About a Body Working With The Embodied Mind Jenny Corigall

As a defining point of the U.K. psychedelic/progressive rock crossover, the Open Mind's sole album is the perfect specimen. With a singing style rooted in the freakbeat era, rather than the operatic tenor screams hard rock ushered in, and acidic duel guitars, heavier than those of a typical psychedelic act, The Open Mind filled the gap between the beginning of one era and the end of another. "Magic Potion" is unarguably their greatest moment. Its monotonous rhythm guitar anticipates the stoner rock of Hawkind while double bass drum fills and doom-laden fuzz guitar ragas combine bombastic rock power with Eastern-influenced psychedelia. Magnificent! "Girl, I'm So Alone" - a remake of early Open Mind lineup, mod band the Drag Set's "Get out of My Way" - harks back to a 1967 feel, as do a number of other songs that show the band being not quite as progressive as they intended…

The Yardbirds' second American album, and a fundamental one at that. Although the original version includes four of the ten tracks already featured on Five Live Yardbirds, released less than a year earlier in Great Britain, it confirms the talent of the two guitar monsters, Eric Clapton and Jeff Beck, which had been sketched out on the previous compilation album, For Your Love, and was to be decisive in the musicians' continued notoriety across the Atlantic.

The Yardbirds' second American album, and a fundamental one at that. Although the original version includes four of the ten tracks already featured on Five Live Yardbirds, released less than a year earlier in Great Britain, it confirms the talent of the two guitar monsters, Eric Clapton and Jeff Beck, which had been sketched out on the previous compilation album, For Your Love, and was to be decisive in the musicians' continued notoriety across the Atlantic.

As overworked a phrase as `Beatlesque' is, it nonetheless fittingly describes the sound of the Knickerbockers, one of the many American groups smitten by the English sound in the mid-60s. But it ought to be argued that rather than simply being Beatle imitators, the Knickerbockers were in fact the first great `powerpop' combo, in that they played concise, melodic rock with power.
One listen to this compilation should convince even the most skeptical observer of that fact. The group made their name in the early part of their career with their ability to sound like other people, but once they hit their stride with the material presented here, the Knickerbockers came into their own as purveyors of classic (and timeless) 60s pop…