Amy De Wolfe had joined our Musical Group a few weeks before the Wild Jam ” Cat Cheez”

was recorded (November 19 1973 Pasadena,CA.), and later that night we called ourselves SMEGMA for

the first time.

Ju Suk Playing Bass

Eric Stewart (Ju Suk Reet Meate) was born in 1952, to a non-musical family in Covina Calif and played trumpet in fourth grade through high school marching band, then stopped playing music. However shortly after moving to Pasadena in 1972, and with no further musical training “The Artist ” Ju Suk Reet Meate was born, and with the help of many friends, started the band Smegma (the band without musicians) in 1973 which continues to this day. He moved to Portland, in 1975 and started Pigface Records, putting out Tiny Quantities of 45’s , EP’s, LP’s and cassettes, some with hand drawn covers that are now very collectible. He has played live gigs(mostly in Portland),several times a year, ever since. Recently, he has performed collaboratively as The Tenses with Rock and Roll Jackie (also of Smegma) and solo at the High Zero Festival 2010 in Baltimore.

At this time Ju Suk Reet Meate is mostly playing lap steel guitar, pocket trumpet, cassette loops, Sydrassi Organus (Synth), toys, petals and percussion, and has been the musical director of the music group Smegma for 50 years

Jackie Stewart (a.k.a Oblivia) started working with sound as a medium in 1979. After early experiments involving electric guitar and vocals, Jackie Stewart found her voice on the turntables when she discovered the link between her visual collages and her sound work. Usually found performing with avant/psych/folk pioneers Smegma, her recent solo project entitled “uncracked” reveals a playfully disturbed sound world where toys and turntables are manipulated to conjure sound as faded memory, familiar to all, yet just beyond the far side of recognition. In 1979, Stewart started performing live improv pieces, inspired by the so-called “punk” music” scene, joining Gumby Antichrist with X.J.Elliot and Jerry A. (later known as Poison Idea), where she played guitar and performed experimental vocals. In 1983 she joined joined Smegma where she also played guitar, saxophone, cow bell, tape loops, Casio, electronics, Drums, Bass, turntables and vocals and has been known under such assumed names as, “rock and roll Jackie” and “Oblivia.” As a member of Smegma, Stewart has performed live with the Dead Kennedys, the Butthole Surfers, Perry Robinson, 1/2 Japanese, Merzbow, the Boredoms, Wolf Eyes, Tom Recchion, Steve Mackay, Aaron Dilloway and Joe McPhee. As a member of Smegma, Stewart has appeared on more than sixty recordings including Wolf Eyes/Smegma (De Stijl Records, 2003) Smegma with Steve Mackay – Thirty Years of Service (Radon, 2004) and Rumbings (Hanson Records, 2005). Recent years have seen the re-release of several early Smegma cassettes and Lps on CD including Pigs for Lepers (Pigface, 1982/Harbinger Sound, 2006) and Live 1991-1993 (Pigface Mojo 1994/ Resipiscent, 2006).

Working solo, Stewart recently performed as Helen Blazes 1904 at the Color Out of Space Festival in Brighton, UK (November 2006). She also appeared at the 7th annual High Zero Festival in Baltimore, performing alongside Jenny Graff (US) and Fuyuki Yamakawa (Japan) as well as performing solo. Other live collaborators have included The Beast, Replicock, Alessandro Bosetti, Dave Smollen, Joseph Hammer and Caroliner among others. Her current projects include compositions for Smegma, Replicock and Rodney Forest and collaborations with Nate Young of Wolf Eyes and John Weise. Stewart was featured on the cover of modern music magazine “The Wire” in conjunction with a feature article on Smegma.

Ace Farren Ford

Has been on the outskirts of the outskirts of music for over 50 years. In 1971 he began exploring the concept of free music with his group Ace & Duce, originally a duo, later a quintet featuring Rick Snyder, Dennis Duck and Tom Recchion. In 1974 he joined the then newly formed noise rock group Smegma, and in 1975 helped to form the Los Angeles Free Music Society. He has appeared on more than 70 releases on lp, cd, singles and tapes. He has played in groups as diverse as the Child Molesters, Rancid Vat, Crowbar Salvation, the Hurtin’ Bros., the Shadow Project, Heltir, the Mystery Band, the South Pasadena Free Music Ensemble & Airway. In 2007 he officially rejoined Smegma and has appeared on several releases, joining them recently to play London, Sweden & the Getty in Los Angeles. He is a tattoo artist for 18 years, published 4 books of poems, and has exhibited his paintings and collages since 1994.

Ace Farren Ford Photo by Heiko Purnhagen 2012

               An original Pasadena Smegma member from 1973, He stayed in L.A. and in 1978, co-founded and wrote most songs for The Human Hands . He then co -founded (with Steve Wynn) a very successful Rock band, The Dream Syndicate  1982.  Dennis was also very involved with the( Los Angeles Free Music Society) L.A.F.M.S. from the beginning with the group Doo-Dooettes and many solo recordings. After a few quiet years He has resumed playing live  with The  Human Hands   and Smegma in 2007, and  is currently playing shows internationally with a reformed The Dream Syndicate .

