~ I have to tread carefully here as this band leaves a complicated trail...so when a bunch of young school kids aged around 14-17 start a band at their school in chicago and calling themselves 'the lemon drops' record with an older brother of two band members a classic slice of fuzzy-garage rock 'i live for the spring time' on that brothers label 'rembrandt classics international' 1967...splitting up a short time later but regrouping and with contacts in redwood city california (south of san francisco) driving out to find living quarters with dan heron of aldon productions in '69 who said he would provide funding for the group...living in his huge mansion style house where they rehearsed and partied far too much the group again folded but this time into three separate bands! first was 'contact' / 'the new lemon drops' & 'the freedom blues band' with contact later moving to san francisco and breaking up....so this left the lemon drops as : gary lewandowski/gary weiss his brother eddie and after recruiting keyboard player fred sharpe named themselves 'water melon' after a recording project they had set-up! sharpe was from the san francisco conservatory of music and brought to the group a much more musical mind-set which they took on board...releasing one single 'african song/fantasy child' and released on older brother reggie (roger) weiss's label 'rembrandt' 1969....tons of recording was carried out with reggie at various studios such as 'coit towers/the church in san anselmo along with pacific recording studio' in san mateo owned and run by former 'mojo man' paul gurcio! so the track you hear 'popsicle girl' was recorded at the church which still stands but is now a private home...the lemon drops did play all the the bay area and appeared at the fillmore ( i cant find any poster but was this a tuesday 'audition night'?) as it was rare for posters to be printed....and here i'll finish our story but it will continue on another upoad with yet another band when 'watermelon' fractured sometime in 1971...reggie weiss was also writing/producing for all these bands and would spend the next ten years at 'pacific recording'...the photo you see in the thumb nail is the young 'lemon drops' who after line-up changes would head out west in '69... sharpe after leaving the group renamed himself 'raphael' and become a huge star with 'new age' musics... and please dont be the first to say they sound like ......additions/corrections always needed!

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