THE MANDRAKE MEMORIAL - (S/T) - 1ST PRESSING vinyl LP - 1968 PSYCHEDELIC BAND

$

25

THE MANDRAKE MEMORIAL

“THE MANDRAKE MEMORIAL”  

Poppy       PYS-40,002

1968

FIRST PRESSING

EX / VG++

STILL IN SHRINK

BEST PRICED COPY ON EBAY AS OF 01-19-2017.  There are three copies currently sitting on eBay for $42, $43 and $44 (incl. post.).  None are still in shrink.

First pressing of this PSYCHEDELIC GEM that was the eponymous debut of this Philadelphia band.  Quite difficult to find today. Note:  The Collectibles label reissued this LP on CD in 1996.  It was dubbed directly from a vinyl copy of the LP and converted digitally.  Kind of defeats the while CD purpose.  Sound suffered as you would imagine.  See below for band info.

Stored vertically in a smoke free environment for 49 years.

From Wikipedia:  “The Mandrake Memorial formed in late 1967 when producer/promoter Larry Schreiber was asked to put together a house band for Manny Rubin's downtown Philadelphia club, The Trauma. Schreiber started with Michael Kac (pronounced "Katz"), a folksinger/guitarist/banjoist/keyboardist who was already a regular performer at both The Trauma and Rubin's other club, The Second Fret. Guitarist Kim King (of Lothar and the Hand People, another Trauma Club regular) told Schreiber about a drummer he knew in a similar situation. J. (John) Kevin Lally was from a band called The Novae Police, a fixture at the Night Owl Club and The Bitter End in Greenwich Village, playing with bands like The Flying Machine (with James Taylor) and The Ragamuffins (from Canada). Schreiber visited Lally in the basement of New York's Albert Hotel, where Kevin kept his drums in Lothar's practice room. Suitably impressed, he brought Lally back to Philadelphia to meet Michael, and the two musicians hit it off immediately. Kac then recruited a young guitarist he'd seen, Craig Anderton from a University of Pennsylvania college band called The Flowers of Evil, who'd been opening for Todd Rundgren's first band Woody's Truck Stop. Last, Lally convinced his friend Randy Monaco, bassist/vocalist from The Novae Police, to relocate to Philly and join them. Although everyone was already working musicians, they jumped at the chance to be a house band, with a guaranteed gig every weekend and the chance to open for all the big-name bands brought in by Manny.

The Mandrake Memorial quickly gelled and began developing a following. At the beginning they were a standard two-guitar, bass & drums quartet, but very soon a sales rep from R.M.I. approached the group with a prototype of what was to become their Rock-Si-Chord (an electronic harpsichord). The band tried it out and quickly realized it gave them a new sound nobody else had. Since Kac was the only band member who could play keyboards, he switched from guitar to harpsichord and Mandrake was complete.

The new sound was an immediate success. The band was widely acknowledged as "blowing off the stage" many of the headline acts they were supposed to be supporting. Mandrake opened for The Doors, Big Brother and the Holding Company, The Mothers of Invention, Moby Grape, and Strawberry Alarm Clock, among others, and appeared on TV with Pink Floyd. Soon Mandrake was performing college circuit clubs like Boston Tea Party, Psychedelic Supermarket, Electric Circus, New York's Cafe Au Go Go, the Second Fret and The Main Point. Manny Rubin got them signed to Poppy Records, the new experimental music label of MGM Records. Their first self-titled LP, produced by Tony Camillo and Tony Bongiovi (cousin of Jon Bon Jovi), sold over 100,000 copies, mainly in the Philadelphia, New York and Boston areas. A second LP, Medium was completed in early 1969 to similar high acclaim.