Bad Taste's (aka Smekkleysa), birthday is the 8th of June 1986. The people behind it were young artists and musicians, that most had been active on the Icelandic music scene and very soon after went on to form "the pop department of Smekkleysa", The Sugarcubes. Another fundamental member is Ásmundur Jónsson, former co-founder of Gramm records with Einar Örn. In the humble beginnings the young eager people forming under the umbrella of Bad Taste had big, wild ideas, and were determined to do as much positive damage to the then fossile-like Icelandic art/music scene. As progressive art movements had done earlier in the century, the people behind Bad Taste put together a charter.
1. As "good taste" and "frugality" are the main enemies of creativity and well-being, Bad taste aims to fight everything that can be branded "good taste" and "frugality".
2. In the fight against the above ("good taste" etc.), Bad taste will use every imaginable and unimaginable method, e.g. inculation, extermination, tasteless advertisements and announcements, distribution and sale of common junk and excretement.
In the charter it is also stated that Bad Taste will start a radio station, Radio Demon (hasn't happened yet!), give out medals "to those who succeed outstandly in bad taste and dissipation" (given out couple of times) and open a restaurant / club called "The Dirt Pit" (hasn't happend yet!). From day one the main goal of BT became the publishing of work by its' members (be that music, poetry, novels etc.) and their friends and whoever fit the bill. The debut release was a postcard drawn by Friðrik Erlingsson, then a guitarist with the Sugarcubes, of Reagan and Gorbachev, who at the time had a legendary "peace summit" in Reykjavík. The postcard sold like crazy and earned the company enough money to release the first record, a 7" single by The Sugarcubes entitled "Einn mol'á mann" (One Cube per head) which featured Icelandic versions of "Birthday" and "Cat". The single didn't sell too well and was actually available from the mail order department of the company (started 1992) until 2000.
As the Sugarcubes became an internationally recognized act, more money was around to throw into the BT business. Most of the Bad Taste releases have finally broken even, but some haven't, so that perhaps explains that some years periods have passed without a single BT release.
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