Head Lights
by Bob Moses
The Red Dog Saloon in Virginia City, Nevada, is thought to be ground zero for the first liquid light shows, the out-of-town tryout for what became a signature expression of the era. In June 1965, as the Byrds paused Beatlemania for a month with “Mr. Tambourine Man,” San Francisco’s Charlatans took up residency in the Red Dog, entertaining the acid-enriched denizens with a hopped-up, loose country/electric blues/old-time/wtf — all while dressed in Wild West costume right down to the six shooters. Perfect.
The CharlatansBill Ham and Bob Cohen prepared a “light box” that projected flowing lights onto the stage at the Charlatan’s first audition/performance. It’s like had never been seen and word soon got back to the gathering tribes in SF. Chet Helms came, saw, met Bill Ham, and the LSD (Light Sound Dimension) shows were soon part of the Family Dog productions at the Avalon Ballroom. The impulse to marry light and rock appeared almost simultaneously in New York and London, with Pig Light Show and the Joshua Lightshow (which became the house light show at the Fillmore East) in NYC and Mark Boyle and Joan Hills’s shows at the UFO club in London, later touring with Soft Machine and Jimi Hendrix. “That combination of different sense inputs, it imitated in some way the synaesthesia you get with LSD,” John “Hoppy” Hopkins, who co-ran the UFO club, told The Guardian. “It was like an external expression of that assault on the senses. And it was very popular. People were queuing round the corner.”
For what, exactly? To share the stage, linked in the moment with the musicians. The liquid light moment is one of few times in rock history that the audience became the event (maybe with a violent echo at hard-core shows of the early 80s, with their onstage pigpiles?). The band is in the dark, obscured by and fleetingly, blindingly illuminated by, a visual cloud far more intriguing than anything they could present while still playing instruments. The audience gaze is up and away, the music a soundtrack to imagery internal and external. The goal was to explore together, to gather the tribe in a shared experience, to focus all our individual trips in one big adventure.
The lights still come on occasionally. In addition to the revival of Ken’s show, the Whitney’s 60s exhibit introduced new generations to the vibrant form, artist Gary Panter collaborated with Joshua Lightshow at Anthology in 2005, and the Joshua show appeared again at the Kitchen in 2007. And we’ll write more from Ken’s Boston show. Until then, tune into the samples in our video section and feel the synaesthetic glow.
Photo this page: Dan Hicks collection
Photo previous page: Courtesy Steve Nelson
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