Smegma's roots lie in the Los Angeles Free Music Society (LAFMS) scene of the mid-1970s, and yet this long-running avant-rock collective, are one of the few groups from that era that are still active today. With the musicians hidden behind ridiculous pseudonyms, Smegma offered a strange psychedelic improvisational music, throwing in all sorts of odd instruments as well as tapes, and turntables. The group began in Pasadena, California in 1973 as a reaction to the bloated fusion rock of the day. They were unaware that other nearby groups had also formed to perform similar freeform experimental music. They became part of a gang of similar noise artists who gathered almost nightly in the backroom of the Poo-Bah record store in Pasadena, which in 1975 merged with the LAFMS. Smegma have always been a loose run collective, and early members included Amy Zonbambi, Chucko D. K. Fatts, Juk Suk Reet Meate, Dennis Duck, Cheezit-Ritz, Cheese-Bro, Dr. Id, Dr. Odd, and Reed Burn.