Cath Our Sis'Rack My Mind' is the final word in sexual frustration. If you have ever been driven out of your mind by the whims of a young girl, the insecurities of an older woman...maybe you were just careless. Whatever the reason for your suffering The Yardbirds understand. Turn this mother up and let Beck scream it out. Makes Mick and Keef's 'Satisfaction' look like a quest for bog roll.
An Absolutely Classic Rock Album!Much like the impact Jimi Hendrix had on those of us 'of age' to remember his first ever UK TV appearance on Top Of The Pops, and how utterly gobsmacking it was as rock history had never witnessed such a trail-blazing comet before; and likewise, this album had much the same effect when released in 1966. With both events happening in the same year, amongst many others, it can quickly be appreciated by the more 'junior' rock music fan / student exactly how earth-shattering and radical this album, and the era in rock, was. Even today these songs sound fresh and exciting, and are full of the promise of things to come, had The Yardbirds the ability to keep a lead guitarist for a longer tenure than just one album. However, as we are wise with the benefit of hindsight, perhaps Jeff Beck would not have excelled upon this album, which is, without doubt, the finest hour of his rock career, and probably his jazz career, too.
Kicking off with the fabulous 'Happenings Ten Years Time Ago' single A-side, which the band still have in their live set today, it also demonstrates the quirky era not only in the title, but within the lyrics, and also Beck's very odd 'talk-over' through the middle eight and his solo. In relation to this knockout A-side, 'Psycho Daisies' was good but not great, and for me, was rarely played from the 45, but here, other than blipping past it, there is no excuse but to listen, and it's well worth it.
At the time, I don't even remember anyone noticing the Mono LP was 'different' to the Stereo version, but obviously it was, and is, and both can be enjoyed here.
Worth noting, I think, is some 'today' girl-band have 'nicked' the riff to 'He's Always There' for their single / video, but don't ask me who they are, I just heard it on TV and thought, 'That's The Yardbirds riff they've pinched!" But whom in today's younger music scene, (other than whoever wrote it), would have heard of The Yardbirds, never mind the track?
Yardbird's lead singer, Keith Relf, didn't achieve much success with his solo singles, but they were, in fairness, released more at the insistance of their Manager then he. But they fit in well here, and round the whole package off. There was a lot of promo and advertising surrounding 'Mr Zero,' but it was a case of the fans adoring the band as a whole, rather then the sum parts.
Experimental R&BThe Yardbirds released a lot of singles but only three albums, the first a hothouse live item, the last, 'Little Games', which producer Mickie Most was apparently more enthusiastic about making than the band. That leaves this album as the only worthwhile studio album that The Yardbirds made. It comes from that year of pop progression, 1966, and it's clear that the band were up to all sorts of tricks in their workshop.
The twelve tracks that comprise the original album are mostly r&b-oriented but with a sprinkling of exotic ingredients. Jeff Beck was playing heavy guitar solos even then while there's a tinge of folk influence here and there. 'The Nazz Are Blue', 'Jeff's Boogie' and 'Rack My Mind' are all standard blues-rock showcases for Beck, while 'Lost Women' and 'What Do You Want' are substantial songs. The other tracks tend to veer off elsewhere to varying success. 'Turn Into Earth' has a strong mystical flavour due to the Gregorian-style backing chant previously used to such eerie effect on 'Still I'm Sad'.
This CD begins unusually with two welcome bonus tracks, the bewitching 'Happenings Ten Years Time Ago' and the Chuck Berry-style American travelogue, 'Psycho Daisies', these being both sides of a single. The Keith Relf tracks at the end are, in contrast, pretty forgettable. Nevertheless, this is a memorable and imaginative album well worth hearing.
Mono and Stereo "Yardbirds"Officially called simply The Yardbirds, this album came to be known as Roger The Engineer as that was the name of the front-cover caricature of their engineer Roger Cameron by Chris Dreja, written on the sleeve. It was their first studio album although an earlier incarnation of the band with Eric Clapton had released a live blues album, Five Live Yardbirds, and in America Epic had capitalized on the success of their final single with Clapton, For Your Love, by collecting all their UK Columbia singles to date and an EP in the pipeline, and added a couple of unreleased items for an album also named For Your Love.
Jeff Beck was not a blues purist and steered the band into fresh and exciting musical areas over the next few hit singles, incorporating Gregorian chants, sitar-like psychedelic guitar, backward tapes and controlled feedback.
Only the most recent of these, Over Under Sideways Down, which was created in the studios out of a spontaneous jam around Rock Around The Clock, and its instrumental flip, the self-explanatory instrumental Jeff's Boogie, were included on the album, the rest of which was largely concocted from scratch at Advision in one brief week of recording.
Some of the ideas used on their singles are reworked here, with Keith Relf leading all the vocals with the exception of The Nazz Are Blue which features a rare early vocal from Jeff Beck and bursts into a well-known Elmore James riff in the middle. Todd Rundgren named his band The Nazz in 1967 as a tribute to this song.
Mono was the norm in those days, when few record-buyers had stereo hi-fi systems, so must of the time spent mixing the album was devoted to the mono version, with the stereo mix left to the end and recreated independently but with reference to the mono master. Inevitably, there would be subtle, and sometimes glaringly obvious differences. A guitar overdubbed directly onto the mastertape during mixdown is necessarily absent from the stereo version of Hot House Of Omagararshid, and there are similar anomalies on He's Always There, Turn To Stone and others. Nevertheless, the benefits of the wide stereo sound are clear, and this edition presents both mixes in full using the Yardbirds' own mastertapes.
Bonus tracks include the magnificent psychedelic single released three months later, Happenings Ten Years Time Ago/Psycho Daisies, by which time Paul Samwell-Smith had left and Jimmy Page had joined the band as second guitarist and occasional bass player, and two solo singles released by Keith Relf as a side project.
Why two versions?Stereo and mono versions on the one disk might seem obsessive, but in this case it's worth it. Previous stereo-only versions of this album have had only "Hot House of ..." without its guitar solo --- a fairly pointless exercise, which I'd love to know the reason for. On this new issue you can hear it in all its glory including Beck's brilliant guitar break (at last), as well as fascinating solo tracks by Keith Relf. The album itsels aways was a true classic, and stands up very well today. The extras on this issue are well worth having. Even if you have a stereo CD of this disk, you should get this one for the different guitar parts on the mono version (most tracks have only slight differences, but "Hot House..." is radically different) and the Keith Relf tracks. Good notes too.
Hide Reviews
