April 9-May 31, 2010
Opening reception April 9, 6-9 pm. Live music with 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!
Sonny’s CDs include This Is My Story, This Is My Song, released in 2002, followed the next year by Sordid Tales of Love and Woe. His critically acclaimed album Fruitvale is a collaboration with Wilco’s Leroy Bach and other Chicago musicians that features songs Sonny wrote about his then neighborhood in Oakland. Watchword Literary Magazine commissioned Sonny to produce One Act Plays, a CD that includes Edith Frost, Neko Case, Miranda July, Jolie Holland, Andy Cabic, Virgil Shaw, Mark Eitzel, John Dwyer and Mekons’ Rico Bell, among other talented artists.
In 2000, he wrote and directed his first short movie “Kid Gus Man.” In 2005, he earned a residency at the Headlands Center for the Arts to write and perform the play "The Dangerous Stranger," and received a residency in 2006 from the LAB in San Francisco to produce part two of the saga, “Stranger Danger!”
Sonny’s CDs include This Is My Story, This Is My Song, released in 2002, followed the next year by Sordid Tales of Love and Woe. His critically acclaimed album Fruitvale is a collaboration with Wilco’s Leroy Bach and other Chicago musicians that features songs Sonny wrote about his then neighborhood in Oakland. Watchword Literary Magazine commissioned Sonny to produce One Act Plays, a CD that includes Edith Frost, Neko Case, Miranda July, Jolie Holland, Andy Cabic, Virgil Shaw, Mark Eitzel, John Dwyer and Mekons’ Rico Bell, among other talented artists.
In 2000, he wrote and directed his first short movie “Kid Gus Man.” In 2005, he earned a residency at the Headlands Center for the Arts to write and perform the play "The Dangerous Stranger," and received a residency in 2006 from the LAB in San Francisco to produce part two of the saga, “Stranger Danger!”
