Fri
Aug
17
Sonny & The Sunsets
MAGIC TRICK, Archives Of Oblivion
PhilaMOCA
531 North 12th St.
Philadelphia, PA, 19123
Doors 8:00PM / Show 8:30PM
This event is all ages
Sonny Smith began singing while a patient at Warm Springs Foundation Hospital in Texas, to amuse the other patients.
Quasi-mystical with a tendency to write about new-agey subjects such as hypnotherapy, extrasensory perception, fortune tellers, palm readers and channelers Smith has been given his own genre by the press as 'pop supernaturalism'.
He was released from Warm Springs in the care of his brother and wife, Ryan Browne and Tahlia Harbour who soon became his backing band, Smith changed his name several times in this phase; Sonny Berger, Declan (Sonny) Burke, Sonny Smith and Dave Gil.
He left the band after a week and moved to San Francisco where he quickly landed back in psychiatric care. It was there at the Canyon Manor Rehabilitation Center north of San Francisco that he met Kelley Stoltz who became the drummer and third and final sunset. Stoltz sent for the other two sunsets and they arrived in San Francisco a week later.
On and off they lived out of a Browne's Toyota van for the next three years. They embarked on a triple album in late 2009 but a hurricane hit the coastal studio they were recording in and most of the tapes were destroyed as well as their equipment. What's left is Hit After Hit. They returned to Alaska, where Browne has a mother.
Magic Trick is Tim Cohen (Fresh & Onlys, Black Fiction), Noelle Cahill, Alicia Vanden Heuvel (#poundsign#, Still Flyin), and James Kim (Kelley Stoltz Band, Court & Spark).
Empty Cellar Records is proud to announce the latest full-length album by Tim Cohen, The Glad Birth of Love. This is Tim Cohen's fourth album following his 2009 debut, The Two Sides of Tim Cohen (Empty Cellar), and two full-lengths (Laugh Tracks / Tim Cohen's Magic Trick) and one EP (Bad Blood) on New York's Captured Tracks label. Featuring guest appearances by John Dwyer (Thee Oh Sees), Grace Cooper (The Sandwitches), Diego Gonzalez (The Dry Spells, Citay), and several other San Francisco musicians, The Glad Birth of Love is the first Tim Cohen album to not directly bear his name, but the name of his band, Magic Trick. Recorded in a tower at Tim Cohen's home this album marks a departure from his signature radio-ready song craft. The Glad Birth of Love is a 45 minute album composed of four epic long-form compositions saturated with Tim's uncanny pop sensibilities and vivid lyrical imagery. Transitioning seamlessly from sparse acoustic blues, to dense bass & oud ragas, to layered of lush vocal harmonies this album is a culmination of Tim's work to date.
"As a lyricist, Fresh & Onlys frontman Tim Cohen clearly evokes the early era of rock'n'roll he also explores in his music. His chord changes are simple without being rudimentary, his lyrics are romantic without being cheesy, and-- perhaps most notably-- his output is outrageously prolific without skirting inconsistency." --Pitchfork
