Dennis Duck Bio
Jul.14, 2023
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
Ace Farren Ford – Bio
Jul.14, 2023
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
Donkey Flybye Bio/History
Jan.14, 2022
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.
SMEGMA 50 year anniversary !!!
Nov.25, 2020
https://costumeintl.com/Growth+https://costumeintl.com/Growth+
Extremely limited on most items , please send alternates if possible. All serious inquires to : Eric Stewart at grandmaninni@yahoo.com
l.facebook.com
Pig 032- c-40 Smegma (1976) – Pasadena Lo-Fi
Recorded at the legendary ancestral home of LAFMS at 35 S. Raymond in Pasadena in 1976, with no post production this Tape features original tape hiss, random drop-out, bleed thru and low fidelity but also Inspired Jamming from core members Dennis Duck, Ju Suk Reet Meate, Bard (D.K.) and Craig Mogyorody. The front cover features Colorado Blvd in all it’s trash filled, post Rose Parade glory.
Pigface 031
Pig 031- c-30 The Highland Park 3 + 1 (members of Smegma) – Under the Spell of Chicken Boy
For a few years now there have been spontaneous, low key Jams at Ace’s pad in lovely Highland Park Featuring Ace Farron Ford , Oblivia, Ju Suk, and on this tape the even lovelier Gene Evans. The jams have been re-imagined in studio by Ju Suk Reet Meate in Portland Oregon 2018 for your listening Pleasure.
Pig 028 Electric Bill(Willie)
1975
Pigface 029 Ace and Duck/ Guzo
Pigface Records 030 Smegma “Son of Geek”
1973-74-75
All cassettes still available for 6 USD ea. in the States
Please contact – Ju Suk at — grandmaninni@yahoo.com
for details.
PIGFACE RECORDS Cassette Series as of july 2018
2013
015 C-40 The Tenses with Giggles Delusional (rec. 2011 NYC,Portland) only a few left !! Tour only
016 C-40 Ju Suk Reet Meate Solo 1978 & 79 Vol.2 ( rec. in Portland)
017 C-40 Lee Rockey Brass Ring (rec. late 1970′s Portland)
018 C-60 Lee Rockey Jazz Drummer Extraordinaire
( rec. 1952-63 NYC,Portland)
019 C-40 MSHR/The Tenses Playing Together vol. 1 (rec 2012 Portland)
020 C-40 Smegma Wild Blue Yonders (rec. 2011 Portland)
021 C-60 GUZO American Girl rec (2011-13 Portland)
2014
022 C-60 Smegma The Pigface Tape (rec. 1974 Pasadena)
023 C-30 Lee Rockey Tarzan’s Morning After (rec. 1960′s Portland)
024 C-60 Smegma/ GUZO Live at Instants Chaveris (rec. 2013 Montreuil)
2015
(025 C-30 MSHR/The Tenses and ARTTU 2015 west coast Tour (rec 2014 Portland/somewhere in Tour only Finland)
026 C-40 Smegma Dives headfirst into Punk Rock!
( rec. 1978-79 Portland)
2016
027 C-30 The Tenses Sleepless
( rec. live answering the phone 2015 in Portland )
2017
028 C-40 Electric Bill (Willie) The collected Genius of …
( rec. mostly in and around Pasadena 1973-5)
029 C-40 Ace and Duck/Guzo An Evening in Copenhagen (rec. 2016 in Copenhagen)
030 C-40 Smegma Son of Geek (rec. 1973-5 in Pasadena)
Smegma at the Box 2016
http://smegmamusic.com/site/?p=12 Smegma in Newcastle on The Long Stairs 2013
The SCO
PIGFACE RECORDS ANNOUNCES for 2018 newish and still available .
Jul.29, 2017
All cassettes still available for 6 USD ea. in the States
Please contact – Ju Suk at — grandmaninni@yahoo.com
for details.
PIGFACE RECORDS Cassette Series as of july 2017
2013
015 C-40 The Tenses with Giggles Delusional (rec. 2011 NYC,Portland) only a few left !! Tour only
016 C-40 Ju Suk Reet Meate Solo 1978 & 79 Vol.2 ( rec. in Portland)
017 C-40 Lee Rockey Brass Ring (rec. late 1970′s Portland)
018 C-60 Lee Rockey Jazz Drummer Extraordinaire
( rec. 1952-63 NYC,Portland)
019 C-40 MSHR/The Tenses Playing Together vol. 1 (rec 2012 Portland)
020 C-40 Smegma Wild Blue Yonders (rec. 2011 Portland)
021 C-60 GUZO American Girl rec (2011-13 Portland)
2014
022 C-60 Smegma The Pigface Tape (rec. 1974 Pasadena)
023 C-30 Lee Rockey Tarzan’s Morning After (rec. 1960′s Portland)
024 C-60 Smegma/ GUZO Live at Instants Chaveris (rec. 2013 Montreuil)
2015
(025 C-30 MSHR/The Tenses and ARTTU 2015 west coast Tour (rec 2014 Portland/somewhere in Tour only Finland)
026 C-40 Smegma Dives headfirst into Punk Rock!
( rec. 1978-79 Portland)
2016
027 C-30 The Tenses Sleepless
( rec. live answering the phone 2015 in Portland )
2017
028 C-40 Electric Bill (Willie) The collected Genius of …
( rec. mostly in and around Pasadena 1973-5)
029 C-40 Ace and Duck/Guzo An Evening in Copenhagen (rec. 2016 in Copenhagen)
030 C-40 Smegma Son of Geek (rec. 1973-5 in Pasadena)
Pig 028 Electric Bill(Willie)
1975
NEW !
