GANDALF 1st &ONLY ALBUM INSANELY RARE ORIG'68 CAPITOL LP CULT PSYCH CLASSIC MINT

$

996

WE CURRENTLY HAVE   MORE THAN 500  LISTED ITEMS

►Click here to see ALL our ROCK auctions ►Our PSYCH & PROGRESSIVE  auctions ►Our PUNK & NEW WAVE  auctions ► Our  JAZZ auctions ►Our BLUE NOTE JAZZ auctions  ►Our BLUES auctions ►Our CLASSICAL auctions ►Our COUNTRY auctions ►Our FUNK auctions ►Our LATIN auctions ►Our METAL auctions►Our REGGAE auctions ►Our SOUL auctions ► Our STILL SEALED ITEMS  ►Our PROMO auctions  ►Our AUDIOPHILE auctions

♫♪♫♪♫♪♫♪♫♪♫♪♫♪♫♪♫♪♫♪♫

·       GANDALF  -  THE SELF-TITLED FIRST (AND ONLY) ALBUM ("GANDALF") - INSANELY RARE  ORIGINAL 1968 CAPITOL RECORDS STEREO LP ST-121

·       ORIGINAL U.S. PRESSING

·       INITIAL RELEASE OF THIS ALBUM IN 1968 WAS PLAGUED BY A MASSIVE SCREW-UP ON PART OF CAPITOL RECORDS: NAMELY, THE ENTIRE FIRST BATCH OF THE ALBUMS SHIPPED TO THE RETALERS CONTAINED THE WRONG RECORD INSIDE!!!  BY THE TIME THE ANGRY CUSTOMERS SCREAMED UP A FIRESTORM AND CAPITOL TRIED TO CORRECT THE MISTAKE, IT WAS ALREADY TOO LATE: THE MARKET MOMENTUM WAS LOST, THE DEMAND FOR THE ALBUM AND THE GROUP EVAPORATED, AND CAPITOL , PROBABLY ANTICIPATING THAT THE IRATE CUSTOMERS WOULD BOYCOTT THE ALBUM,  REPLACED THE MISSHIPPED COPIES IN TRULY MINUSCULE QUANTITIES, PROBABLY LESS THAN 500 COPIES ALTOGETHER, OF WHICH PROBABLY LESS THAN 300 STILL EXIST TODAY, AND LESS THAN 200 ARE IN PLAYABLE CONDITION. WE WOULD BE WILLING TO BET THAT LESS THAN 100 ARE IN NEAR IN NEAR MINT CONDITION, SUCH AS A BEAUTIFUL SPECIMEN WE HAVE HERE

·       ORIGINAL BLACK CAPITOL LABEL WITH MULTICOLORED SPECTRUM (“RAINBOW) BAND ALONG THE LABEL’S EDGE AND CAPITOL’S LOGO ON TOP (12 O’CLOCK POSITION) OF THE LABEL

·       THIS IS THE ORIGINAL, AUTHENTIC, FIRST U.S. PRESSING; THIS IS NOT A REISSUE, AN IMPORT, OR A COUNTERFEIT PRESSING.

·       THICK CARDBOARD COVER, AMERICAN STYLE.

·       THICK, HEAVY VINYL PRESSING

·       CLEAN, WEAR-FREE LABELS

·       MATRIX NUMBER IN TRAIL-OFF VINYL (DEAD WAX) ENDS WITH '-A1/-B2'

(►PLEASE SEE THE IMAGE OF THE COVER, LABEL OR BOTH, SHOWN BELOW)

(Note: this is a REAL image of the ACTUAL item you are bidding on. This is NOT a "recycled" image from our previous auction. What you see is what you’ll get.  GUARANTEED!)

♫♪♫♪♫♪♫♪♫♪♫♪♫♪

Many obscure albums are obscure for a reason and never come close to living up to the underground hype. Happily, that is not the case with this album. This is a wonderfully well done album. It is beautifully  composed, arranged, produced and performed, with nice singing and highly competent playing. It is pretty mellow with a lot of organ for the most part, though "Never Too Far" is a nice blast of fuzzy-guitar psych. The album has a better than average stereo sound for the era. The "trippy" studio effects are used tastefully and contribute to a pleasantly hazy, dreamlike vibe. I think it's one of the best obscure albums of the era. Highly recommended for psych, baroque pop, and 60's fans. This is easily one of the rarest major-label psych recordings of the '60s; released by Capitol in '68, this dreamy set of songs (from Tim Hardin's Never Too Far to their own I Watch the Moon ) casts a spell with Hammond organ, fuzz guitar, vibraphone and electric sitar. Original copies of this ultra-rarity go for upwards of $250 in practically any condition!

