The Los Angeles Free Music Society (LAFMS) has been, since the early 1970s, the banner heading of a loose collective of experimental musicians in Los Angeles, California

Los Angeles, California

Los Angeles , with a population at the 2010 United States Census of 3,792,621, is the most populous city in California, USA and the second most populous in the United States, after New York City. It has an area of , and is located in Southern California...

 who were joined by an aesthetic based around radicalism and playfulness. Key players have included Joe Potts, Tom Recchion, Joseph Hammer, John Duncan, Dennis Duck, Juan Gomez, Kevin Laffey, Chip Chapman, Fredrik Nilsen, Jerry Bishop, Ace Farren Ford, Ju Suk Reet Meate, and Rick Potts.

Notable band configurations have included Le Forte Four, Smegma

Smegma (band)

Smegma is an American experimental noise group formed in Pasadena, California in 1973 and currently based in Portland, Oregon. Originally part of the Los Angeles Free Music Society movement of the 1970s, Smegma is one of the few music collectives of that era still active today. Author Richard...

 (who relocated to Portland, OR in the late 1970s), Solid Eye, Airway

Airway (band)

Airway was a musical ensemble based within the Los Angeles Free Music Society.Airway was initially a solo project of Le Forte Four member Joe Potts. The first release was the Airway 7", which featured subliminal messages to coincide with an art exhibition in Tokyo. In August 1978 Airway made their...

, Monique Experience, Foundation Boo, Extended Organ, and The Doo-Dooettes. Their influence is seen most immediately in other Pacific-coast "isolationist" experimentalists like Caroliner Rainbow, Sun City Girls

Sun City Girls

The Sun City Girls were an American experimental rock band, formed in 1979 in Phoenix, Arizona. From 1981 the group consisted of Alan Bishop , his brother Richard Bishop , and the late Charles Gocher . Their name was inspired by Sun City, Arizona, an Arizona retirement community...

, and The Thinking Fellers Union Local 282

Thinking Fellers Union Local 282

Thinking Fellers Union Local 282 is an experimental indie rock group formed in 1986 in San Francisco, California, though half of its members are from Iowa. Their albums combine lo-fi noise rock and ambient sounds with tightly constructed rock and pop songs. The band has a small but intensely loyal...

, as well as Japanese noise

Noise music

Noise music is a term used to describe varieties of avant-garde music and sound art that may use elements such as cacophony, dissonance, atonality, noise, indeterminacy, and repetition in their realization. Noise music can feature distortion, various types of acoustically or electronically...

 projects like Hanatarash

Hanatarash

Hanatarashi , meaning "sniveler" or "snot-nosed" in Japanese, was a noise band created by later Boredoms frontman Yamantaka Eye and featured Zeni Geva guitarist Mitsuru Tabata. The outfit was formed in Osaka, Japan in 1984 after Eye and Tabata met as stage hands at an Einstürzende Neubauten show...

, Hijokaidan

Hijokaidan

Hijokaidan is a Japanese noise and free improvisation group with a revolving lineup that has ranged from two members to as many as fourteen in its early days. The group is the project of guitarist Yoshiyuki "Jojo" Hiroshige its one constant member, who is head & owner of the Osaka-based Alchemy...

, and Incapacitants

Incapacitants

are a Japanese noise music group formed in 1981. It consists of Toshiji Mikawa and Fumio Kosakai, whose stated aim is to produce "pure" noise, uninfluenced by musical ideas or even human intention, using primarily feedback, vocals, and various electronics...

.

A ten-CD retrospective titled The Lowest Form of Music, comprising 1970s recordings made under the LAFMS banner, was released by the Cortical Foundation and RRRecords

RRRecords

RRRecords is a used and new record shop. RRRecords is distinguished as being the first American record label to specifically publish underground noise music in the early 1980s, and published the first American vinyl by Merzbow, Masonna, The Hanatarash, Violent Onsen Geisha, and many more artists...

in 1996.