Pigface 029 Ace and Duck/ Guzo
NEW !
Pigface Records 030 Smegma “Son of Geek”
1973-74-75
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Recorded “live” into the phone in Portland to callers from Dublab’s Sleepless event at the Dorothy Chandler Pavillion L.A.
Punk Rock Smegma from 1978-79 Portland
Pigface 026 C-40 SMEGMA 1978-79 ” portland Punk”
Includes the first two “punk shows” in portland also Flashcards (from 45rpm single) and Going Rancid . more info to come soon…….
Please contact Ju Suk At: grandmaninni@yahoo.com to Order
Pigface 022 C-60 SMEGMA The Pigface Tape (1974)
40 year anniversary Edition Original recordings by Ju Suk Reet Meate in Altadena, Calif. May 16 1974, except Side B track 3 May 20, 1974. Final Editing and EQing January 2014 .
On this Recording Smegma is : Paul Rioux, Ace (Farren Ford), Amy, Bev , Dennis (Duck), Chuck-O-Fats (Donkey Flybye), Cheez-it-Ritz, Ju Suk Reet Meate, Chuck and Cheez-Bro.
- SMEGMA-The Pigface Tape
Pigface 023 C-30 LEE ROCKEY Tarzan’s Morning After
Amazing Inner-Mind, Solo Jamming from early or late 1960’s With Lee Rockey on Tube Echoplex, Vocals, Cello, Bells, Homemade Horns, Toy Piano, Zither, and more. All recording and mixing by Lee Rockey at Home, in Portland Oregon. No overdubs
Final editing, EQing and album concept, by Ju Suk Reet Meate at Smegma’s Studio, Portland Oregon 2014
- Lee Rockey-Tarzans mourning after
Pigface 024 C-60 SMEGMA 40 Years of Smegma Tour- Live at Instants Chavires Oct. 17 2013
Documenting the (Almost Paris) Mountreuil France, stop on SMEGMA’S U.K.-E.U. Tour 2013.
Live band includes 3 orig. members, Dennis Duck, Ace Farren Ford, Ju Suk Reet Meate, 30+ year member Oblivia, and since 2011 Madelyn Villano.
- SMEGMA/GUZO- Live At Instants Chavires
STILL Available
015
The Tenses with GigglesDELUSIONAL C-40
Recorded at Smegma’s Studio Portland , Oregon December 2011 by Ju Suk
ReMixed May 2012. Except side B The Tenses Live in studio at East Village Radio June 2011 by Jeff Conklin
The Tenses: Ju Suk Reet Meate and Rock and Roll Jackie of Smegma
Giggles: Madelyn Villano and Alieta Herrera-Train. only a few left !!!!!!
Side One features an informal Real Time Jam between Smegma Alumni and the (then) newcomers on the Portland Scene. Somewhat edited by Ju Suk reet Meate. Side Two was recorded “live” near the corner of 1st and 1st NYC in a tiny, crowded studio that adds an extra layer of intensity to the performance.
016
Ju Suk Reet Meate
SOLO 1978&1979 V.II C-40
Recorded in various locations in Portland Oregon 1978 and 1979 as ” Real Time ” Improv. with no Overdubs, Edits, or Remixing . Some final EQing and Editing in Smegma’s Studio January 2013. Recording Quality varies.
Recorded at the same time as Pigface 004 (1980) This album embraces a rawer esthetic. Many tracks were recorded on portable Cassette decks with automatic level control . Ju suk plays Guitar, record Player, Bowed sheet metal, Trumpet, Vocals, Gnome Synth., 1880’s Pump Organ, Bass Guitar played with feet, and 1/4 inch Reel to Reel multi head tape loops all played in “Real Time” no Overdubs, Edits, or remixing.
017
Lee Rockey
Sonic Explorer BRASS RING C-40
Recorded , Edited, Mixed and Played in Portland Oregon in the late 1970’s By Lee Rockey. Final Editing for this Album by Ju Suk Reet Meate at Smegma’s Studio January 2013.
Lee Rockey gave up being the best jazz drummer in Portland sometime in the late 1960’s and started playing a modified flat bridge violin, cello, oscillators, and free drumming using a Teac 2340 4 channel tape deck, as soon as they were available, to layer tracks. Brass Ring is one of the very rare finished and named compositions that was originally as a cassette dub, which I managed to borrow and copy.
018
Lee Rockey
JAZZ DRUMMER EXTRAORDINAIRE C-60
Side one: Recorded at various NYC locations including Lee’s Apartment 1952-1955. Side two: Mostly Recorded at the Way Out Club Portland, Oregon, May 16 1961
Final EQing and Album Concept by Ju Suk Reet Meate in February 2013
One of the most unique and unsung Artists in Portland history, Lee Rockey was born in Vancouver Wa. 1926 and from 1942 until 1965 or so was the most modern and best “Jazz Drummer” in the area. One of the” Vancouver Whiz Kids” he wore a Zoot Suit with a Reet Pleat and still spoke “Jive” when I met him in 1976. After playing all types of Gigs in Portland including sitting in for touring R&B acts such as The Treniers, he Moved to NYC in 1952 ,and was hired by Neil Hefty (who had just revitalized Count Basie’s Career with his great arrangements and written his last big hit Little Darlin ) for his first big band. Later he was in the studio for Herbie Mann’s debut 10″ in 1955. Also on this album are Homemade Tapes with his friend, pianist and vocalist Ed Beach jamming and being silly in their apartment in NYC.
