December 1999: I'm in my bus in Somerset, the lights are in the boot, two gigs cancelled - when next?
In London Lord Eric Sugumugu showed me a video with bits of my lights flashing from when we were at the Rainbow Centre - waiting for the phone to ring!
August 1999: I've done two and a half lightshows this year: the first with the Space Goats in a pub at Bristol; the second almost at the Malcolm X in Bristol, but the PA didnt arrive so I drove to Stonehenge instead; the third with my 12 volt conversion on the Mandala Stage at Pilton ... see homepage .
All that time at the Rainbow Centre - over a year, lightshows in the Library for the Friday Drumming, and in the hall, on the choir stalls for so many bands and musicians- Lord Eric Sugumugu drumming with the Rainbow Orchestra, and guest bands like Back to the Planet, and Tragick Roundabout on the table in the kitchen, and the Tofu Love Frogs, and Red Eye Express Camden thrash rock guitar after the Cannabis Conference, and so many I can't remember; and then after Wandsworth those gigs at the Canterbury in Brixton win Mungo's car from Intergalactic Arts at Elephant, and Lost In Space, but never managed to get a video - the filmers saying there wasn't enough light, and refusing to leave their cameras on even when I paid for the tape - the frustration- I should have had my own show on TV in Camden - in big letters dice George Light Show and then in little letters the names of the bands
Well, it's the world's loss, lucky I'm an introvert
The next night I watched
Ozric Tentacles, the lightshow was full on,
as if five or six mad people were pressing as many buttons
as fast as they could;
it was overflash,
couldnt see the lightshow for the lights-
the one time I had a go on a big lightshow like that
was Pogle's lights at an Ozrics megagig in Brixton,
the first band, Roly and Al's Damij,
I'd done some of my lightshows with them at various squats in London,
I said I was their lightshow,
so I could I press the buttons please:
they said OK George.
I got them to turn off all the special effects, projecters, etc,
just played the with the twenty or thrity buttons and dimmers,
one of them (a professional) enjoyed my fingerwork.
Lights is a musical instrument, with rhythm, mood and colour and intenity, there can be musical feedback of timing and feeling between the lightshow and the drummer, (and guitarists), a wild lightshow can pump energy into a band and the dancers.
Thu17July1997: lights packed away in boot of bus - no gigs planned, sorry,
please email and video?
At Stonehenge Free Festivals I used to camp at the same area south of the 3 mounds year after year, so did Dave and Deb, that's where I met them. Years later I met them in South London with their band, the Totentants, later they became called LostInSpace. I've done perhaps ten lightshows with them, in ten years, I remember once I drove a dodgy van from Hackney to Brixton to do one at the Canterbury. And one at Peckham, at a semi-squtted pub in between landlords, using Mungo's car. Thanks. (See Stonehenge /findex/IGA??
How I got my lights there is mentioned on my 1996 page.
Problem at the Cooltan gig was the two white lights over the bar, the barmaid needed them, but they shed load of grey light on the stage. What I like is total blackout- so when I turn all the lights off the room is black, but this is seldom possible. Once, in the cellar of a squatted pub near Vauxhall with Back Go the Planet and the Tofu Love Frogs years ago. Actually the Canterbury Springfoot gigwas good that way, 95% of the bar light is kept from the stage, When I got back at 6ish my light which goes behind the drum had been moved, the stage was very narrow and there were fifteen acts to come before our band , after much discussions with the drummer, the sound engineer, and two cooltanners I took them off stage and put them behind me, I needed light at the front for if Deb came off the front of the stage, as I thought she would, and she did. It was a narrow long stage, one light was at the right corner, it couldn't be forward, because people would have knocked into it. I was in front of the stage at the left by the wall, to my right was the sound desk and Lee. So I moved six lights to his right on scaffold, three to my left high on scaffold (frontstage), and the other three cans I had loose at the back of the stage by Dave's feet towards the drums, one primary red I remember, can't remember what the others were - see the video.
I used the same colours as at the Canterbury, but in a different order, because what was the drumlight was now a front light. Reds, oranges, yellows, green, lime green, cyan, blue, deep blue, magenta... One day my million pound lightshow will have hundreds of colours, now I try to have 18 different colours, at different angles, and blow the socks off bigger professional lightshows. (a bad workman blames his tools). One connection to a blue was loose, It was too late to fix it so I swapped the gels with a Deep Purple.
That's the science. The art was the angles, the colours, how I flashed, how the band reacted.
I've got a new fan. He came up to me afterwards and said it was great what I did, Then he asked what I did. When he said 'lights' he said oh, he thought I was playing music. I said yes I was, music of lights. He seemed unconvinced.
Someone else had thought there was a sound to light off the bass guitar. It goes in through my ears and eyes, through my brain and out through my fingers.
With lights I've got rhythm,sometimes when I've hit my switches with energy I've revitalised a band, energised the drummer, quickened the pace. Red is girly, blue boyey. Switching between Green/Red and Magenta/Cyan is beautiful and fascinating, flashing black, red ,black, blue, random is exciting, dimmers are schmaltzy. See the video.
Lost in Space
had a video camera with them, I saw the film this morning, it's a bit
dark because my lights are 150watt and the camera wasn't near enough,
but it works. If I could get it digitised and put it here at
geocities
as a quicktime movie or an animated gif, then wow!. (it took me a year
to do the Stonehenge Campaign's Videos page, from there stoneflg.gif was quite easy. But Kingsway
College's multimedia computers were moved to from Kentish Town in the
summer, I don't know where to, or if I can use it as an Open Learning
student - - I did an expensive course in Adobe Premiere there last
summer term when i was on the dole at Kentish Town Rainbow Centre, but
stopped signing on this summer at Wandsworth Eco Village, and haven't
got financially sussed since, too busy, much more important things to
do.
Dice George's homepage at GeoCities/SoHo/9000
mailto: [email protected]