SMEGMA (1986-1987)

“The very name SMEGMA, or, a band that can’t play is better than one that can!”

By the 1980′s the entire town of Rockhampton was locked up tight by the Musos Club and their allies; namely the conservative club, pub and venue owners, so there was really nowhere to play for a punk band in Central Queensland. It didn’t really matter anyway because after the demise of CYST, I was keen to start my own punk band, playing all original songs, and there was no-one else I’d met in Rockhampton who was remotely interested in that idea.

By 1983 I was offered a few spots in bands to play bass, but all I can remember about these bands were that they were stuck in the 70′s, or newer bands that were obsessed with heavy metal and the 80′s hair metal bands. None of which was to my liking. So I continued to practice bass everyday at home, listen to as many punk records that I could find that appealed to my sensibilities of freedom of expression, honesty and individualism.

I remained a fan of John Lydon and his post-Pistols work with PiL, loved the Dead Kennedys and Flipper, owned and loved the first two Clash albums, I was back-tracking through John Lennon’s solo career, and discovered the writings of Jack Kerouac in the form of a beat-up original ’50′s paperback of “On the Road’ – that was sadly missing the last four pages. I also loved the amazing albums that Siouxsie and The Banshees were releasing on a regular basis, although again I had to endure the long wait from the record store as they were placed on “special order”, with no guarantee the LP would arrive at all.

In those ‘wilderness’ years I was lucky enough to meet an intriguing character and funny guy by the name of Dick Dale. Some of my mates said that they’d spotted a “punk” at some gigs around town. It was like Robinson Crusoe realizing he wasn’t the only person shipwrecked. I remember first meeting Dick Dale, he had a Billy Idol haircut (which was pretty cool in the day) and he head-butted me at the Grosvenor Hotel, I head-butted him back, and we proceeded to have the first of a million beers together.

Pretty soon we were seeing each other at the same gigs and dives, and I’m guessing we both were pretty keen to get a band together, with our main goal being to cause some excitement and mayhem.

By late 1985 we had hit a brick wall in regards to being able to form our own band, and if we did manage to form a band, then being able to play anywhere. We couldn’t find anyone with musical ability that wanted to play in a punk band, and conversely we couldn’t find anyone with musical ability that we wanted in our band either, so we were stalled big time.

It was all about to change when I ordered a Betamax copy of “The Great Rock n Roll Swindle” from an import store in Melbourne for the outrageous sum of $75 (probably about $300 in today’s terms!) It didn’t matter, as I’d only have spent the cash on more beer anyways …

SMEGMA (1986-1987)

By 1985, Dick Dale had saved up enough cash and took a trip to the UK.
He had a great time, met up with a bunch of English punks, saw some of our fave bands including Peter & The Test Tube Babies, and came back full of confidence, the latest in UK punk fashion sense and a stack of UK LP’s and punk zines.

Dick and I had become pretty good mates by now, spending a lot of time getting drunk, and listening to each other’s music collection, making copies of the stuff we both liked. Dick also had a great group of friends, mostly meatworkers, who were yobbo guys who enjoyed punk along with their more mainstream tastes. People like ‘Sid’ Cavanagh, Fudge and Maree, and the Horan brothers.

My other friends were mainly the football yobbos, with only a few of them into punk, most of them into hard rock and pub rock. We didn’t really have a lot of mutual friends at this stage, but punk rock had become both our lives, and we were determined to have a crack at forming our own band.

The “Great rock n roll swindle” is a strange version of the Sex Pistols story told by Malcolm McLaren, who didn’t let facts get in the way of a good story. Best of all it had plenty of Sex Pistols footage (no such thing as internet or YouTube then), and more importantly McLaren’s self-effacement of himself and the band.

McLaren’s tongue in cheek jibes at the expense of the corporate music industry were extolled in his “Ten Lessons of Rock n Roll”. To us it was like waving a red flag at a bull, so we used those “Ten Lessons” to form our own band, exactly ten years after McLaren had supposedly ‘engineered’ the Sex Pistols.

I can only remember a few of the phrases now, but we put them into full effect. “The very name the Sex Pistols”, “A band that can’t play is better than one that can”, “Never trust a hippie”, “Call all hippies boring old farts and set light to them”, “Avoid the rock n roll shitholes and play wherever you like” etc.