Moving back to Portland Lee was the go-to Drummer for the most ambitious Jazz Musicians including Jim Smith’s “The Way Out Band” 1961-63 featuring amazing arrangements by Bill and Ernie Hood and others. WARNING: This Album contains Serious High Class music originally intended for Adults of the Mid 20th Century.
019
MSHR/The Tenses
THE TENSES/MSHR C-40
In studio Improv. Recorded September 2012. Edited and Mixed by Ju Su Reet Meate at Smegma’s Studio (Planet Purple Room), February 2013.
The Tenses: Ju Suk Reet Meate and Rock and Roll Jackie of Smegma
MSHR: Brenna Murphy and Birch Cooper.
Informal in studio jam session blends MSHR’s new electronic dream world with The Tenses old school organic psychedelic stew.
######NEW #########NEW #########NEW ############NEW ############### NEW #########
PIGFACE 020 SMEGMA-Wild Blue Younders
020
SMEGMA
Wild Blue Yonders C-40
Recorded 2011 at Smegma’s Studio in Portland and Juan’s Studio in Pasadena by Ju Suk Reet Meate
Ideal 095
On this record Smegma Is Dennis Duck, Ace Farren Ford, Donkey Flybye, Ju Suk Reet Meate, Rock and Roll Jackie, John Wiese, Madelyn Villano, Rogue Iiniki, and William Cyrus Ford.
Cassette reissue of the 100 copy LP on Ideal ( sweden ) released at Perspectives festival on April 21, 2012.
PIGFACE 021 GUZO – American Girl
021
Guzo
American Girl C-60
Recorded, mixed, edited in or near Portland, Oregon from 2011 to present (april 2013) by M.V.
Stunning Debut album featuring Long form, crunchy, lo-fi sizzle and other Moods.
Side One- Linear Guilt
Side Two- Nowhere Gun
Featuring Madelyn Villano on Voice, Violin, Piano, Guitar, Kaossilator, Ableton, Line 6, Dl4, TR707, Tapes, Samples.
recent stuff
Jul.14, 2017
Sounds like fun
SMEGMA MUTANT STOMPS !!!!
http://helicopter.storenvy.com/products/10602495-smegma-mutant-stomps-lp
These American legends of outsider avant-garde need little introduction. Since becoming core members of the Los Angeles Free Music Society over four decades ago, they have retained their focus, determination and unmatched originality, influencing generations and never ceasing to advance further avenues of progress. Mutant Stomps is a result of Smegma’s living room recording sessions at their pink house in Portland. All tracks were produced 2012–2013, with one dating back to 1975 for good measure. The line-up of Dennis Duck, Ace Farren Ford, Rock and Roll Jackie, Ju Suk Reet Meate, Madellyn Villano, John Wiese and Donkey Flybye deliver a consistently amorphous, surreal-concrète sound.
The full length LP comes in an edition of 100 copies.
Tracklist:
1. Vout #9
2. Mutant Stomps
3. Hot In There
4. Variations VII
5. Code 61
6. Jug band Waltz
40 years of Smegma Tour !!!!!
Smegma in Newcastle 2013
Thanks to Joachim Nordwall and Lisa Ullen
About
Feb.26, 2015
(Established 1973, LAFMS core group)
In Pasadena, California on November 23, 1973, the musical group called Smegma humbly came into being. Despite having no formal art or music training, several friends decided to experiment with playing “real” music. We tried a ” band without musicians” concept, by allowing musicians only for special parts as needed. The only other rule was, “NO HIPPY MUSIC” or any other contemporary sounds. We developed our own “primitive suburban folk” approach and traditions. At first, we felt completely isolated. We were aware of the LA freak scene (Zappa, Captain Beefheart, Wild Man Ficher), but it was only a distant influence. John Cage, Harry Partch, Eric Dolphy, Sun Ra, Buckminster Fuller and many other great minds of previous generations were more influential than our peers.
Most of the band moved to Portland Oregon in 1975. Simultaneously, we became involved with the Los Angeles Free Music Society (LAFMS), contributing audio LPs, cassettes and visual art. Contributions to LAFMS recently culminated with a collective performance at The Getty Center in Los Angeles in 2011.
Our approach of playfully respecting the great music of the past and pushing it into the future engages a small but interesting group of people from all over the western world and Japan. In the 1980’s, we were contacted by people from the U.K. Japan, Germany, France and others to contribute to several vinyl LP’s and cassettes. These releases included an early 45 rpm single on Mute(UK). Since 2005, we have been honored to perform in festivals in the UK and EU.
So far over 100 people have performed, recorded with, and/or helped work on projects with SMEGMA.
Current Smegma:
Ju Suk Reet Meate (Eric Stewart), Oblivia (Jackie Stewart aka Rock and Roll Jackie), Dennis Duck (Dennis Mehaffey), Ace Farren Ford ( aka Ace of Space), Big Dirty (Brad Hostetler), Vetza (Vetza Trussel) ,Rogue Iniki (Nour Mobarak), John Wiese, Madelyn Villano, Alieta Train, David Morgan, Cody, Jennifer, William Cyrus ford , Mars Ford.
