Magic Alex - London and The Beatles

London and The Beatles

The 21-year-old Yanni Alexis Mardas first arrived in England on a student visa in 1965, befriending John Dunbar of the Indica Gallery in London, and later moving in with him in a flat on Bentinck Street, which was where Mardas first met Lennon. Known as Yanni Mardas, he found employment as a television repairman. Dunbar later introduced Mardas to Brian Jones, after Mardas exhibited his Kinetic Light Sculptures at the Indica Gallery. Dunbar worked with Mardas on the “psychedelic light box” for The Rolling Stones' three-week tour of Europe in 1967, although they were not impressed with the results. Dunbar later said: "He was quite cunning in the way he pitched his thing. He knew enough to know how to wind people up and to what extent. He was a fucking TV repairman: Yanni Mardas, none of this 'Magic Alex' shit!"

Jones introduced Mardas to Lennon, and it was at this point that Mardas impressed Lennon with the Nothing Box; a small plastic box with randomly blinking lights that Lennon would stare at for hours while under the influence of LSD. Lennon later introduced the renamed John Alexis Mardas as his "new guru", calling him "Magic Alex". Mardas allegedly told Lennon about ideas for futuristic electronic devices he was "working on", which he later denied either promising or discussing: a telephone that responded to its owner's voice and could identify who was calling, a force field that would surround The Beatles' homes, an X-ray camera, paint that would make anything invisible, car paint that would change colour by flicking a switch, and wallpaper speakers, which would actually be a part of the wallpaper. Mardas later asked for the V-12 engines from Lennon's Rolls-Royce and George Harrison's Ferrari Berlinetta car, so he could build a flying saucer. Mardas also denied making these claims.

The Beatles set up a company for Mardas called Fiftyshapes Ltd., in September 1967, and Mardas later became one of the first employees of the newly formed Apple Corps, earning £40 a week and receiving 10% of any profits made from his inventions.

The Beatles often called Mardas the "Greek wizard", and Paul McCartney remembered being interested in his ideas: “Well, if you could do that, we’d like one". It was always, 'We’d like one'”. Mardas' ideas were not confined to the realms of electronic wizardry, but included songwriting involvement, with a Lennon-Mardas composition, "What's the New Mary Jane", originally meant for inclusion on The White Album.

Mardas was given his own laboratory called Apple Electronics, at 34 Boston Place, Westminster, London, and was helped to obtain a British work visa. His pay eventually rose to £6,000 per year, and an American patent attorney, Alfred Crotti, moved to England to assist Mardas. On The Beatles Anthology DVD, Mardas is shown wearing a white laboratory assistant's coat in Apple Electronics (with loud oscillating noises in the background) saying, "Hello, I’m Alexis, from Apple Electronics. I would like to say ‘Hello’ to all my brothers around the world, and to all the girls around the world, and to all the electronic people around the world. That is Apple Electronics." Mardas then turns and points back to a collection of two portable 2-track recorders in wooden boxes, a 2-track studio recording machine, voltage meters, a hi-fi amplifier, an oscilloscope and a TV screen showing pulsating psychedelic balloon shapes. A mysterious fire at the laboratory prevented Mardas from presenting his inventions, but he later said: "I’m a rock gardener, and now I’m doing electronics. Maybe next year, I make films or poems. I have no formal training in any of these, but this is irrelevant".