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.