Dick had excitedly said he wanted to be called “Dirty Dick Smegma”, however that was the ideal band name we were looking for, so we chose it for the band, and Dick copped “Disease” as his new surname instead. Because Johnny Rotten and Sid Vicious were the famous ones, we thought it was important to have nicknames. Back then no-one knew or cared who Steve Jones and Paul Cook were, but even people who hated the Sex Pistols knew of Johnny Rotten and Sid Vicious!

Dick gave me the punk nickname “Bad Bored Borgy Bollocks”. It could’ve been worse! Once we got the band going it was just “Bollocks”, with John “Nod” Bright shortening it to “Bollox”, so that’s how that stuff all started.

Dick and I were on a pub-crawl on January 12th 1986, and following McLaren’s adage of ” A band that can’t play is better than one that can”, we asked everyone in every bar we drank in that day, (1) who wanted to be in a band? and (2) could they play? Anyone that said they could play was immediately ruled out of our search.

By some indeterminable late drunken hour we had drank our way around town to the main bar of the Swan Hotel in Rockhampton, where we recruited Mick Burrows (ex-CYST) on guitar and yard-glass, Adam Gordon on guitar and harmonica; on the basis that both of them couldn’t play a note. I suggested to Dick Dale that a phone call to Robbie Ward could be a solution to getting a drummer for our new band SMEGMA

Now politically Queensland at this time was known as a “Police State” . The National Party were in power and were anti-freedom of thought and freedom of speech. Demonstrations were banned. Ask the hippies who had their huts burnt down up in Far North Queensland! More than three people walking down the street could be asked to disperse or they’d be arrested as an “illegal demonstration”. The Drugs Misuse Act was brought in, so if you were in the company of someone carrying drugs (even if this fact was unknown to you), you could be charged with Possession of Drugs. Many times my friends and I were stopped by Police cars and questioned – sometimes in broad daylight riding my bike to the shop to get milk for my Mum! The Premier at the time said he wanted “all media banned, cos people would be happy if they didn’t know what was going on!”  The political structure and Police force were corrupt, and this whole mess wasn’t sorted out until the Fitzgerald Enquiry – a Royal Commission was formed in the late 1980′s, and finally Labor got voted in in late 1989 in began to reform the system from within!  It is this type of repressive society that is a breeding ground for revolutionaries, and we became musical revolutionaries, partly because of the dysfunctional society we had to grow up in.

Even before our first gig Dick had directed and produced a SMEGMA movie on videotape. I think filming took place in early 1986. It was a series of bizarre sketches, all tongue in cheek and based around the ideas we had on punk rock and the new band we were creating. At this time I had discovered Bob Dylan, thanks to my brother giving me the heads-up on his ’60s albums, and also being able to hear BIOGRAPH which was released as a 4 LP box-set that same year. So I recall my sketch involved a Dylan pisstake, with Dick doing a lo-fi animated sci-fi sequence of killer robots, Dick explaining the history of SMEGMA and its members parodying McLaren’s ‘rock n roll swindle’, and Dick’s brother Brett as ‘Rita the Smegma eater’ in a how to cook session. We called it the “Cheesy” movie, and it was popular viewing amongst our mates after the 10th beer! More importantly it showed Dick Dale’s early ambitions at film-making and directing, which to this day he has over 20 features to his credit!

Everyone in the band enjoyed beer drinking to the maximum, and in the wider circle of the band we had distinct groups of working–class mates – Dick’s meat-workers, mine and Mick’s football yobbos, Adam’s nurses, and Robbie’s railway workers. I can’t remember the full band ever rehearsing for our first show, but researching these notes I realised we had two brief rehearsals – one which ended with Mick and I eating dry dog biscuits under Disease’s house, and the other Disease, Ant and I foolishly combining serapacs and alcohol and recording the results at the Park Avenue Hockey Hall.

Mick had got the keys to the Wandal Bulls Clubhouse for his 21st Birthday party, and Dick and I said we’d play our first show as SMEGMA there on February 8th 1986. Both RAM and Juke magazines put our gig listing in their respective gig guides.

