{"id":6845,"date":"2025-02-07T12:55:12","date_gmt":"2025-02-07T12:55:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/shindig-magazine.com\/?p=6845"},"modified":"2025-02-07T12:55:21","modified_gmt":"2025-02-07T12:55:21","slug":"issue-160-the-smoke","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/shindig-magazine.com\/?p=6845","title":{"rendered":"Issue #160 \u2013 The Smoke"},"content":{"rendered":"

THE SMOKE shocked Britain with their psychsploitation smash \u2018My Friend Jack\u2019 and earned a BBC ban \u2013 or did they? HUW THOMAS tells the real story of four lads from York who smuggled LSD onto the radio, spat out the Krays, shook German music fans and unwittingly inspired Boney M. It\u2019s Smoke time!<\/strong><\/p>\n

In this extract we unravel ‘My Friend Jack’. Buy the magazine here<\/a>.<\/strong><\/p>\n

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\u201cWe were living in Brixton and driving each day to a Mecca bingo hall in Wembley to rehearse,\u201d Lund would recall. \u201cAfter each session, we would throw ideas around and try to cobble together a new song. Mick Rowley came straight out with the first few lines of \u2018My Friend Jack\u2019 and, with Geoff Gill\u2019s help, the song was complete after about 15 minutes.\u201d At the next Lansdowne session, Babson pounced upon \u2018Jack\u2019, seeing potential in its infectious melody and scandalous lyrics about ingesting LSD via sugar lumps: \u201cMy friend Jack eats sugar lumps…\u201d and \u201cHe\u2019s on a voyage across an ocean \/ Waves of his mind are set in motion.\u201d The group recorded the song in an electric chug arrangement redolent of Chinn & Chapman\u2019s Sweet material that followed years later and, at Babson\u2019s insistence, Mal Luker added a brutal tremolo guitar part, an extraordinary finishing touch. \u201cWe were all astounded by the racket he\u2019d made,\u201d Lund enthused in 2002. The Smoke, as the group now called themselves (a name inspired either by northerners\u2019 nickname for London or the group members\u2019 fondness for jazz rollups), had surely made the most infectious pop single to come out of the psychedelic movement yet.<\/p>\n