Pasadena Smegma:
Ju Suk Reet Meate (Eric Stewart), Cheezbro, Amazon Bambi (Amy DeWolfe aka Erph-Puss), Cheezit Ritz, Chucko Fats (aka D.K. Fatts), Dennis Duck (Dennis Mehaffey), Ace Farren Ford (aka Ace of Space), Electric Willy(William Clay Robinson aka Electric Bill), Paul ” Pigface” Rioux,
Also- Dr.Id (Mike Lastra), Dr. Odd, Reed Burns, Victor Sparks (Tom Recchion), Wild Man Fischer, Iso, Chuck, Bev, The Professer, Gary “Magic” Marker.
Portland Smegma:
Ju Suk Reet Meate (Eric Stewart), Dr.Id (Mike Lastra), Amazon Bambi (Amy DeWolfe aka Erph-Puss), Danton * , Frank Chavez * , D.K. (Big Dirty) *#, Cheez-it-Ritz *, Oblivia (Jackie Stewart aka Rock and Roll Jackie), Burned Mind + ^ and Borneo Jimmy (Richard Meltzer)+, Myrtle Tickner (Charles Nims) # + , Stan Wood ^ , Lee Rockey * # ,
Also- John Jensen+,, Samek Cosmano , Arsene Zara, Jerry A., Pig Champion,
,*=1970s only, #= 1980s only, +=1990s only, ^= 2000s only
 
Smegma ibn Västerås, Sweden in April 2012 by Micke Keysendal
Essay – Free Ears Part 1
Jul.02, 2013
Free Ears
place. It can be fun but sometimes it makes you feel ill.Once, in 1975, after a Le Forte Four vs. Doodooettes freak-out
improvisation, we drove away from the studios at 35 South Raymond in
Pasadena’s pre “Old Town” crusty downtown porn-pawn-junk
store-hippie-art-trash skid neighborhood and I had an epiphany. Something
magical almost mystical goddam it happened, occasionally, where the frenetic
chaos of each individual unmusician’s sound would suddenly become one and
for 10 seconds we were transcendent. Then, when we realized it we would roll
out of control like my first solo bike ride and end up skinning my knee.
There were those surprising ecstatic moments but they would collapse and it
was a bit maddening.Occasionally Time would be missing. Out the window. Later on Time came
back and we rewound the tape. Pretty soon I got hooked. On the way home that
night we were driving past the Castle Green Hotel back when it was at it’s
most Haunted Mansion-y and I thought ‘someday everyone’s gonna be doing
this’. Then, I said out loud “someday everyone’s gonna be doing this” and
Dennis Duck said ‘What are you talking about Rick?” “Well,” I said “ like
ya know how we like make noise and tape it and stuff and sometimes it’s like
, ya know kinda good…well not too, bad?” Well ya know” I continued “
like… ah, never mind.” I wasn’t very articulate back then. Nor now.
My memory is probably faulty, too. Well at the very least it’s personal.
I’ve discovered we all have our own personal memories and sometimes the
emulsion flakes off the backing. When we compare notes thirty or so years
later we find out some of the notes are different or in different places.
This is the way I remember it, though.
On my first day of High School in the fall of 1973 in 3rd period
“Beginning Instruments” class in the Music Building, the toupee topped
teacher had each student announce what instrument we planned on playing. I
had been fed up taking piano lessons from Alhambra’s premier lounge organist
Bob Abbey and said marimba was what I would like to play. I quickly was
talked into tenor sax after being offered glockenspiel in lieu of the school
not having a marimba. We finally got around to the two longhaired senior
students in the back of the class and I heard a voice answer “electronic
music synthesizer”. What the hell was this guy talking about? I’d never
heard of such a thing. We all laughed, but by the end of that school year
my new best friend Chip Chapman had gotten the school to purchase an Arp
Odyssey synthesizer, an Echoplex. an amp and a hot instructor to teach after
school Electronic Music class. Meanwhile, Chip got accepted into Cal Arts
Electronic Music Program by borrowing gear and recording in Pasadena City
College’s basement Moog-in-a-closet studio to make a demo reel to send with
his application. He had also organized a day of free improv freak outs in
the auditorium where I had to breath into a paper bag because I was
hyperventilating (again!) after some over-the-top saxophone blowing with
fellow sax honker Steve Nash. The summer before starting at Cal Arts Chip
and Joe Potts assembled a “camp cover band” at YMCA Camp Tatapotchin and
attempted a collaboration with ‘Patients’ Dan Weiss & mystery drummer Jay
Ross. Together with myself on sax and Susan Farthing on (rhythm) flute we
played an ill-fated show at a nearby Temple youth night. Our serious attempt
at rock music was hilariously embarrassing. Hilarembarrassing.
As I recall the show came about when Dan & Jay’s band, “Patients” were
asked to play a Teen Night show at their local Temple Beth Torah. Chip and
Joe (fresh from their camp band success) and I were asked to help out the
fledgling act. We sacrilegiously called the place of worship “Ethel’s
Tempura”. Patients pretty much knew one song, “Tuna Fish”, which repeated
one line “I hate it , I hate it, I hate it tuna fish!” over and over. Just
one part repeated ad nauseam (or until nausea). We quickly tried to help
them fill out their set. We could barely play our instruments and didn’t
really know any songs but that didn’t stop us. After each of us practicing
to Zappa’s “Weasals Ripped my Flesh” on our own, a bickering rehearsal
ensued when we tried to play “My Guitar wants to Kill your Mama” as a group.
