Smak
Smak is a Serbian band formed in Kragujevac in 1971. The group reached the peak of popularity in the 1970s when it was one of the most notable acts of the former Yugoslav rock scene. The band's leader, guitarist Radomir Mihailović, nicknamed Točak, is considered one of the most influential guitarists on the former Yugoslav rock scene.
Formed in 1971 by the guitarist Radomir "Točak" Mihajlović and drummer Slobodan "Kepa" Stojanović, the band did not get a stable lineup until 1975 by which time bassist Zoran Milanović, vocalist Boris Aranđelović and keyboard player Laza Ristovski became the band's official members. However, after recording their eponymous debut album, Ristovski left and the remaining quartet recorded their subsequent albums with various keyboardists before disbanding in 1981.
After brief reunions between 1986 and 1992, the two founding members, Mihajlović and Stojanović, reestablished the band with younger musicians — vocalist Dejan "Najda" Najdanović, the second drummer Dejan "Kepa Jr." Stojanović, second guitarist Milan "Mikica" Milosavljević and bassist Vlada Samardžić. During the late 1990, the latter was replaced by the bassist Slobodan "Sale" Marković who performed with the band until 2002 when Smak disbanded once again. The remaining members from the last lineup, with the new bassist Miloš Petrović reunited in 2010, and in 2012 the default lineup of the band made a one-off reunion.
History
Formation and early career (1971–1975)
Two ambitious twenty-year-old budding musicians—guitarist Radomir "Točak" Mihailović and drummer—met up in Stojanović's hometown Kraljevo on 23 April 1971 with a view of starting a band together. They had earlier been put in touch with one another through Mihailović's childhood friend Predrag "Biska" Albić who had served his mandatory Yugoslav People's Army service in Mostar with a group of conscripts that included Stojanović. Throughout their army stint together, Albić kept telling Stojanović about Mihailović's exceptional guitar-playing skills and passion for rock'n'roll, eventually arranging for the two to meet. Following the introductory meeting in Kraljevo, the two musicians returned to their lives as Stojanović had already been set to go on a tour with his family orchestra—an engagement he envisioned as an opportunity to earn enough money for a new drum kit—while Mihailović went back to his hometown Čačak.
Upon getting back home, Mihailović was introduced to Zoran Milanović and Slobodan "Koma" Kominac, both from Kragujevac, who asked him to join their upstart progressive rock band Gentry, an offer he accepted on condition that Stojanović become the band's drummer. During November 1971, the four met up in Kraljevo in order to officially form a band and, having been kicked out of Stojanović's family home by his grandmother who didn't appreciate the sight of four young men with long hair in her house, they went to a local restaurant and eventually to a nearby park where they wrote their first song, later named "Bluz u parku" in memory of the event.
In December 1971, the lineup was completed with the arrival of Miša Nikolić on organ. Still largely a cover band at this point, the group played youth dance halls with covers of Santana, Deep Purple, Led Zeppelin, The Rolling Stones, and Jimi Hendrix. Soon after, the members decided to change the band's name. Influenced by Smak sveta, a Hair-inspired musical being prepared locally at the Kragujevac Theatre in dedication to the schoolchildren killed during the Kragujevac massacre, they agreed on Smak as their new name while the play eventually never got staged. New name Smak occasionally got referred to in jest as S.M.A.K., a supposed acronym for Samostalni Muzički Ansambl Kragujevac. During this period, the band members spent time writing their own material, including 22 instrumental songs — from "Biska 2" to "Biska 23", written by Mihailović as a dedication to his friend Predrag "Biska" Albić, featuring the defined band's sound as a combination of progressive rock with jazz and blues influences.
The fact that the band's improvisations turned dances into rock concerts was the reason why their performances were becoming less popular, which eventually led vocalist Kominac to leave the band, being replaced by Slobodan "Johan" Jovanović, Mihailović's friend from Čačak. However, since the performances were the source of income for the band members, they all agreed to reunite with Kominac and go to Dubrovnik where they would perform mostly blues repertoire for two and a half months during the summer of 1972. During their stay in Dubrovnik, the band opened for Time, which had borrowed their equipment for the performance. After the Dubrovnik performances the band took a break until March 1973 when, with the new vocalist Milorad "Kimi" Petrović, Stojanović's former bandmate from the band Bluz Projekcija, Stojanović, Mihailović and Milanović decided to perform at the Požarevac Gitarijada Festival. There, in April 1973, the band shared the first place with the local band Dijamanti, which organized the festival.
