Today’s song is “Hit After Hit” by Earth Girl Helen Brown. Helen Brown was born in Vancouver, Canada, but raised in an Athens, Georgia-based religious cult, and was blinded in one eye from a childhood baseball injury. As an adult, she dropped out of Evergreen and traveled the country for a while as a nomadic psychedelic folksinger, before forming her first band One Eyed Tramps. For years, she lived alone in a mountaintop in southern Alaska, where she befriended a Cherokee Shaman (later revealed as a fake) who encouraged her to pursue a frustrating academic career. Rampant drug use, frequent fainting on stage, and occasional self-inflicted knife wounds on stage led to more interest in her stage antics than her music. However, a few sides did emerge in the late ’90s (recording dates unknown), which feature a unique mix of country, girl group, R&B, and ghoulishness. Earth Girl Helen Brown comes from Sonny Smith’s (Sonny & the Sunsets) uber-ambitious 100 Records project. The band now consists of Smith himself, as well as Heidi Alexander and Grace Cooper of the Sandwitches. This song is off their upcoming EP Story of an Earth Girl.
Listen below and for more information on Earth Girl Helen Brown check out their MySpace page. The Story of an Earth Girl EP will be out March 1st and is available for pre-order now via Forest Family Records.