Usually, we add less than one item a month to our store… but last week we went a little overboard, so we figured it deserved a post. You can click on the covers above or links below to learn more about these solid vinyl releases by Empty Cellar related artists.

Sonny Smith – 100 Records Volume Two: I Miss The Jams, 5 x 7″ Box (Turn Up! 005)
Tim Cohen – Laugh Tracks, LP (Captured Tracks 62)
The Sandwitches – Makes Me Sick, 7″ (Southpaw 12)
Fresh & Onlys – August In My Mind, 12″ e.p. (Captured Tracks 46)
Bonnie “Prince” Billy & The Cairo Gang – Wonder Show Of The World, LP (Drag City 2012)
Pillars & Tongues – Protection, CD (Contraphonic 074)

San Francisco record label Turn Up! has taken Sonny Smith’s most ambitious project of all time to a whole new level of ambition. This winter, they are releasing the second recorded volume of Sonny Smith’s 100 Records Project (the first being a very limited edition portfolio of Prints and tunes). The thing – titled I Miss the Jams – is beautiful! It is a fully decorated box (designed by Sonny) carrying five 7″ singles (45rpm), each encased in a stunning full color glue-pocket sleeve featuring artwork contributed by a slew of amazing artists that participated in the 100 Records Project. Each box comes with a download code too, so you can listen to Sonny’s jams anywhere you go with a mobile listening device.

Best of all, the music is ballin’ and features an all-star cast of San Francisco musicians including: Ty Segall, Heidi Alexander (The Sandwitches), Tim Cohen (The Fresh & Onlys), Donovan Quinn (Skygreen Leopards), Kelley Stoltz, and members of Citay. HAWT DAWG!

Listen to “I Wanna Do It!” from I Miss The Jams by Earth Girl Helen Brown (Heidi Alexander of The Sandwitches) below:
[audio:http://www.endlessnest.com/mp3player/source/05IWannaDoIt.mp3]

The 7″ Box is extremely limited (only 300 in existence), so get one quick from Turn Up! or the Endless Nest Store. Don’t worry if you miss out on the box, because the CD version will be made available starting this tuesday.

Tune in to 100 Records Updates at the Turn Up! 100 Records blog.

(covers top-left to bottom-right by: Kyle Field (Little Wings), Chris Johanson, Scott Hewicker, Kyle Ranson)

SONNY SMITH: 100 RECORDS
April 9th – May 31, 2010
Opening reception Friday, April 9, 6 – 9pm
Gallery 16
501 3rd St
San Francisco

Live music by
Sonny and The Sunsets
and
The Sandwitches

Gallery 16 is pleased to welcome San Francisco based artist, musician and playwright Sonny Smith to his first solo show with the gallery. 100 Records is a dauntingly ambitious project that bridges his interest in art, music and dramatic form. Smith invited 100 artists to produce artwork for the record covers of fictional bands. Smith concocted the personas of each 100 fictitious bands, then wrote and recorded two hundred songs (the A side and B side) for each. All of the original artwork will be on display as well as a jukebox that plays all two hundred songs recorded by Sonny Smith and other notable musicians. Artists include, William T. Wiley, Mingering Mike, Chris Johanson, Reed Anderson, Jo Jackson, Harrell Fletcher, Chris Duncan, Tucker Nichols, Paul Wackers and 91 others!

…and in Sonny’s words:

This is a year long project that began at the Headlands residency last march. I’ve written 100 songs for 100 record jackets hand made by a shitload of artists. Also there will be a handmade jukebox to play all the songs. there’s gonna be a Volume 1 limited edition box set put out by Gallery 16 available for sale with some limited edition reproductions signed by some of the artists. This thing is a sight to be seen. Later in the year there will be a volume 2, 3, 4 etc.. Which is exciting and I will tell you more about
that soon enough.

So don’t be afraid to celebrate this oneness of one-of-a-kind togetherness/oneness with five or six glasses of (free) wine.!!!

…and in the immortal words of Endless Nest:

THIS RULES!

