SMF

There is more than one SMF. SMF - Early 1990s hardcore and jungle (Jason Verrall aka Psycho, P. Hudson, Julian Alaneme aka Naughty Naughty) who had several releases on the classic Rugged Vinyl label in 1992 & 1993. Their final release was Rugged Vinyl #10 in 1994. Naughty Naughty had one solo release on Rugged Vinyl, also in 1994. Psycho had a release together with Mr Man, also on Rugged Vinyl. SMF is a band formed in February 1989 in Belgrade, Serbia, as a project of four musicians who were already playing in their own bands. The idea was for SMF to perform at a festival, held at SKC, and play hardcore style influenced by bands like S.O.D., G.B.H. and Suicidal Tendencies and for the lyrics to be simple, kinda "sick", sarcastic and even ridiculous. However, themes sometimes carried a strong message yelled in the listener's face or metaphoric meaning hidden under the "direct" level. The result appeared to be a quite unique style, brutally sounding and aggressively played music, full of weird breaks and unusual guitar riffs leading to bizarre harmonies. Finally, the whole idea was also considered a good fun and that's how it also went. Some people consider that SMF followed this original idea so closely and systematically that a completely new sub genre was born: "Sick Core". One other interesting thing about this first gig was that 8 songs were written in one day. Even though everything started out as a joke, the audience at SKC accepted SMF much better than the other more known bands. That was our main incentive to continue working. The idea was that no one played their instrument. Kokan and Dare are guitarists, while Francuz a bassist (only Djura played his own instrument). After the concert at SKC, Djura and Kokan returned to their own bands. Due to the positive reaction of the people who heard SMF's songs, Francuz and Dare decided to continue working. They were joined by Sale (Bands: Kerozin, Šaht) and Šola (Bands: Brainstorm, Svarog): * Sale - vocals * Dare - guitar * Francuz - bass * Šola - drums In this formation SMF worked until 1994. After a couple of gigs, in 1989 we recorded (now legendary) DEMO at the Zodiak studio. The demo contained 9 songs and lasted for about 10 minutes total. Don't be fooled by the duration - it does not take away from the quality. Even though this demo was later supposed to appear as a single for the "Start Today records", it was never formally issued. However, the demo has been carried "from hand to hand" and spread by word of mouth, so, wherever we had played, people knew our songs and accepted us well. This demo is still very interesting today, even though these songs can be found on our first official album. The production was raw (and fierce), and the style being authentic hard core from the late eighties. In 1991, upon the breakout of war, the band stopped working (due to understandable reasons). During that period, the style of SMF was not adequate to the happenings and the situation as a whole. So, we began work on new songs using the entire newly formed situation as an inspiration. We were waiting for better times to come, that were somehow, nowhere on the horizon. Everybody got used to the all around madness… and we were completing the material for our first album. At the beginning of August 1994, for an incredible 30 somewhat hours, we recorded "Dalje neces moci..." ("You can't go any further..."), at the Focus studio. The material was issued by ITV Melomarket (aka ITMM). There are 26 songs on the album. We could have put more, but we didn't want to overdo it. Songs were mostly silly, although some of them may be metaphorically taken and understood. On that album, we have definitely formed a style from which we have not backed off anymore. During that time, we were fascinated with the jokes from legendary Serbian movies "Ko to tamo peva" i "Maratonci trce pocasni krug", which can be noticed on the album through songs like "Dalje neces moci", "Djenka", "Opljackani smo" i "Vozi Misko". We must admit that we were the first ones to use samples from these movies, which were later adapted by other bands, radio stations and even TV stations. SMF wishes to thank the director of these two exceptional movies , Mr. Slobodan Sijan. We have always considered these films to be the finest accomplishments of our domestic cinematography. Recently, an official acknowledgement was formally given to the cult film "Ko to tamo peva". It's the title of the best Serbian movie in the first 100 years of cinematography. Of all the cover tunes we've done over the years, our album had a parody takeoff of the Suicidal Tendencies song "I saw your mommy…" At the gigs, we were doing songs by: YELLO - "Race", M.O.D. - "Bubble Butt", BEASTIE BOYS - "No Sleep Till Brooklyn", 2 UNLIMITED - "No Limits", G.B.H. - "Big Women", PEKINŠKA PATKA - "Biti ruzan, pametan i mlad". During one show at the KST, we performed a hit song by our leading lady folk singer Ceca (to the all around horror and amazement of the audience). Šola left the band in 1994 and joined Svarog. Taking his place was Boris, formerly of Brainstorm. The line-up of SMF became the following: * Sale - vocals * Dare - guitar * Francuz - bass * Boris - drums The same line-up remains today. In 1995, our friend Dejan Zecevic, a movie director, used our music for the soundtrack of his movie "Decak iz Junkovca". We are flattered he did so, because we really like this great movie. Furthermore, it is dedicated to an extraordinary person, legendary Serbian film director, actor, producer, writer and a scientist - Radomir Belacevic. We began to prepare the new material in mid 1996. We worked pretty hard and compiled 17 songs. Of course, all of the time we tried to incorporate the now well known style of SMF into our songs. At the beginning of 1998, we recorded our second album "Lako cemo" at the Akademija studio. Since we have not made a buck during all this time, plus we had little or no air time on the radio and TV, we decided to remain truthful to ourselves and to those who love us. We did no "sell out" the music, stayed aggressive and hostile, the production of the very album was now much better than the previous one and the lyrics were still provocative, direct, carrying a hidden meaning. The CD edition of this album represents the first formal multimedia disc of any domestic band in Serbia. If you put the disc in your CD ROM drive, you will be able to see a short video story relating to the album itself. We have to point out that SMF is a band that exists primarily for performing live. At our shows, the songs sound more energetic, the audience is in a great mood and a feeling is created that can only be seen and felt at hardcore shows. That's why we call all of our fans and those who haven't heard us yet to come and see us live. In year 2000 we started working on our 3rd album. After amazing 6 years of work, 14 new songs were completely mastered at the end of year 2006. Well known SMF's unique style, sounding, rhythms and harmonies, this time has developed further beyond the boundaries of standard hardcore and crossover. While influences of metal core, traditional metal, punk rock and funk were usual before, now in SMF’s music could be found some elements of fusion, industrial, break beat, drum‘n’bass and even a some traces of purely electronic music, like techno and trance. The album was finally released in November 2007 for PGP-RTS. Discography * Dalje neces moći... plati pa ces proći! (ITMM, 1995) * Lako ćemo (ITMM, 1998) * Ma kome majku? (PGP RTS, 2007) http://www.myspace.com/smfspace Read more on Last.fm. User-contributed text is available under the Creative Commons By-SA License; additional terms may apply.