With yet another return of Kominac to the band, Smak continued performing in Kragujevac clubs, as well as making a successful appearance at the Pop Music Festival in Sanad. This lineup recorded the song "Biska II blues", which appeared on the PGP RTB various artists compilation Leteća diskoteka, compiled by Zoran Modli in 1977. In October 1973, the musically inexperienced high tenor vocalist Boris Aranđelović, who had just returned from Australia, joined the band after auditioning with a successful performance of Deep Purple's "Child in Time". After Aranđelović's arrival, during the early 1974, the band started recording their debut single and were interested in bringing an organist into the band, offering the place to Time member Tihomir "Pop" Asanović, who turned down the offer due to his plans to form his Jugoslovenska Pop Selekcija. Eventually, the band released their debut single "Živim ja", originally entitled "Biska 13", with "Biska 16" as the B-side, in March 1974 through PGP-RTB. "Živim ja" featured the flutist Sreten Tasić "Tasa", at the time member of the band Oliver, who by chance turned up at the studio during the recording session. During the late 1974, "Živim ja" was selected as the hit single of the year on the Veče uz radio Radio Belgrade show.
Smak performed in Belgrade for the first time on November 10, 1974, during the Veče uz radio anniversary concert, alongside Bijelo Dugme, Pop Mašina and other notable bands of the time. Several days later, the band performed at the University of Belgrade Faculty of Philology, the first time with a guest keyboard player Laza Ristovski, a former Bezimeni and Boki Milošević Orchestra member. Ristovski officially became a member in January 1975, soon after which, Smak performed with the Hungarian band Omega in the Dom Sindikata Hall. In February of the same year, the band performed at the Rock Evening of Opatija Festival, and afterwards in Zagreb at the Kongres rock majstora concert held as the summit of the best Yugoslav guitar players. Unlike the expectation that Mihajlović would be declared the best guitarist of the event, the judges decided that the best four guitarists were Bata Kostić of YU grupa, Vedran Božić of Time, Josip Boček formerly of Korni Grupa, and Goran Bregović of Bijelo Dugme, all of whom, unlike Mihailović, were signed to Jugoton, the event's principal organizer. Shortly after, on March 16, 1975, Smak opened for the Deep Purple concert in Belgrade, performing three of their numbers: "Put od balona", "Šumadijski blues" and "Ulazak u harem".
After the performance at the Od glave do pete television show where the band performed the instrumental "Ulazak u harem", originally composed by Točak's teacher, Dragoljub "Jarak" Jaraković but rearranged by Točak, owing to positive reactions, they decided to record the track as their follow-up single. In April 1975, the band signed the Ljubljana ZKP RTLJ and released the single "Ulazak u harem" with the track "Epitaf" as the B-side. However, after being offered the contract by the Zagreb Suzy Records to release the single through their label, the band signed yet another contract, releasing "Ulazak u harem" with the song "Sto ptica" as the B-side, which resulted in the two labels simultaneously releasing the same single. The release of the singles became the first major music controversy in the history of Yugoslav music. Eventually the band chose to remain with the ZKP RTLJ label and were offered to record their debut album for the label. The following month, the band went on a Bosnian and Croatian tour with Bijelo Dugme and the East German band Puhdys, and had several live appearances with the Hungarian band Sirius and Austrian band Gypsy Love, followed by them headlining the Zagreb BOOM Festival.