Keep your ear to the ground for beautiful limited edition 100 Records releases from Turn Up! and Empty Cellar records.

Read This Article or visit the Turn Up! 100 Records Blog for more information.

This morning, Gorilla vs. Bear premiered The Sandwitches first official music video, “Kiss Your Feet”, taken from their debut LP “How To Make Ambient Sadcake” (Turn Up!).

The video – starring the band – was filmed in entirety at a remote cabin over the course of a single remarkably-creepy foggy night in a wooded area in Northern California. It is full of horror that you cannot unsee. The director, Joey Izzo, is a young Bay Area filmmaker who has logged hundreds of hours of live music footage, and created music videos for Port O’Brien among others. We love it, and hope you do to!

A note from Director Joey Izzo:

When I was racking my brain for video ideas, drummer Lance’s low budget creepy-as-all-hell Halloween costume popped into my mind. And from there, the rest came pretty quickly. I tried to come up with something that utilizes iconic horror movie imagery without obnoxiously paying homage to any specific films. But perhaps most impacting was the song itself and the ghostly lovesick imagery it was able to conjure up in my mind.

The best comment I’ve received so far was from a friend who, after watching the video, told me he didn’t realize that the song was so dark until now. I think a video can be deemed a success when it’s able to touch upon a feeling deeply embedded into the song and bring it out in an interesting visual context.

New San Francisco label Turn Up! records has officially released the debut record by the Sandwitches. It is titled How To Make Ambient Sadcake. We were lucky enough to get a handful copies for our store, and it is also available at Aquarius Records. It is a killer debut… it shreds… but don’t take our word for it… take Kelly Stoltz‘s:

“The Sandwitches came out of nowhere. Well…that’s not quite right of course…but sometimes it happens, when you get three DNA’s together doing their own tunes, you kind of forgot what they were up to before. Or at least that’s what happened when I first wrapped ears around the sounds contained herein. A Holy Communion of Roky Erickson and Stevie Nicks. A lyrical beauty too. Strings bobbing around like loose wires on the headstock, chiming and picking away and baking the ambient sadcake. Tomorrows beat, learned yesterday or some time ago in band from back when. More jazzed up than the Moe Tucker and “Be My Baby”. Boom and crash – loose/tight – on time and free. When the daylight pop appears, upbeat introductions keep you comfortable for a spell, but the hopeful sun has soon gone down and there are now more questions and apologies amid the darkness – and the headline reads “The Carter Family Goes Electric”. But there are no taunts of “Judas!” this time, only “Midas!” = yeah the one with the golden touch. Something cool and beautiful and true is happening here. The Sandwiches are bringing this vision to life. Imagine a 60’s Girl-group is on tour and their van breaks down near a gothic castle high on the hill, Dario Argento invites them in to perform a concert for his tweaked actors in a big dark red room inside and, if the dream is right, it’s the Sandwiches – they’d fit right in with those misfits and speak the same language. I’d like to be there to dance.

Close your eyes and you’ll see what I mean. These are fab, haunting tunes wrapped in tender weird pop. That’s what we got here. A heavy party you want to hang out at.”
–Kelley Stoltz

…and Aquarius Records‘:

“The three ladies in the band have done time in great San Francisco bands like Brilliant Colors, The Fresh & Onlys, Pillars Of Silence and it is kind of cool how if you did put all three of those bands in a blender the sound of the Sandwitches can really be imagined. So many bands of late seem to be so dialed into such a narrow and small palette of sounds so it’s really refreshing to hear a band who are no one trick pony, but instead cover lots of musical ground but do so with a cohesiveness that is often really tricky to pull off like The Sandwitches do on this debut. In lots of ways the record makes us think of what it would sound like for a band on Woodsist to cover Fleetwood Mac’s amazing record Tusk.

There is also something so honest and sincere about their delivery that you get the feeling they would play these songs with as much conviction and emotion in their living room filled with a few friends as much as they would on stage at a packed venue.”
–Aquarius Records