These were the Australian equivalents of the NME and Melody Maker, with both mags offering continuing support for SMEGMA as it evolved over the next two years. I don’t think the full band had played a note together before, probably we hadn’t even all been in the same room before! The only planning for the gig was making sure we had enough equipment to play, stocking up on beer and rum, and Dick and I writing a set-list of song titles we’d improvise to.

Strangely enough it wasn’t the worst show we ever played.
Dick had dislocated his thumb a few bars into the first song, and was ambulanced off to Accident & Emergency. I took over vocals; we played through the set-list, and proceeded to get seriously drunk. Dick arrived back, surprisingly no-one in the band even knew where he had been, so we said “You wanna try again?” and proceeded to play the whole set again with Dick on vocals. We managed to complete ten songs during the second set until the band got sick of playing and decided it was more fun to get totally drunk!

Other highlights included Mick playing guitar without a strap and managing to skull a stubby no-handed while playing guitar, some feat. Halfway through the second set, Mick handed his guitar to a stranger in the audience for the rest of the gig, who also knew nothing on guitar, whilst Mick proceeded to finish off his yard-glass onstage!

Dick and I used to see the old REJECTS guys, who we admired as being the first punk band that ever emerged from Rockhampton, in the pubs especially The Brunswick for some reason, and we’d shout “77 wankers”, “get a decent leather jacket, what’s with the suit coats” etc – all in good humour.

They’d give us some shit back, especially over our haircuts and boots, as we were already looking more like ’80′s hardcore punks, while The REJECTS were still embracing the ’77 look. It was all in good fun though as I knew they were proud of what we were doing and carrying the torch of what they themselves were doing in 1979. As a sign of respect one of the members of THE REJECTS made it as far as the car-park to see us play at our 1st gig, but was so drunk he passed out and missed the whole show!!

Pretty soon after that first show Mick had taken off to live in the hinterland somewhere near Cairns. He renamed himself “Mick the dirty fuckin’ healer monster”, which was shortened to “Healer Monster” and later “Healer”.
Mick renamed Adam Gordon simply “Ant”. Probably a pisstake on Adam Ant. Robbie Ward copped the moniker “Rob Shitface”, with two versions of how he got his name.
(1) He says because he was always shitfaced drunk ”
OR
(2) Dick will tell you “Cos his face looks like shit” Punks, huh? He he

After the unexpected success of our first gig, (the local newspaper “The Morning Bulletin” even reported Dick’s onstage injury), we suddenly realised we had a band (“That couldn’t play which in fact was better than one that could!”) and we’d found a venue (“That didn’t reek of rock n roll”), so McLaren’s lessons were so far standing us in good stead!!

Dick’s brother Brett and his friend Fudge had filmed the first gig on video, which is remarkable that it was documented at all, with excerpts later used in Dr Jim Douglas’ documentary “A Piss in The Ocean” (www.apitodocumentaryfilm.com.au/) More on that film in this website’s ON FILM section.

Dick and I started writing lyrics and I was busy teaching myself bass, and seeing what bass-lines I could improvise to his words and see if we could get a song out of it. We were more concerned with attitude and having fun than any musical aspirations, in fact we were anti the whole 80′s over-produced commercialisation of music, and watering down of rock n roll from being a revolutionary force into a non-threatening consumer commodity. We were determined to create something raw, honest and totally original in terms of sound, image and attitude, and find some fun in having to live in a redneck regional conservative backwater of a town!

The band also started to meet up for some practices/drinking sessions, which meant to get a hall and make a drunken racket, and see what songs might turn up out of it.

In April 1986 we answered an advert in the local paper for a party wishing to book a C&W band at the North Rockhampton Swimming Pool – we couldn’t resist.

A friend of Ant’s, Ken Wiltshire came on board as roadie and soundman. He hired the biggest PA system available in Rocky at the time, and spent two days building a huge outdoor stage at the North Rocky Pool, supposedly inspired by what he had seen at the Dire Straits tour thru Rockhampton the year before.
Ken “the ninja” and Pedro “prawn sucker” were our roadies around this early period of the band.

This time we were armed with a bigger set-list, with some of our new originals, and for fun we added a couple of punk covers too. As Mick was away, we recruited Dick’s skinhead brother Brett Dale on extra guitar, as Dick and I wanted it to be as noisy and annoying as our first gig.