Commercial success (1975–1978)
Smak's eponymous debut album, Smak, was released in 1975 and featured five tracks: the A-side featured "Perle", "Mračni mol", "Blues u parku" and the shortened "Biska 2", whereas the B-side featured the twenty-minute long instrumental "Put od balona", originally entitled "Biska 20". Despite its length, the latter track was recorded in a single take and was inspired by the Korni Grupa symphonic rock tracks such as "Prvo svetlo u kući broj 4" and "Jedna žena". The album featured the lyrics mostly written by Mihajlović, but shortly after, the band asked the services of the poet Mirko Glišić from Kragujevac for the same occupation, with whom they collaborated on their subsequent releases. The album received mixed to favorable critics, but nevertheless went silver, being sold in about twenty thousand copies. The album had also increased the cult status of Mihajlović's guitar playing, which was confirmed on their three-week tour of East Germany.In April 1976 the band released the double 7" EP Satelit, featuring the title track which became an instant hit, and had a cover which in its inner side had a satellite jumping out of the sleeves. The promotion of the EP was also organized in an unusual manner: the Ljubljana's ZKP RTLJ record label invited about twenty journalists to a DC10 flight from Belgrade to New York City during which the band performed an improvised session on the plane. They stayed in New York City for a week, recording a promotional video for "Satelit", a documentary about their visit, and performed in a club for expatriates from Banat. Upon their return from the United States, Mihajlović released his debut solo album R. M. Točak, and the band had a mini-tour of Yugoslavia during the Autumn of 1976. In October the band released the single with songs "Ljudi nije fer" with the B-side "El dumo", and as a part of the single promotion, a one-hour documentary about the band's stay in New York was screened. The following month, Laza Ristovski left Smak to join Bijelo Dugme, at the time Smak's rivals, being replaced by the organist Miki Petkovski from the band Breg, a cello music academy graduate in the class of professor André Navarra.
During the early 1977, the band, Ristovski's departure and Mihailović's illness started preparing material for the following album, with Petkovski also bringing his cello to the rehearsals, and the written material was recorded in London at the Morgan Studios. Crna dama, produced by Martin Levan, featured the lyrics written by Mirko Glišić and the music by Mihajlović, with the exception for "Tegoba", written by Petkovski, in which he presented his sympathies for jazz rock. The musical style ranged from the hard rock influenced title track, ballads "Stvar ljubavi" and "Plava pesma", featuring the London Harmonium string quartet, folk rock "Daire", the progressive "'Alo", featuring Aranđelović's scat singing combined with Mihajlović's solo parts, and "Domaći zadatak", featuring complex solos on drums, bass guitar and keyboards, which was directly dedicated to Bijelo Dugme. The album had a luxurious cover designed by Dragan S. Stefanović, featuring a new band logo which became one of the band's trademarks.
The album went gold and received mostly positive critics, although Glišić's lyrics received mostly negative reactions, being described as banal and ineffective. PGP RTB had also made a great investment in the album promotion, with the appropriate coverage in the media, thus the songs "Crna dama", "Daire" and "Plava pesma" became nationwide hits. On September 8, 1977, the band embarked on a large promotional tour, playing the opening show in Belgrade, performing in the sold out Pionir hall, and later at the BOOM festival in Novi Sad. In Zagreb, the band promoted the album in a streetcar which circled the city and after the Zagreb performance, in front of eleven thousand people, the representatives of the Frankfurt-based record label Bellaphon Records were introduced to the band. The band signed a five-year contract for eight albums, after which Mihajlović and Aranđelović traveled to London in order to record the tracks for the English language version of Crna dama for the European and American markets. Black Lady, featuring an alternate album cover, in the Melody Maker was reviewed as "a bad copy of Taste and Deep Purple", however, it received a positive review in Guitar Player. In the annual poll the readers of the Džuboks magazine selected Smak as the best band in 1977 and the band got the best album, cover, single, guitarist, bassist and drummer.
In January 1978, during the Midem music industry trade fair in Cannes, the Black Lady rights were bought by the American Fantasy Records and the Spanish branch of RCA Records. However, the atmosphere within the band had become tense, mostly since the successful Crna dama tour had eventually ended up in the band being twenty million dinars in debt after the tour. In such atmosphere they had several unsuccessful live performances, including the half-empty Belgrade Pionir hall concert in the spring of 1978. The band had also performed at a Polish international rock music festival in Poznań. At the time, the PGP RTS label bought the MCI 24-channel studio equipment on which, with the help of the personnel from Morgan studio, the band recorded the maxi single Smak Super 45, featuring "Nevidljive terazije" and "Hitopadeza", the latter featuring Stojanović simultaneously playing two rhythms. During that period Petkovski recorded a solo album Ko zna, on which on one side of the LP performed Smak members and Leb i Sol members on the other. Soon after Petkovski left due to his military service, being replaced by Tibor Levay, the member of the RTV Novi Sad Orchestra.