everything from new wave to spacey fuzz to clear-eyed political anger. Hairdressers is the first release from Smith's new, crowdfunded label, Rocks in Your Heads Records, and it comes with a zine that’s also available online (one page, “WEAPONS USED AT CLUB DURING BAND VS. NAZI BRAWL,” boasts doodles of boots, shoes, and fists). Rocks in Your Heads also functions a bulwark against the Borg-like tech infestation that’s culturally decimated San Francisco and now spreads across the West Coast: "Clubs have closed. Artists have left,” Smith says in the PR copy for his current tour. But: "There are good bands in this city. There are great artists making bizarre shit. There are underground HAPPENINGS. There are SECRET shows. There are artists in the streets duking it out with Nazis. Shit is going down. The corporate bulldozers ran through the city and they are still driving around demolishing the place. These tanks are called Death and they bring a foul stench. Humbly, this label is our version of throwing nails at the tank tires.”
by Erik Henriksen
by Erik Henriksen