Things were not meshing and soon arguments got heated and stupid. An edited
recording of this debaucle ended up being sent to an electronic music tape
in Norway and put on Bikini Tennis Shoes and several other LAFMS releases.
It is appropriatly titled “They are Asleep”. As the date of the show loomed
ahead I remember trying to lure other more professional musicians into the
act. One arrogant drummer dude showed up, retuned Jay’s drumkit (while Jay
waited outside), and rocked out leaving us in the dust. I don’t know if we
were more annoyed by his self-righteous ‘tude or he was more miffed by
wasting time with us.
On the afternoon of the show, Chip brought in some cool gear rented from
potential vocalists who said they’d show up didn’t. We were beyond help
anyway but we managed to convince Mystery Drummer Jay to unplug the kick
drum pedal activated switch that lit up the inside of his kick drum with a
colored light and also made a loud POP through all the amps.
donned our rock costumes. Joe wore a torn up dress over his t-shirt and
jeans and a sideways Matador hat with a jockstrap over the bulge and a
celary stalk shoved in it. I wondered why I smeared racoon mascara around my
eyes and had a premonition that this was going to be the most embarrassing
night of my life. (In retrospect, it made the top three). I tried not to
hyperventilate.We dawdled on stage as party goers arrived and someone asked us if we were
playing any Alice Cooper. It must have been the mascara. Joe said “Nope,
only Zappa”. We “tuned up” and stumbled through our first tune, “Boris the
Spider”. Our version sounded like a demented polka and as we played the
sound hit the back wall and came galumphing back across the auditorium only
to crash head on with the outgoing din. We played “My Guitar Wants to Kill
Your Mama” and “Tuna Fish which left us with “Smoke on the Water” and the
Stones songs Joe learned. Chip asked me if I wanted to do vocals and I has
aghast. I told him “You’re the one who took choir”. I finally decided to try
“Little Queenie” and with the undecipherable lyrics scrawled on a piece of
paper in my hand I shyly mumbled the words rather than giving it the gutsy
growly R&B wail the song asked for. The party had long left the building and
mingled in the parking lot while we finished up without me singing “Smoke on
the Water”. We quickly packed up our gear and got the hell outta there.
Luckily, the money in the cash box pretty much covered the rented gear.Chip always has big, fun ideas. He’s smart and gets ideas and he goes
ahead and does’em. He has a way of making things happen that you didn’t
realize you could do. When he’d started at Cal Arts and after Joe and I had
recorded tapes with him a bunch of times, at our
Sunday-night-give-Chip-a-ride-back-to-Valencia sessions, he told us he’d
come up with a name for our ‘group’. We had just dragged our gear into
B-303. This probably included ; a three string japanese guitar with custom
scraped off failed epoxy resin finish, an empty 55 gallon cyanide drum,
Univox, Dad’s duck call, a little plastic toy violin and my Pedrini Music
tenor sax. We were standing outside an open closet filled with mike stands
and recording gear in a narrow passage in the Cal Arts music department
maze. I didn’t know we were a group.I was just having fun making sounds. Sure he had sent that tape to that
electronic tape festival in Norway as “The East Los Angeles Free Music
Society” but that was a joke, right? The name was supposed to get them to
take us seriously and it worked…temporarily. At first we were accepted
Hal Clark, after hearing “They are Asleep” which was an edit of us arguing
during a rehearsal for the rock gone wrong Temple show and the ludicrous
Ka-Bella-Binsky-Bungo, sent our tape back with a letter that stated “Free
ears and minds are one thing, but what about aesthetics?”Chip tells us the new name of our group is Le Forte Four but I don’t quite
get it. Lay Fort-tay Four. Forte means loud or the thing someone does best,
like, “his forte is piano” or “piano forte”. It has the fancy French ‘le’
which is silly and also is mock pretentious. It also sounds like 44 (a film
noir or western gun reference?). I decide it’s a great name but I didn’t’t
know what to think.
I wondered about what having a name meant. It seemed too serious. I was
hoping we could still have fun ‘experimenting’ and it wouldn’t turn out like
the Temple Beth Torah show. It seems that I didn’t need to worry about Le
Forte Four being too serious.Back in B 303, Chip played us tapes of what he’d been working on that
week as we set up our shit. This was the most decked out of the three or so
Buchla laden electronic music studios. It was set up for Hi-Fi Quad as per
1973 audiophile specs. Two Ampeg half inch four tracks, a couple Revox half
tracks, a pair of stereo Marantz amps and a JBL Studio Monitor sitting on
a bright orange and chrome moderne Eames chair in each of the four corners.
On a table in the center was a four foot by four foot curved wall of knobs,
lights, jacks and joysticks often festooned with a literal tangle of
brightly colored patch cords by the end of the night. Don Buchla’s model
300 Electronic Music Box was the deluxe version, I repeat, it has joysticks
and pans sounds and signals around. This room set up with curved corners a
dark red curtain on far wall and all this cool gear set up in the middle
made me feel like I was behind the famous curtain from “The Wizard of Oz”.
