I've been trying to get hold of a 1974 tour programme for quite a while now, but I'm obviously not bidding high enough on Ebay - the last 2 that have been sold there each fetched over twenty quid. The main feature of the programme is the Michael Moorcock short story "A Dead Singer" which doesn't interest me all that much, along with some already familiar photos of band members.
, However there are a few more interesting snippets like some info on Liquid Len and less well known pics. These, although not very well reproduced, are what I've chosen to put on this page. (There are more excerpts than those shown here...some I am keeping back for specific purposes)
Tonight we will be introducing you to our two new members. Del Dettmar, of course, has gone to live in a cabin by a lake in a forest in Canada with his wife Ros. Simon House, who plays keyboards, synthesiser and violin joined us from The Third Ear Band, before which he was with High Tide, to replace Del. In the summer we also acquired a new drummer. Simon King, who plays a lot of football and supports Chelsea (still?) broke some ribs in a game and Alan Powell, who has drummed with many good bands including Vinegar Joe and Chicken Shack, deputised for Simon on our European tour. Then when Simon recovered they discovered they liked playing together and we liked two drummers in the band so Alan stayed on. We hope you like it too.
Apart from that most everything else stays the same. Dave, Nick, Lemmy, Stacia, Jonathan Smeeton, Steve, Bob, Douglas, Jon Lee, Val and Richard are still with us. Pete our drum roadie got busted and couldn't get into the States so Ian replaced him and we acquired a new personal roadie in Stuart, whilst Higgy became tour manager for the USA tour.
This time our tour doesn't have a name or a concept as such. We'll be playing many old favourites and some new ones too. Jonathan has some great new lightshow effects of which he's very proud, particularly the Tree/City sequence.
Lastly, we hope you enjoy this booklet (designed by Barney Bubbles, who does all our design and compiled by our publicist Richard Ogden) and we hope you enjoy the show.
Left: a sidebar from the programme explaining who does what as far as management and crew are concerned
Right: give yourself a pat on the back Dave
Below: another sidebar, retyped this time, all about Liquid Len & the Lensmen
Jonathan Smeeton - Liquid Len
John Lee - 1st Assistant
John Perrin - Electro-engineer
Sally Vaughan - Artist in Chief
Mick Evans - Graphic Artist
David Hardy - Independent Artist
Liquid Len started into lightshows back in 1967 when UFO and the Electric Garden (Later, Middle Earth) in London were in their heyday with three 1000 watt projectors. At that time nobody knew what lightshows were capable of.
Through '68 and '69 Len spent time on the road in Europe flogging the lightshow horse. 1970 was a year when lightshows were old hat, so with survival in mind, he switched to stage lighting, soon to be touring with Frank Zappa, Beefheart, Traffic, Free, Mott the Hoople, and summer festivals.
In the summer of that same year, Steve Winwood persuaded Len to build a new lightshow incorporating for the first time the keyboard control system.
Living in Ladbroke Grove one couldn't help knowing a bunch of freaks who lived in a yellow van. The then 'young' Nik Turner would often convince Len to turn up for free shows they set up around London. This arrangement went on until the summer of '72. While Len continued with Stage lights always on tour or hanging out with Andy Dunkley.
Summer '72, after losing all his stage equipment in a fire in Switzerland whilst with Zappa, Len was invited by Hawkwind who (still into the multi-media trip) invited him to form the new lightshow prior to the Space Ritual, along with Mike (Molton Mick) Hart, then of Proteus Lights. This combination was the real start, a 20 projector show. Also at this time John Lee was recruited, along witli his 17cwt van, to act as Britain's first lightshow roadie.
Sally Vaughan, who had been responsible for the first sets of animation slides for the Traffic show back in '70, started on new projects and was soon engaged in producing some mindblowing effects, and David Hardy, already established as Britain's leading sci-fi artist, contributed over 150 Space-Scape slides.
With the Space Ritual tour in sight John Perrin was asked to build a headphone system; they haven't been able to stop him since. He just kept on making Len's fantasies electronic realities.
After taking the Ritual show on tour in the UK and Europe Mike Hart dropped out to continue his career in the London Zoo as a biologist, leaving the rest of the crew to continue with the rapidly expanding show, through 1973.
1974 has proven the most remarkable year as most of the slide material has been replaced, new concepts evolved, plus massive experiences involving revolutionary equipment and the influence of three major tours in the USA.
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