Ant armed himself with 5 or 6 guitar effects pedals, with which he proceeded to torture the audience with all night. We had got about 85% of the way through our set-list when we had the plug pulled. It’s amazing we survived that long to be honest. All of North Rocky would’ve heard us that night, and we definitely weren’t Country & Western!! Dick got urinated on onstage by one of Rob Shitface’s railway worker mates called Wazza.

I have an audio sound-desk recording and you can hear Dick saying, “Oi mate – best thing I’ve seen all night!” Dick was in fine form all night berating the audience “Do you like The Angels?”, belated response from audience “arrh yeah!” Dick – “well then go to church!”

Remarkably we got paid $50, and this gig’s reputation soon spread around Rockhampton that punk was finally on the musical map in our hometown. Which was NOT music to the ears of certain sections of the community.

Following that show we were untouchables. It was impossible to get a gig anywhere.

PHOTOS OF SMEGMA (1986-1987)

Dick had enough of living in Rockhampton, and moved interstate to Brisbane on August 16th 1986, leaving just myself, Ant and Robbie to continue practising and working on new songs for several months.

I was busy trying to get the band some attention outside of Rockhampton, by writing to labels like Alternative Tentacles, Subterranean Records (both in the USA), and getting encouraging letters of support. I also wrote to bands in the UK that we admired like the Newtown Neurotics and Peter & The Test Tube Babies, who were also supportive of us, and the punk scene generally, unlike bands in our own hometown, who were hostile and determined to try and block our path. By writing to some Aussie labels we received a hopeful letter of an offer to appear on a compilation album being put out in Melbourne.

Dick arrived back in December 1986 totally surprised that we had kept the band going, and that the offer of appearing on the compilation LP had come up.

Saving up some cash for what we considered an expensive recording session (it came to nearly $200 for one song, probably about $1000 in today’s money), but which we found out was considered “inferior” by the Melbourne label Reactor Records, who after sitting on the song for many months stated “the big bands don’t like you, and you’re too British sounding”.

The song they passed up was “Deviants in the pub”, a song I wrote during a practice at the RCYC Hall in Quay Street, opposite the Criterion Hotel in late 1986. Ironically when I could finally afford to release this as a single ten years later in 1996, the pressing of 50 copies sold out within a fortnight!

“Deviants …” soon became our “shit single”. At every subsequent gig people would call out for it, and ask for it, with Dick always making them wait to hear it, until he got sick of the requests so we usually played it mid-set just to shut people up.

We recorded it on the 3rd January 1987, at the only studio in Rocky at the time, by a well-meaning guy who was a legendary pub-rock drummer in local music circles in the ’70′s and early ’80′s. He totally didn’t understand punk, but the recording was made anyway early in the New Year. Ant never fronted, it seems he had got cold feet and avoided the session, leaving me to add the guitar as an overdubbed track.

Luckily Dick, Robbie and I had enough cash on us to cover payment of the song three ways instead of the anticipated four way split. None of us knew anything about the recording process or mixing, so we really were relying on the ability of the producer, who couldn’t even imagine what we should sound like. It was my first experience in a recording studio, and the only time SMEGMA would ever set foot in a professional recording studio, partly because it didn’t interest us, and mostly because it was too damn expensive!

The recording had exhausted our limited funds, and we weren’t in a position to press the record ourselves for two reasons. (1) We didn’t have the cash, it was about $1,200 Au to press a seven-inch single in 1987, and (2) We didn’t understand the process at all. There was absolutely nobody we could ask for advice or technical help.
We ran a few copies off on cassette, and I think the only time I ever heard it played publicly was at one of the local niteclubs – Statix, when they played it five times in the one night! Local radio and media totally ignored the demo and blanked us out as if we did not exist.

Sometime in 1985 I had spotted a letter to the editor in RAM magazine from a punkette living in Townsville. I showed it to Dick Dale who started writing to her. Her name was Ruth Rebel and she ended up being a friend to everyone in our band, and a genuine supporter of SMEGMA and our punk rock attitude.

Ruth ran a radio show on 4TTT in Townsville called “smashes slashes and safety pins” or something similar, ably co-hosted by an ace guy called Nod (aka John Bright). Noddy ended up being a champion of the band and a great friend too.

