Lost Music: Hot House Of Omagarashid (The Yardbirds)

Remembering Forgotten Songs

The Yardbirds

Hot House Of Omagarashid

Back in 1966, I picked up a cool Yardbirds album called Roger The Engineer at a record store while I was visiting Swinging London. My favorite track on this slab of vinyl was a bizarre middle eastern work out called Hot House Of Omagarashid. I've always found that this track has a distinctive hypnotic vibe.

"By 1966, the Yardbirds had the respect of every young guitar-slinger in London due to their main axeman, Jeff Beck. Having replaced the more puritanical Eric Clapton in 1965, Beck had to both contend with an audience who missed the bluesman’s authentic tones and also management who couldn’t decide whether the band would be an out and out pop combo or retain their earlier R’n’B credibility.

Luckily for Beck, the nascent strains of psychedelia were just around the corner, fitting nicely with his disregard for anything approaching the straight playing of six strings. Even in his days before the Yardbirds with bands like the Tridents, Beck had demonstrated a stinging attack and ability to coax weird sounds from his guitar. On the Roger the Engineer album, the band approached something like the only proper studio album of this classic mid-period line-up. The well-oiled rhythm section were perfectly suited to support some of Beck’s wildest sounds to date. From The gloomy chant of Hot House of Omagarashid to the cod-Arabian whirlings of Over Under Sideways Down these are songs that sit midway between Eel Pie Island and the UFO club." (www.bbc.co.uk)