Kac (and his Rock-Si-Chord) left the band following Medium, citing musical differences, and in the summer of 1969 the remaining trio traveled to England to record a live-in-the-studio acoustic album with famed producer Shel Talmy.
![mandrake memorial mandrake memorial](https://www.popsike.com/pix/20200229/164087615656.jpg)
A second LP, Medium was completed in early 1969 to similar high acclaim. 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. Manny Rubin got them signed to Poppy Records, the new experimental music label of MGM Records. 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.
#MANDRAKE MEMORIAL TV#
Mandrake opened for The Doors, Big Brother and the Holding Company, Frank Zappa and The Mothers of Invention, Moby Grape, and Strawberry Alarm Clock, among others, and appeared on TV with Pink Floyd. The band was widely acknowledged as "blowing off the stage" many of the headline acts they were supposed to be supporting. Since Kac was the only band member who could play keyboards, he switched from guitar to harpsichord and Mandrake was complete. The band tried it out and quickly realized it gave them a new sound nobody else had. approached the group with a prototype of what was to become their Rock-Si-Chord (an electronic harpsichord). At the beginning they were a standard two-guitar, bass & drums quartet, but very soon a sales rep from R.M.I. The Mandrake Memorial quickly gelled and began developing a following. 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. Last, Lally convinced his friend Randy Monaco, bassist/vocalist from The Novae Police, to relocate to Philly and join them. 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. Suitably impressed, he brought Lally back to Philadelphia to meet Michael, and the two musicians hit it off immediately. Schreiber visited Lally in the basement of New York's Albert Hotel, where Kevin kept his drums in Lothar's practice room.
![mandrake memorial mandrake memorial](https://www.popsike.com/pix/20191012/264495906426_4.jpg)
(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). Guitarist Kim King (of Lothar and the Hand People, another Trauma Club regular) told Schreiber about a drummer he knew in a similar situation. Kac had been in a band called The Candymen, later known as Cat's Cradle, recently broken up (Schreiber had been their manager). 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.
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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.