Ruth was also editor of her own fanzine “Wot? No toilet paper again!” and had started to report on our activities in every issue. Dick and I had even gone up on holidays to Townsville in early 1986 to meet Ruth, Noddy, Juliana and Alan – and suss out what was going on in the only other sizeable regional city in Queensland in the mid 80s. We soon met some like-minded people who became our friends like Tim Steward, Stephen Booth, Tony Blades, Marcello Milani, Peta Hasselberger, Libby, Sully; all creative and talented people in their own right.

Ruth’s radio show was under the auspices of 4TTT, a community radio station, which Townsville had, and which Rockhampton has never seen the like of. It was allied with the R.A.T. (Rock Association of Townsville) and Ruth had some input it seems into some of the decision-making in both these organisations.
So without any master-plan, we simply sent Ruth and Noddy a copy of the “Deviants in the pub” recording just because they were our friends.

Another friend Anne Anarchy, who also lived in Rockhampton, was involved in Brisbane community radio station 4ZZZ. Again we had given Anne a copy of our “Deviants in the pub” cassette, little did we know she sent it to 4ZZZ where it was transferred to cartridge and played many times on air in Brisbane during the mid to late 80′s! Something we only discovered much later!

So although Rockhampton and Central Queensland were in denial of our existence, SMEGMA were starting to get some serious and positive attention further afield in regional Queensland, Brisbane, Sydney, Melbourne and overseas, partly due to our correspondence with punk rock bands and labels, but mostly through coverage in Ruth’s zine.

By May 1986, Dick Dale and I were already running Rockhampton’s 1st ever fanzine “f.f.f.”, which was pretty much tongue in cheek and more interested in taking the piss than trying to do anything of literary value! (More about “f.f.f.” zine in the ZINES section of this website)

With Dick Dale back on vocals, and having the recording of “Deviants in the pub” under our belt, we were keen on writing new songs and playing live again. We had an opportunity to play in a large shed at one of our skinhead mates Dean’s party at Emu Park, and proceeded to organise the first (and to date only) “C.Q. punk and skin festival”. We made offers to heaps on bands to come up and play, and it was great running a private show that no-one could close down or ban.
“Play any shit-hole that didn’t reek of rock n roll”…

During this time we had discovered that a young Scottish guy had started an import record store in Gladstone, which precluded having to get our records from Townsville or Brisbane or further afield. Gladstone was only an hour and a half drive from Rockhampton, and the Gladstone Music Centre had racks of imported vinyl including punk and independent bands at reasonable prices.

I remember the meeting the manager who was a very open-minded and enthusiastic guy called Jim Douglas, who also graciously distributed our zines, and later on also our demo tape when we released it. From what I can recall Scratches Records in Newtown, Sydney were the only other store in Australia who would stock our zines and music.

Jim also had a huge mail-order list of every punk and skinhead living in Central Queensland, and helped get the word out about the “Punk & Skin festival”, so to our surprise when we turned up at Dean’s to play, the place was full of every cool person that lived anywhere within a few hundred kilometres of Rocky, including bored punks and skins from the remote mining towns!

The gig was a huge success even though Rob Shitface couldn’t make it due to his Treasurer commitments with the Bundaberg Nudist Federation. Regardless Dick, Ant & I played with help from a guitarist from Emerald called Craig. Halfway through the set Ant unplugged him, as it was obvious Craig could actually play!

Better yet everyone had a great time and everyone no longer felt so isolated and alone, probably the first time I’d ever experienced a genuine sense of community and purpose in the punk scene.

As there were people from Townsville there including our great champion Ruth Rebel, we soon got an offer to play for R.A.T. in Townsville at the Mushroom Club, a live venue 4TTT ran out of the Royal Hotel. They needed a 4-song demo before they could book us. As we were too broke to do any more recordings, we added three songs from Chaotic Dischord’s album (one of which we covered anyway!), plus “Deviants in the pub” and posted them to 4TTT. It did the trick and we were booked to play the Mushroom Club in May 1987.

It was an opportunity we weren’t expecting, a venue wanting to book us, even with a fairly stringent contract on their part, holding SMEGMA responsible legally for any damage to the P.A., equipment, support act or venue!
So Dick and I made plans by practising with Ant and Shitface, and I posted an advert in the “Cairns Post” to try and find Mick so he could rejoin the band again.