Dennis Duck (L) and Allen B. Lloyd 1976 at 35 S. Raymond

Denis Mehaffey ( Dennis Duck ) Drums and Percussion

I am Bradford Hostetler aka Chucko Fats aka Charles Portly aka Blobbo Headhunk aka DK aka Big Dirty aka Donkey Flybye aka Unholy Phobe. I grew up in Temple City, a suburb of Los.Angeles, nestled between El Monte and Pasadena. Raised by wolves on a diet of hot dogs, I mutated early on. As a child I was fascinated by the avant music of early science fiction movies such as the great Louis and Bibi Baron soundtrack for ‘Forbidden Planet’, Bernard Herrmann’s great score for the ‘The Day the Earth Stood Still’ and the soundtrack for Andy Worhol’s favorite movie, ‘Creation Of the Humanoids’. My early teen years were spent listening to the free form radio station of the late ’60s, KPPC out of Pasadena where I was exposed to the work of groups like Frank Zappa’s Mothers Of Invention, The Fugs, The Move, The Bonzo Dog Band, the work of jazz giants Charley Parker, John Coltrain and Eric Dolphy, various ethnic music and field recordings. When my high school friend and early Smegma member HG first played a Captian Beefheart song for me, my mutation was complete. Because Cheese It Ritz, Dennis Duck and Pizza Rioux were friends and classmates of mine I exposed them all to Beefheart. I met Ju Suk Reet Meate at a New Years party on the last day of 1970. At that time we were all still in high school and living with our parents, Ju Suk in West Covena and the rest of us in Temple City.

After high school ended, most of us got together and rented a place in Pasadena on Oakland Street, along with Jerry Bishop (who would later become president of LAFMS) and Ju Suk’s boyhood pal Cheesebro. That was where our interests in playing our own music really began to develop in earnest. Dennis began playing drums, Ju Suk began playing bass and I bought my first guitar and began looking at it funny. We all hung out at Poo Bah Records where we met Amazon Bambi, Ace Farren Ford, Tom Recchion and many other fine people, some who would go on to become LAFMS. Our house soon became unlivable partly due to police raids brought on by biker infestation. We moved to another house in Pasadena, this time on Adena Street. Ace soon moved in and that house would become the actual birthplace of Smegma. When that house became too crowded and the neighbors too dangerous and intrusive, the band, Dr. Id and Jerry all moved to Bub Manor, a massive two story house on Los Robles street. That was the house where Smegma and Wild Man Fischer would record what later became an album together.

By the summer of ’75, Ju Suk, Dr. Id and I had enough of life in L.A. Even though it meant leaving Ace, Cheese It and Dennis behind in Pasadena, we moved to Oregon, first to Corvallis and finally to Portland. For a short while the only playing members of Smegma were Ju Suk and I but others joined over time. Amazon Bambi moved in with us and Dr. Id began playing music with us himself. I met Hair Cess Pool while working at a bank parking cars and invited him to join. Smegma did a couple of shows and began releasing records on Ju Suk’s own Pigface Records label. The first Smegma album was released on Pigface, often called either Glamour Girl or I Wear Teeth but in reality called Five Years Wasted. Then the punk movement hit Portland and Smegma made a shift and an even more eclectic push into it’s roots, early rock, proto-punk, surf, blues and experimental music.

We did a few shows at a church, a tavern and at a Portland art gallery were I was approached by Jerry A (who later founded Poison Idea). When Jerry told me that he liked the show, I asked him if he had an instrument, Jerry said yes and I said “Practice is on Tuesday” inviting him to join his first band. At this point immersed in the Portland DIY punk scene, Smegma picked up other players from that scene to work with, great people like Michael X King, Mike Shirley, Marla Vee and Oblivia, who became a core member of Smegma and the wife of Ju Suk. I came up with the idea for Flashcards, a song based on a pack of actual flashcards and a riff Smegma had been working on. It became a single on Pigface Records and was picked up by Mute records and released by them in England as a popular split with NON. Hairy C. Pool came up with and sang In the Murder Room and Cleavland and helped write the lyrics for Mutant Baby. Cheese It had moved to Portland, rejoined Smegma and came up with the Pigface Records single Disco Diarrhea. Smegma released our second album Pigs For Lepers and Ju Suk simultaneously released his brilliant fist solo album, also on Pigface. The band was constantly changing, new people came in and left. LAFMS was putting out records and tapes, Smegma collectively and members individually were on many of those releases. We started getting lots of invitations for splits and comps with people like Nurse With Wound and many, many other great avant and noise bands.

We played quite a few shows with great bands like the Wipers, Jungle Nausea, Rancid Vat, the Neo Boys, Sado Nation, the Hell Cows, the Hickoids, Ice Nine, Caroliner Rainbow and opened a few shows for the Dead Kennedys. We opened some shows for the Butthole Surfers. We played Satyricon with Poison Idea. We got an offer from the English label Dead Man’s Curve and they put out Nattering Nabobs of Negativity. We got an offer to release an LP composed of some of our older singles and songs and called that Smell the Remains. Around this time I developed some serious health and personal issues and finally left the band in around ’90, only to rejoin it twenty years later, once again joining Ju Suk, Oblivia, Ace Farren Ford and Dennis Duck to bring more recordings, LPs and cassettes straight from us to your ears. That is my part of the Smegma story.

