Having a cult following may not be quite as satisfying as having a wide audience, but it’s still rewarding. Knowing a small but devoted flock of fans listen to and love your music inspires you to persevere in the face of low sales and no radio airplay.

Of course, you’d prefer that inspiration happened while you were still together as a band rather than decades after you broke up.

Like the decade that spawned them, The Open Mind went through a number of changes after first forming in London in 1963. The band began as The Apaches, but the mid-60s mod scene necessitated a name change to The Drag Set (what a drag it is getting old). Finding little in the way of success, in 1969 they changed their name and style once again, adopting a harder and heavier sound and the very of-its-time moniker, The Open Mind (a name suggested by the bass player’s mother, who tried very hard to have an open one).

The Philips label signed The Open Mind and put them in the studio with Johnny Franz, producer for Dusty Springfield and Scott Walker. In the middle of a recording session, the son of the band’s manager arrived and stopped the session to announce that his father had died. The band never had good luck — their subsequent managers were criminals.

The Open Mind’s debut album stiffed, but a return to the studio produced a one-off single, a hard-charging, hard-rocking, electric slice of distorted psych titled “Magic Potion.” Unfortunately the BBC banned the single after its release in August of 1969 due to the song’s perceived relation to drugs. The Open Mind soldiered on briefly before trying on another musical suit, in the guise of a jazz-rock band called Armada, before finally calling it quits in 1973.

The 1980s and 90s saw a revival in the popularity of psych rock and acid rock as collectors vied to dig out obscure gems. “Magic Potion” appeared on a number of compilations and copies of the single began to fetch hundreds, if not thousands, of pounds. Seemingly out of nowhere, The Open Mind suddenly had a following. Alas, they had all moved into different professional arenas (and countries) by this point.

But it’s better to be appreciated out of your time than never to be appreciated at all.