One of Mick’s mates found the advert and Mick returned to Rocky in time for the road trip north. The gig was pretty ordinary music-wise, but helped to cement our reputation in northern Queensland, and we also became friends with the other band on the bill The Lethal Injections, fronted by Tim Steward, who Dick and I had met on our earlier trip to Townsville.

The LETHAL INJECTIONS were a deadly three-piece and we enjoyed their set immensely. Ruth recorded the gig to VHS video, excerpts of which appear in Jim’s APiTO documentary. Again we met a ton of cool people in Townsville including Robin Steward, Jacinta (who was an extra in the film DOGS IN SPACE), Dina and Carol, Ned Kelly, and the same cool people from our 1st trip – Stephen Booth, Kim, Tim Steward, Tony Blades, and Jeff Johnson.

After the Townsville gig that night, the Police pulled our hire-car over, and went right through the car and our personal luggage, stealing some of our guitar effects pedals, and charging our roadie Dave with drink-driving.
Unfortunately the Mushroom Club closed down not long after we played there, to this day I don’t know if that had anything to do with our gig. On this tour we had roadie assistance from Dave Head and Mick’s brother Adrian.

With the full original line-up back we were itching to play somewhere in Rockhampton again. A guy called Pedro who ran the Wine Bar in Musgrave Street in North Rockhampton was kind and brave enough to let us run our own gigs out of his bar. We charged $1 on the door, in return Pedro gave the band free cider, and he sold heaps more beers to the 50 or so kids who came to see us, rather than to his usual 5 customers! Win-win all around.

By this stage the band had surpassed its early loose and improvised sound, and we were developing a powerful unique sound of tight drums and bass, with two exceedingly distorted and painful guitars, all lead by charismatic front-man Dick Dale on lead vocals and weed-eater! The July show at Pedros was the best show we ever played, again drummer-less as Rob Shitface had quit after the experience of playing Townsville.

By this stage great people like Anne Anarchy, Nikki, and Angela G. were all supporting the band, and a lot of the regional punks from the March gig, also came along to lend their support. We all had a great night, and the band never sounded better. Anne recorded this show on her Walkman; unfortunately this cassette was stolen, which is a shame as it was our finest moment.

The next month we played Pedros Wine Bar again. This show on August 1st 1987 was destined to be our last – it was lousy, uninspiring and shambolic. The band members had punch-ups with each other between the sets. Ian “Turtle” Bock had turned up with a drum-kit and ad-libbed the drumming which was as bad as the rest of the group that night. The highlight of this nite for me was Mick wearing Anne’s ABBA “arrival” t-shirt and sticking safety pins through their faces!

To top it off the Police launched a raid with 12 squad cars, and arrested five people, a fact that wasn’t reported in the “Morning Bulletin” until over 20 years later! Dick and Ant were arrested, along with three poor bastards who came to see us on the sole basis that they had Mohawks the Police didn’t like!

The next morning Mick and I were picking up the amps and guitars and both decided it was no longer fun, and called the band a day. Which no-one in the band objected to at all. By the 28th August any differences we had were patched up and we all met up again for a booze-up / recording session at the Cathedral Hall in Rockhampton. Rob Shitface recorded the band live to two-track for posterity, capturing some of the band’s latter day power and sound, and with Dick introducing two brand new songs, and Mick bringing a new song along too!! It was a good and fitting way to end a great band – a group of friends having a laugh and a beer and enjoying our music just for ourselves.

Shortly afterwards in late 1987 we released our debut album on cassette “SMEGMA – a stain on your society” which we gave away to friends and anyone interested and which Jim kindly sold for us through his store in Gladstone. It came out on Cheesy-Knob Productions, with a limited edition photocopied booklet.