***

Gandalf, also known as The Rahgoos, were one of those garage line-ups that first saw the light of day in a high school detention hall, when guitarist Peter Sando met bassist Bob Muller in 1958. Though it's hard to imagine there being much of a market for a high school cover band over in the big city next door, New York has always been one of those places where just about anyone can find a home. For The Rahgoos, that home was the Night Owl, a cramped storefront-turned-mythic-rock-cafe where the likes of John Sebastian and his Lovin’ Spoonful and The Blues Magoos packed in to watch acoustic sets by James Taylor and The Flying Machine. The ragtag Night Owl family, including owner Joe Marra, toothless doorman “Jack the Rat,” Pepe the openly gay cook, and Annie, the four-letter-word-slinging head waitress, realized early on that The Rahgoos were much more than what they appeared to be on paper. Before long, the band linked up with Spoonful producers Charlie Koppelman and Don Rubin to sign a record deal with Capitol.

Though The Rahgoos dissolved before their record was ever released, what they left behind is probably one of the most visionary cover albums in the history of pop. Not “visionary” in the sense of re-invention (Easy Star All-Stars’ “Dub Side of the Moon” and “Radiodread” coming to mind), but “visionary” in the sense of re-investment, as though these songs -- songs we’ve already heard a hundred times before -- had suddenly become re-possessed by the ghosts of their true authors. The band changed their name to Gandalf and the Wizards in 1967; this moniker, discovered by drummer Davey Bauer while flipping through Tolkien’s The Hobbit between sets, gives us some idea of the fresh alpine air they would breathe into pop vocal standards like "Nature Boy," "Golden Earrings," and "Scarlet Ribbons".

Whenever I play Gandalf for friends, I like to ask them what color they see. Even if they haven’t seen the album’s orange sleeve, they almost invariably cite a color ranging between red and burnished gold. Gandalf is one of those albums that has an almost synesthetic effect on its listeners, filling every room which it's played with a kind of heavy, perfumed fog. Peter Sando’s wind-kissed, reverb-dripping tenor is perhaps most responsible for this effect. As though his psychic identification with these old love ballads were too strong to be confined within the songs themselves, Sando swoops up from under each melody and wrestles it into the air, blasting the chorus of “Golden Earrings” on track one into a wingspan over an autumnal mountain range.

Perhaps you have already guessed it: Gandalf is one sexy record. Fuzz guitar, Hammond B3, electric sitar, vibraphone, and chunky, equally reverb-saturated bass ground Sando’s voice in a kind of clipped, baroque accompaniment, voluptuous in its restraint. Spaciousness is definitely the defining feeling of the album, but all of its elements seem to be hanging on a single, taught string. Which is what makes Gandalf’s music all the more debilitating when that string finally breaks, and a song that started off as a whispered fairy-tale (“Nature Boy,” sung by Nat and Natalie King Cole in their day) gives way to a drum fill and a guitar howl.

While it may come as a bit of a surprise, not all of the songs on Gandalf are covers. The lovely “Can You Travel in the Dark Alone" and “I Watch the Moon,” the opener and closer of the second side, were penned by Peter Sando himself. I mention this as a closing note, but it shouldn't be taken as a fact that somehow “redeems” the record in terms of authorship and originality. Even without these two songs, Gandalf is about as genuine as an album can get -- its sound so distinctive and unified that it's hard to tell (or care) who wrote what. Sando and his buddies from Tenefly High School did more than just recast a bunch of old yarns within the psychedelic era; they made them theirs.

Tracks

1. Golden Earrings (J. Livingstone, V. Young) - 2:45

2. Hang on to a Dream (Tim Hardin) - 4:12

3. Never Too Far (Tim Hardin) - 1:50

4. Scarlet Ribbons (J. Begal, E. Danzig) - 3:02

5. You Upset the Grace of Living (Tim Hardin) - 2:38

6. Can You Travel in the Dark Alone (Peter Sando) - 3:07

7. Nature Boy (Eden Ahbez) - 3:06

8. Tiffany Rings (Garry Bonner, Alan Gordon) - 1:48

9. Me About You (Garry Bonner, Alan Gordon) - 4:53

10. I Watch the Moon (Peter Sando) - 3:50

Gandalf

*Peter Sando - Guitar, Vocals

*Bob Muller - Bass, Vocals

*Frank Hubach - Electric Piano, Piano, Organ, Harpsichord

*Dave Bauer - Drums

 (EXCERPT FROM AN ONLINE REVIEW BY EMILIE FRIEDLANDER  /ALLMUSIC.COM/)

♫♪♫♪♫♪♫♪♫♪♫♪♫♪♫♪♫♪♫♪♫

·                               CONDITION:

·                               RECORD

(IMPORTANT NOTE: unless otherwise noted, ALL records are graded visually, and NOT play-graded!; we  grade records under the strong, diffuse room light or discrete sunlight)

(a)          WE GRADE THE VINYL  AS  NEAR MINT. Some VERY LIGHT AND SUPERFICIAL abrasions – mostly sleeve scuffs -  are (barely) visible, but are probably inaudible,  and do not affect visual integrity or beauty of the vinyl. The original luster is very much intact, and the vinyl shines and sparkles almost like new.