Cal Arts held a certain magic for me. The place was filled with the most
modern creative tools invented and amazing people to help teach you to use
them. I always wished I’d have been a student there. I wondered around the
Animation, Film , Video (they had a Nam June Paik designed Video
all the possi-tunities. When I visited the animation studios I’d hear the
dreamy sounds of the Gamelan orchestra rehearsing nearby. I was often there
at nights or weekends when there weren’t’t many people around. The Main
Building is a big confusing labyrinth of classrooms lobbies, studios,
galleries, ,stairwells, long ass hallways and performance spaces. You felt
really isolated by the time you wound your way around and I never knew
where I was. It’s the kind of place you can get lost on a trip to the Men’s
Room.The few people we would run into would be smart, talented and funny.
Steve Braunstein or tabla player David Johnson who sat in with us a few
times. Most people had long hair and a magical gleam in their eyes. Peter
Cohen was an Elf who lived next door to Chip in the Dorm. He burnt off his
eyebrows when he grinned at the wrong time while doing a fire breathing
stunt. He wore a bell and giggled. You’d hear him down around some corner
jingling and tee-heeing as you tried to find your way through the maze. You
felt like you were in another world. Once, Woody Allen was revived out of
cryostasis into a future world when ‘Sleeper’ was filmed there.
Besides, the place had lot’s of really cool girls, nude dorm pool, beer
and Thai sticks via the Percussion Dept. My visits there pretty much ruined
high school for me. I just wanted to draw and make films and music after
that.That entire school year we recorded on most Sunday nights. My oldest
brother, Tom Potts, began recording with us and friends sometimes
participated. Most evenings would start with an hour’s drive in the green
Ford Raunch Wagon After dragging our stuff in from the parking lot Chip
would play us recordings he had done that week and then he would get out the
patch cords and start connecting modules on the Buchla. In most cases it
involved processing our instruments and microphones and sometimes turntables
and projectors. One week he played us a composite of a silly vocal improv we
had done the week before spliced and diced with some equally bombastic synth
movements. It’s the song Bikini Tennis Shoes and I was pretty startled and
amused by what Chip had done. For the first time I felt we had really done
something good.That summer Chip & I cleaned out a backyard tool shed to possibly use as
a studio. Chip showed me a new copy of the neo-dada magazine FILE (it was
formatted to look like LIFE magazine) and in amongst the pictures of the
person in the Mr. Peanut costume and articles about Ant Farm’s ‘Media Burn’
performance there was a full page ad with a flexi-disc single attached. The
Residents debut album ‘Meet the Residents’ could be bought by sending 2
dollars to an address in San Francisco. Back at my house we played the
flexi-disc. The odd music had a strange homemade feel to it. It was
definitely different and Chip told me “These guys aren’t signed to a record
label. I bet they just made it themselves!” At the time it was unheard and
unthought-of of. Chip might have already had the idea in mind but I assumed
only record companies put out records and that’s it. Chip got out the Yellow
Pages, called a couple places in Hollywood and started cutting up our tapes.
Most of Bikini Tennis Shoes was recorded at Cal Arts in 1974. It ‘s got an
edit of an echoplex freak-out solo ‘Song of the Electric Drill’ (one of
Chip’s pre Cal Arts recordings) and home recorded fragments of his little
brother Tim’s kiddy comedy one liners. He put his Buchla projects up against
our modulated mock lounge trio playing to a thrift store bongo record. The
Pope bumping into a cheerful Jack-in the-Box jingle with sped up tape. It’s
Stockhausen meets Zappa arguing with Esquivel over hamburgers with Clutch
Cargo refereeing. There’s a section of our rock debacle and a song Chip sang
that’s based on a dream he had about our pal Steve Nash. Filtered noise ala
Columbia Princeton Electronic Music Center leaning against a nose solo and
an educational Tom Bosley quip
Chip took the finished master tapes to famous Gold Star Studios at Vine &
Santa Monica Blvd. in Hollywood to get the masters made. He dropped them off
“You brought the wrong tape. This one has a loud hum and cursing on it”.
Chip said “No, that’s the right one, that’s part of it”. Ed told Chip we
better come back down and be there for the mastering.
Before long we were taking the mother discs across the street to Alco to
get our run of 200 records made. When the test pressings showed up it was
very odd to hear our music on vinyl.
It was a great feeling but still hard to believe that Le Forte Four was
putting out a record. We still have hundreds of labels for Bikini Tennis
Shows somewhere because the smallest run they would do was 1000.
Next we had to come up with a cover and liner notes. The notes were a
collaborative thing with us shouting out lines in the Potts’ family living
room. Tom Potts edited & compiled our rantings and together he and I
phonetically rendering his Latin sacrilegiously into English. “Thank you for
carrying me across to the sensuous intensely orphans immensely. The scallops
of She-She on the sockets all omnibus. Peculiarly small malt poured the tuna
the dent to. Duke University toured our morbid Christianity. Spirituality
boosts the restaurant, he’s sick Chris at the saw rays. No sermon of the
sewer is beyond avocado.”