Maddy In Whitby, Yorkshire ,UK 2013

Madelyn Villano

plays violin and electronics. She moved to Portland after high school in Bend, Oregon  to attend Reed College. She is majoring in music, with a focus in ethnomusicology and enjoys exploring the rich DIY community of Portland through performance and event planning .

Marta Zapparoli & Jackie “Oblivia” Stewart “Live in Berlin”

Marta Zapparoli & Jackie “Oblivia” Stewart
Hisham Mayet & Ju Suk Reet Meate
Chiara Giovando
Madelyn Villano
Visuals by Mia Ferm

Saturday Sept. 24

Meeting of the Minds brings together local legends Jackie Stewart and Ju Suk Reet Meate of Smegma with guests Marta Zapparoli and Hisham Mayet of Sublime Frequencies. Marta Zapparoli and Jackie Stewart will premiere a new collaborative composition. There will also be solo performances from Chiara Giovando and Madelyn Villano as well as visuals by Cinema Project’s Mia Ferm. The performances coincide with the first exhibition opening of Disjeta’s CIR season 6. Come for the opening and stay for the show!
$5.00-$15.00 sliding scale

8317 N Interstate, Portland OR 97217
Co-presented with Flock, sound Tim Westcott

Marta Zapparoli is an Italian experimental sound artist, improviser , performer, and musician. She works and lives in Berlin since 2007. Her music mainly consists in strongly narrative sonic pieces that she builds using a wide variety of recording techniques. Although it could be qualified as abstract, Zapparoli’s music reveal an accurate sense of nativity, her soundscapes, built using real-time tape manipulation and mixing, creating sounds that are considered non-musical or overheard are usually qualified as dense,
tense & strongly emotional.

Jackie “Oblivia” Stewart started performing sound in 1979 in Portland, Oregon. Mostly performing within groups until 2001, when she performed a DJ “throw down” of sorts (both DJ’s performed at the same time) and it ended up as a collaboration. Groups Jackie has performed in include “the improvs” (1979), “Spy vs. Spy” (1980), “Babylon 2000” (1981-83), and “Smegma” (1982-present). Though Stewart experimented on guitar and very much enjoys vocals, she has found her focus with turntables. Her visual art medium is assemblage or collage, so it comes naturally to Jackie to assemble sounds. She enjoys hearing how beautiful or humorous “mixing” can be, in the same way things come together visually when assembling her cut-up art pieces. With Smegma she says “I can enjoy a freedom of expression, totally unrestricted and of my own: as in I choose to interpret what my part will sound like. It has enabled me to learn much about recording and live performance.” Jackie’s sounds have appeared on dozens of releases, both solo and in group formats, in addition to her work with video.

Hisham Mayet is not a musician.  He is also not an artist.  He lives on the “other side” of 82nd Ave.  Its all these these things that
he’ll bring to an event that should inspire to free the shackles of the mental prison that seems to perpetuate the ironic cages of Portland OR.

Ju Suk Reet Meate was born in 1952, to a non musical family in Covina Calif and began playing Trumpet (not very well) in 4th Grade public school thru High School marching band. Shortly after moving to Pasadena in 1972, and with no further Musical training ” The Artist ” Ju Suk Reet Meate  was born, and with lots of help from friends Started the band Smegma ( the band without musicians)in 1973 which continues to this day.    Moving to portland, in 1975 He started Pigface Records ,putting out Tiny Quantities of 45’s , EP’s,  LP’s and Cassettes some with hand drawn covers that are now very collectible  .   Has been playing live Gigs( mostly in portland),a few times a year, ever since  as 1/2 of The Tenses with Rock and Roll Jackie ( also of Smegma). In the last few years, Smegma has had successful shows  in Vasteras , London, Paris, and at The Getty Center  in Los Angeles .

Chiara Giovando is an artist and curator. She has records released on Ehse Records, Holy Mountain and Ecstatic Peace. She has made several films including Proud Flesh, Archaic Smile and The Hen Knows What to Do. Her compositions have been performed at The Barbican in London, Los Angeles Philharmonic and apart of Southern Records Latitude series.
She plays Violin, guitar, voice and electronics.

Madelyn Villano is a Portland based musician, member of Smegma and solo project GUZO, she plays Violin, Voice and Electronics and enjoys the rich DIY community of Portland through performance and event planning. She has performed in Paris, London, Brussels, Newcastle, Lausanne and Vasteras.

Mia Ferm is a collective member and co-director of Cinema Project, a collectively run, non-profit organization based in Portland, Oregon, that works to promote public awareness of avant-garde cinema from the past and present through screenings, lectures, and events. Mia was a 2013 Andy Warhol Curatorial Fellow and is also an independent film curator, photographer, and musician.
DJ DNA is host of XRAY FM’s San Remo 1985 on Friday nights.

http://lafms.wordpress.com/

Performing with  Smegma L.A. 2012