(b)          The record is pressed on a beautiful, thick, inflexible vinyl, which was usually used for the first or very early pressings. Usually, the sound on such thick vinyl pressings is full-bodied, vivid, and even dramatic. Do not expect to obtain such a majestic analog sound from a digital recording!

(c)           Of course, this is a full-bodied ANALOG recording, and not an inferior, digital recording!!!

·       COVER

THE COVER IS NICE --- ABOUT EXCELLENT OR VERY GOOD+++.

The following flaws or imperfections are noted on the cover:

-        Cover has a partially split bottom seam (between 1 and 2 inches  / 2.5 to 5 centimeters)

-         Cover has JUST A HINT of ring wear (nothing significant); On the scale from 1 to 10 (1 being the least, and  10 being the most severe), we assess the severity of ring wear as 1.    (VISIBLE ON FRONT SIDE ONLY)

-         Cover shows JUST A HINT of yellowing on both sides, apparently from aging.

-         Cover has a minor 'bump' (dent) on the opening side (nothing significant)

NO OTHER IMPERFECTIONS ON THE COVER:

-        No cut-out (drill) holes.

-        No cut-out corners

-        No saw-marks or indents

-        No dirt/dust rubbing stains (friction marks caused by rubbing against other covers)

-        No wrinkles or creases

-        No writing

-        No stamps

-        No peel-off marks

-        No stains

-        No mold or mildew spots

-        No stickers or labels

-        No water damage

-        No razor marks, scratches, pressure marks, lines, streaks, or  cuts.

-        No warping

-        No wax, glue, paint or liquid drops on the cover

-        No glue traces or wax residue.

-        No bar codes

-        No RIAA stamps or stickers. 

♫♪♫♪♫♪♫♪♫♪♫♪♫♪♫♪♫♪♫♪♫

POSTAGE & SHIPPING:

We offer THREE postage rates for both Domestic and International Mail: Media Mail, Priority Mail and Express Mail for domestic, and First Class, Priority International Mail, and Express International Mail for international orders. INTERNATIONAL CUSTOMERS PLEASE NOTE: WE RECOMMEND that you pay for USPS International Priority Mail OR International Express mail when making a payment in order to obtain tracking information, which is NOT available for First Class International shipments.

INTERNATIONAL POSTAGE rates vary from country to country. For SPECIFIC international and domestic postage rates ►click here. While you can be rest assured that ►our packaging is careful, sturdy and impact-proof, please note that damage, loss or theft in transit is always possible, and in the case of some countries even PROBABLE. To discuss this potential problem and ensure flawless delivery, please contact us thru eBay BEFORE placing a bid.

WANT A DISCOUNT ?!? 

IT’S EASY: CLICK ►HERE TO see HOW!

(please note recent changes in our policy)

♫♪♫♪♫♪♫♪♫♪♫♪♫♪♫♪♫♪♫♪♫

FOR OTHER IMPORTANT INFORMATION, CLICK ON THE LINKS BELOW:

►OUR VOLUME DISCOUNTS AND POSTAGE REBATES ►OUR GRADING POLICY ►ITEMS WE DO NOT GRADE ►HOW TO ACKNOWLEDGE WINNING BID OR RESOLVE A DISPUTE ►OUR PAYPAL “CHARGEBACK” POLICY ►ACCEPTABLE PAYMENT METHODS ►OUR REFUND POLICY ►POSTAGE RATES AND DISCLOSURES ►PAYMENT DEADLINES ►FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS (FAQ)

♫♪♫♪♫♪♫♪♫♪♫♪♫♪♫♪♫♪♫♪♫

OUR REFUND POLICY :

WE OFFER UNCONDITIONAL MONEY-BACK GUARANTEE WITHIN 60 DAYS FROM THE RECEIPT OF THE MERCHANDISE, NO QUESTIONS ASKED (THE BUYER PAYS FOR THE RETURN POSTAGE); Still sealed items MUST be returned sealed in order to be eligible for a refund Some restrictions apply. Please read our complete refund policy before placing a bid. ►Click here  for the full text of our policy

© 2001,2007 MDJ. All rights reserved.