The next formidable task was to paint the front of a printing shop. That’s
what we did in exchange for type setting and printing our notes and covers
for Bikini Tennis Shoes. Chip’s job at Cunningham Press had the perk of
scrounging reams of off register partial runs of postcards for the esteemed
Huntington Library. With only two or three of the five colors off register
the stodgy images of Blue Boy and Pinky (famous 19th century portraits) had
a dada psychedelic look. After they printed our name and album title on them
we snuck into they’re bookbinding shop signed all the liner notes and hand
glued the covers onto blank jackets with bookbinders glue. Once the two
hundred and something records got shrink-wrapped we had a record.
When Bikini Tennis Shoes came out we literally couldn’t give the damn
things away. On several occasions friends and family members gave the record
back to us saying “ I thought that you could give it to someone else who
might be able to ‘appreciate it more’. Finally Joe came up with the idea of
instructing recipients to ‘pass it on to a friend’ if they didn’t’t like
it. That way they would eventually find a home. Wise-asses would recite
“number nine, number nine, number nine” because referencing ‘Revolution
Number 9 ‘ off the Beatles ‘ White Album ‘ was the only way they could get
a handle on it. We figured if anyone could appreciate it the guys at Poobah
Records would dig it or at least put a few copies in their store.
Poobah Record Shop was born in 1971, Jay Green was the den mother of this
perennially bohemian establishment. In it’s basement lair in the 100 block
of N. Fair Oaks in rundown old Pasadena. LAFMS founding member, Juan Gomez,
remembers the indian bedspreads hung around, jazz playing and everyone
sporting beards.
I only went to the underground location a couple times but I do remember
meeting Tom Recchion.
I has tagging along with my brother Joe and we had driven across town
from the County Strip. A stretch of unincorporated LA County suburbia
ensnared by a cluster of post war boomed hamlets, namely Alhambra, Arcadia,
Temple City, South Pasadena, Rosemead, San Marino and our mailing address
city of San Gabriel. San Gabriel (city with a mission ) got started before
Los Angeles by Father Junipero Serra who enslaved the local Indians and
built a series of Missions from Mexico to the Bay Area. Joe called it “the
city with emissions” and back then the first stage smog alerts chain-smoked
through the summer. Joe started his ‘57 Ford Fairmont by opening the hood
and using a big screwdriver to arc from his battery to his starter as he
tugged on his gas cable. We drove through snooty squaresville San Marino in
the finned, Grey and White two tone number with the “Beautify America, Shoot
a Redneck” bumper on the inside drivers door, and into downtown tenderloin
Pasadena.
Old, Old Town Pasadena, by all accounts, was a funky place in the early
70’s. About 8 square blocks of seedy urban grit set in a field of mixed
suburbia. It probably doubled for Times Square in Starsky and Hutch, Baretta
and Mannix episodes. There were dank pawn shops, smelly dive bars, greasy
Mexican restaurants, the Free Press Bookstore and the Free Clinic, sleazy
Adult Entertainment Center’s, and junky junk stores, mixed in with a few
patchouli stinking Hippie head/boutique/record/import/clothing stores. Lots
of unused abandoned office spaces and warehouses. In my mind it’s like 70’s
Noir, where there could be a Cassavetes film crew around the corner or I
could imagine seeing Barnaby Jones on the job. The funky scene was populated
with bums, drunks, junkies, tramps, hoods, pimps, whores, creeps, poor and
homeless, ghetto kids, artists and eccentrics. There were lots’o’ crusty
old men and scary old hags, plus a smattering of hip suburban teenagers
looking for cool shit to buy cheap. Slumming it.
location. From the latest Prog imports and jazz classics to all kinds of
rock and the bins of used stuff labeled $1.00 & under, 50 cents, 25 cents,
FREE. The Seventies was the vinyl decade and they had it all. Tom Recchion
worked at Poobah’s and was always enthusiastically pointing out his favorite
recent arrivals. “Have you heard the new Henry Cow record?” He turned us on
to some great records and we figured he was someone who might appreciate our
new baby.
Tom got Bikini Tennis Shoes. He GOT it. Soon, The Los Angeles Free Music
Society started germinating in Tom’s head. Why not create a society to go
with the factitious name? Unbeknownst to Le Forte Four, Poobah’s was also
the a vortex of musical experimentation by members of Tom’s group
Doodooettes and also Smegma and Ace & Duce as well as a whole bunch of other
pals. There was a whole underground scene rattling around. There was a
backroom where after-hours jam sessions ensued without the neighbors
freaking and three or four blocks away, in the derelict Raymond Building,
Tom had an abandoned office that he used as a music studio.
For us it was a refreshing surprise to meet like minded folks,
experimenters, who had none of the elitist, ‘What about esthetics?’ attitude
that sneered at us up at Cal Arts where our new album was received with
mixed annoyance by the other composers. I’m not sure LAFMS ever ‘formed’.
It was never a solid. It pooled and oozed and that made it more flexible. We
liked Tom’s concept for joining together as the Los Angeles Free Music
Society and his idea for a show in a abandoned ballroom over Poobah’s.
Later referred to as the Spaghetti Works Show (named after the restaurant at
the front of the building) it took place on Chinese New Year in January of
1975 and featured Ace & Duce, Doodooettes and Le Forte Four. It’s the
birth day of the LAFMS.
