Smegma

Formed in Pasadena, California, in 1973, Smegma is one of the longest-running acts associated with the Los Angeles Free Music Society, building a body of collage-like, deliberately amateurish noise and free improvisation from a rotating cast of players performing under pseudonyms such as Ju Suk Reet Meate, Amazon Bambi, and Cheez-It-Ritz — a lineup that has also included LAFMS co-founder Dennis Duck. The group’s work reached a wider noise and industrial audience through inclusion on the Nurse With Wound list, and through Smegma Plays / Merzbow Plays Smegma (1996), a collaborative release trading material with Merzbow. Novelist Richard Meltzer joined as a vocalist in the late 1990s, and the group remains active, still performing and recording after five decades.