LINEUP
Dirty Dick Disease (aka Dick Dale) – vocals, weed-eater, and didjeridoo
Bad Bored Borgy Bollocks (aka Cameron Borg) – bass, vocals
Ant (aka Adam Gordon) – guitar, harmonica, vocals
Dirty Fuckin Healer Monster (aka Mick Burrows) – guitar, yard glass, vocals
Robbie Shitface (aka Robbie Ward) – drums
Also:
Brett the Skin (aka Brett Dale) – guitar (2nd gig)
Craig (from Emerald) – guitar (3rd gig)
Turtle (aka Ian Bock) – drums (last gig)

ORIGINALS
Deviants in the pub (Bollox)
Noise 4 U (Disease)
Popstar punks (Ant-Disease-Bollox)
None of your business (Ant-Healer)
Hurrey Up (Ant)
I’m constipated (Disease)
Cat went down the road (R. White-smegma)
Get my thrills (R. White-smegma)
Smegma (A stain on your society) (smegma)
Toss on Townsville (Ned Kelly-Healer)
Mice (Disease)
There are no words (Disease)
Revolution #13 (Bollox–Disease)
Scab sucker / gash fucker (Healer-Disease-Bollox)
The earthworm song (Ant)
Abortion Sux (Healer)
Can’t get no birds (Disease)
Kill all the trendies (Disease)
Fuck ya mother (Healer)
Streets of Rockhampton (Disease)
Spew chuck foul (Fudge-Disease)
Adam’s song (Ant)
Aussie hardcore (Healer-Bollox)
Freak (Disease)
Ingredients (Disease-Bollox)
All originals © SMEGMA 1986-1987

COVERS
City Claustrophobia (Chaotic Dischord)
Anarchy in Woolworths (Chaotic Dischord)
The nailbomb song (Chaotic Dischord)
Sick Boy (GBH)
Bjelke-Petersen Uber Alles (Dead Kennedys)
Too drunk to fuck (Dead Kennedys)
Whatcha gonna do about it? (Small Faces)
She Hates You (The Beatles)
Mary had a little lamb (Traditional)
Breast cancer (Peter & the Test Tube Babies)
Being sick (Peter & the Test Tube Babies)
Vicars wank too (Peter & The Test Tube Babies)
17 (Sex Pistols)
Anarchy in the UK (Sex Pistols)
(this is not a) love song (PiL)
Killing an Arab (The Cure)
Taskforce (Razar)
Bodies (Sex Pistols)
Ha ha ha (Flipper)
Way of the world (Flipper)
Living for the depression (Flipper)
Low life (PiL)
Red scab (Adam & The Ants)

GIGS PLAYED
Wandal AFC North Rockhampton 8/2/1986
42nd Battalion Memorial Pool North Rockhampton 12/4/1986
Punk / Skin Festival Emu Park 14/2/1987
Mushroom Club Royal Hotel Townsville (w/ Lethal Injections) 22/5/1987
Pedro’s Wine Bar North Rockhampton 3/7/1987
Pedro’s Wine Bar North Rockhampton 1/8/1987

PHOTO CREDITS
All photos  ©  1986-1987 and taken by Anne Anarchy, Cameron Borg, Dick Dale, Angela Gill,  Ruth Rebel, Janette White

RECORDING SESSIONS
Serapacs Jam, Park Avenue Hockey Hall 28/1/1986
1st gig live recording @ Wandal AFC 8/2/1986
2nd gig live recording @ North Rocky Pool 12/4/1986
Practice recording 2/1/1987
3rd gig live recording – Punk & Skin Festival Emu Park 14/2/1987
Recorded “Deviants in the pub” (Daley Planet Studio, Rockhampton) 3/1/1987
4th gig live recording at Mushroom Club, Townsville 22/5/1987
Smegma rehearsal Rob Shitface’s house 1987
Smegma rehearsal 2/1/1987
Live 3/7/1987 at Pedros Wine Bar (Sony Walkman recording – stolen)
Live at Cathedral Hall Rockhampton 28/8/1987

DISCOGRAPHY

OFFICIAL RECORDINGS

“SMEGMA – A Stain On Your Society” cassette
Released CheesyKnob Productions 1987
Reissued & © APiTO label 1991 (APiTO 006)
Cover art: Angela G.
First 50 copies with limited edition photocopied 10 page booklet

The Songs:
Deviants in the pub / noise 4 u / popstar punks / Mary had a little lamb / Ant live and the electric Dick / get my thrills / abortion sux / revolution #13 / cat went down the road / deviants in the pub (live) / smegma (a stain on your society) / none of your business / hurrey up / noise 4 u (live) / smegma (live) / the earthworm song / get my thrills (live) / anarchy in the u.k. / killing an arab / hurrey up (live)