Airway
Jul.02, 2013
Airway were part of the Los Angeles Free Music Society (LAFMS), a group of extremely radical experimental music anarchists in the mid-’70s. Even more radical was Airway’s focus on live performance with the use of subliminal-message tapes in the background, used to persuade the audience in different ways. Joe Potts, from the LAFMS group Le Forte Four, put out a single, “Airway,” in the spring of 1977, which was given away at an art exhibit at the Lunami Gallery in Tokyo, Japan. The single and its sleeve design had subliminal messages that reinforced the subliminals embedded in the autopsy photos of the show. The following year Potts decided to try to re-create the subliminal message beneath a Wall of Sound from that single in a live context, using a primitive tape delay and processing system he invented with Chip Chapman, also from Le Forte Four. Airway’s first performance took place in August 1978 at the Lace Gallery, with Potts and Chapman working the circuits, and Vetza on vocals, Rick Potts on mandolin, and Doo-Dooettes’ members Dennis Duck on sax, Juan Gomez on bass, and Tom Recchion on drums. The sheer noise of the music fed through the electronics and backed by Potts’ subliminal tapes soon drove people out of the gallery, where they continued to listen from a safe distance on the street three floors below. Excerpts of that show were released later that year by LAFMS on the LP Live at Lace. Airway returned to the Lace on October 31, 1978, and also played a handful of other gigs that year and the next, with many different lineups as well as different subliminal tapes from Joe Potts. At each performance the tapes manipulated the audience, to move closer to the group, or away, or in other ways, depending on Potts’ intentions. Eventually, Potts went on to other projects and Airway fell by the wayside at the end of the 1970s. Airway was resurrected for a performance at the Santa Monica Museum of Art on February 14, 1998, with a cast of 18 musicians, who included many former Airway members and others. This performance was released on CD as Beyond the Pink Live with the original Joe Potts single “Airway.” ~ Rolf Semprebon, Rovi
Biography of LAFMS
Jul.02, 2013
The Los Angeles Free Music Society is not one group per se but rather a loose collection of several like-minded noise anarchists from the mid-’70s who found commercial rock too boring, slick, and predictable, and set out to reinvent improvisation and sound experiments with a DIY ethic. Inspired by Zappa, Captain Beefheart, John Cage, the Residents, and free jazz, the LAFMS was an underground avant-rock movement and a record label that presaged everything from punk to plunderphonics, while their utterly unconventional approach denied them any chance of mainstream success. As their movement spread, they became a lightning rod for art-damage, weird-music lovers everywhere.
In the summer of 1973, the threesome of Rick Potts, Joe Potts, and Chip Chapman started to record material under the name Patients in East L.A. These were tape experiments and improvised playing mixed with early sampling from television cartoons as well as Chapman’s extensive record collection. By 1974, they changed their name to the Los Angeles Free Music Society to do the album Ka-Bella-Binski-Bungo, however by the time the album came out, in 1975, it had been renamed Bikini Tennis Shoes and the group was now Le Forte Four with the addition of Tom Potts. Unbeknownst to them, during this time another gang of semi-musicians with a similar experimental bent gathered in the evenings at the Poo-Bah Record Shop in nearby Pasadena. Tom Recchion, who worked at the store, had formed Two Who Do Duets with Harold Schroeder in March of 1975, and later that year the group transformed into the Doo-Dooettes with the addition of Juan Gomez. Others of the Pasadena crowd included Ace Farren Ford and the Professor (who performed as the duo Ace & Duce), Dennis Duck, Richard Snyder, Fredrik Nilson, and Billy Bishop. Members of the avant-rock group Smegma, who had already been around for a couple years, were also part of the Pasadena crowd before they moved to Portland, OR, near the end of 1975. When Recchion arrived one evening with Le Forte Four‘s Bikini Tennis Shoes LP, the impressed Pasadena contingent realized they were not alone, and immediately joined the LAFMS umbrella as a way to get their own recordings released, and soon Le Forte Four and the Doo-Dooettes were double-billing live.
In 1976, Joe Potts decided to put out a various-artists compilation with an open invitation, selling space on the record at two dollars for every 15 minutes as a way to allow others who couldn’t afford their own record to release material. This compilation, I.D. Art, featuring both LAFMS artists and others, came out later that year. This led to several Blorp Essette compilations set up along similar lines in 1978 and 1980, further widening the LAFMS web and their attitude that anyone should have the right to be on record. New projects were also formed out of the pool of LAFMS compatriots, from Joe Potts’ live noise-overload project Airway, formed in 1977; to John Duncan‘s CV Massage a couple years later; and even more groups in the 1980s like Solid Eye, Monique, Human Hands, Dinosaurs With Horns, Foundation Boo; as well as solo efforts by John Duncan, Joe Potts, Tom Recchion, Dennis Duck, Fredrik Nilson, and Chip Chapman. Though nothing has been released on the LAFMS label since the mid-’80s, many of the participants carried the spirit of the movement onward. It can’t be denied that their influence has carried forward through punk in the late ’70s to the cassette-tape trader movement of the ’80s, while much of their own music is still as unsettlingly weird as it was in the mid-’70s. ~ Rolf Semprebon, Rovi
from “The History of Rock and Roll” (online)
The Los Angeles Free Music Society, formed around Tom Recchion in 1972, was a collective of underground artists loosely inspired by Frank Zappa and Captain Beefheart (but also all jazz and classical avantgarde movements). Le Forte Four, who released four lunatic electronic-folk albums starting with Bikini Tennis Shoes (1974), Doo-Dooettes (two albums), Smegma (one album) and Airway (one album) were some of the performers devoted to free improvisation, abstract cacophony and demented chanting.