I recall picking up Jehovah My Black Ass... when it first came out - this was '86 or '87. Must say that both the Peach of Immortality records worked better as pop-art pranks than actual listening experiences.
The same can't be said of Smith's later works, which range from interesting to all out flattening, including some of the unreleased POI stuff from the 90s. I've a cassette called "Taxi Zum Shoah" that's a fairly engulfing piece of crud. At one point amid a lull in the clamor a voice is heard announcing, "SATAN! HEY SATAN, MAN, WE'RE HERE!" Needless to say a classic moment in modern music.
A fanzine I edited (Ugly American) did a pretty extensive interview with Smith back in the early 90s. A pretty sad story - yeh, he was in a "band" with Stipe, but while living in GA the love of his life perished in a car crash. She's the "peach" in Peach of Immortality. According to him she was a Georgia peach who will live forever in his music.
One thing Smith doesn't get enough credit for is his lyrics, probably because they're usually indecipherable. He's one of the few whose lyrics can be read seriously in a written format - bizarre and funny mashed up poetry concrete. Smith's prose style has a sinister simularity to Mr. Cope's own verbose lysergic haruspex musings on this very site.
For more obscure connect-the-dots: To Live and Shave in LA counted Ugly American editor Greg Chapman as a member during one of their European tours -> Greg was also a member of Frown -> Frown's Wallghost was the Unsung album of the month June 2004.
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