“SMEGMA / LETHAL INJECTIONS – live at the Mushroom Club” cassette
Released & © APiTO label 1991 (APiTO 002)
Recorded: Live sound by Richard Marten at Royal Hotel Townsville 22/5/1987
Transferred from BETA video shot by Ruth Rebel
Lethal Injections originals © Tim Steward and Lethal Injections 1987

LETHAL INJECTIONS – the songs:
I feel alright / headache / ridin’ / real life / I feel dead / man the destroyer / grown up cold / brainwashed / chaos / 17 years / gas attack / boston babies

SMEGMA – the songs:
Noise 4 u / city claustrophobia / anarchy in the u.k. / killing an arab / ha ha ha / hurrey up / deviants in the pub / cat went down the road / toss on Townsville (Ned Kelly – guest vocals) / way of the world / aussie hardcore / smegma – toss on Townsville II (Ned – vcls) / whatcha gonna do about it? / freak – (a poem with
weed-eater by Disease)

“SMEGMA – 3 song e.p.” 7″ single
Released & © APiTO label 1996 (APiTO 021)

Side A: DEVIANTS IN THE PUB
Produced by Pete Daley @ Daley Planet Studio, North Rockhampton 3/1/1987
(45 rpm)

Side B: NOISE 4 U
Live sound by Richard Marten (4TTT), this recording by Ruth Rebel Mushroom Club, Royal Hotel, Townsville 22/5/1987
POPSTAR PUNKS
North Rockhampton bedroom demo circa May 1987
(33 rpm)

Clear vinyl single came in picture sleeve, with lyric insert and A2 poster
Limited edition of 50 – sold out within a fortnight

“SMEGMA” CD album
Compilation of single, live recordings, demos and rehearsals covering period 1986-1987
Released & © APiTO label 2007 (APiTO 041)
Foldout cover included discography, videos, gigs played, demo and tape covers, band photos, notes on the songs, and liner notes by Jim Douglas

The Songs:
Deviants in the pub (studio) / city claustrophobia / whatcha gonna do about it? / none of your business / hurrey up / cat went down the road / she hates you / revolution #13 / popstar punks / Mary had a little lamb / I’m constipated /
noise 4 u / deviants in the pub (version) / get my thrills / mice / earthworm song

BOOTLEGS

“SMEGMA – Live in Ethiopia” cassette (1987)
This live bootleg was circulated by persons unknown in Townsville after the Mushroom Club show from a soundboard recording of SMEGMA’s set only. It also included a narrated ‘McLaren-esque’ pisstake history of the band over the instrumental only backing track of the studio version of “Deviants in the pub”!!

The cover featured a map of Ethiopia. I saw this cassette in late 1987 but don’t have a copy in my own collection.

COMPILATION TRACKS

What About The Innocent? (Pathetic Recordings) 1990
Featured: deviants in the pub
1st Compilation (APiTO label) 1991
Featured: noise 4 u

Stomach This (Blind Conformity) 1992
Featured: cat went down the road
deviants in the pub

More Hippie Shit (APiTO label) 1992
Featured: deviants in the pub (live)

Free Tibet (APiTO label) 1993
Featured: low life

VIDEOS & FILM
For more extensive details see the ON FILM section of this website

SMEGMA on film

“The Cheesy film” home-made documentary (VHS video)
written and directed by Dick Dale (1986)
© Cheesyknob Productions 1986

SMEGMA – 1st gig – live@ Wandal Bulls AFC Clubhouse
VHS video footage filmed by Fudge and Brett Dale
© Cheesyknob Productions 1986

SMEGMA / LETHAL INJECTIONS live in Townsville 22/5/1987
BETA video footage appears in “Upon deafened ears”
Filmed by Ruth Rebel (1987)
© Rebel Productions 1991

Queensland Punk Rock compilation video
Featured live footage of Lethal Injections, Smegma and The Dog-Chairs
Originally shot on BETA video
Filmed by Ruth Rebel
Out of print VHS edit – compilation (P) APiTO label 2000
© Rebel Productions 1987 & 1991

A PISS IN THE OCEAN DVD

Documentary by Dr Jim Douglas on Central Queensland punk scene. Includes footage from above + previously unseen footage.
Sources as per above. © D.O.D. Productions 2010.
Still available thru: www.apitodocumentaryfilm.com.au