Audio Autopsy, 1969: Mark Eric and "A Midsummer's Day Dream" of Mark Erickson
Lost in the fog of decades, this southern California mystery man merges surf-worthy harmonies with dreamy psych-pop. Mark Eric, we hardly knew ye.
Editor’s Note: On May 14, 2023, a longtime good friend of Mark’s, Cherie, contacted FR&B, and informed us that, indeed, Mark passed away in 2009. She had been friends with Mark in the ‘70s, and reconnected with him 30 years later. She will share this article with Mark’s sister. “It’ll mean a lot to her,” Cherie said.
Mark Eric is hiding. Somewhere, in the dark recesses of the Internet resides a singer/songwriter precious few people have ever heard. Little, apparently, is known about Mark Eric Malmborg, rumored to be his real name. To make the puzzling even more confounding, he’s also known (by whomever and however many) as Mark Erickson.
What the Record Shows
Most importantly (and revealing) is that Mark recorded an album in 1969 (on Revue/Universal City/MCA Records).
It was the Year of Woodstock, as the shadow of the Summer of Love was still looming a couple years hence, and the rock landscape was beginning to bloom with heavy metal sounds, the folky lilts of hundreds of new singer/songwriters, harmony-heavy hippie hymns, a little bubblegum, and the dawn of no Beatles.
A Midsummer’s Day Dream is about all Mark Eric has allowed us to see and hear (oh, but there’s more!):
Allmusic Chimes In…
“L.A. native Mark Eric was leading the Southern California dream life in his teens -- surfing by day and writing songs about girls by night -- before his musical talents drew him to Hollywood.
“[Mark] was 16 when he met Russ Regan [shown in photo above], then at Warner Bros. [mid-’60s; he was president of 20th Century Records in the ‘70s, but not before signing Elton John, stateside, with UNI/MCA in 1970], but his first break came while waiting in the lobby of label honcho [and Ode Records founder] Lou Adler’s office. There he met Bob Raucher, an engineer at local KHJ-AM radio station (who wondered why Eric wasn’t in high school)!
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