Each year, Olympia plays host to the PLASA (Professional Lighting & Sound Association) event to showcase the latest innovations in the entertainment industry with brands exhibiting their wares across the great hall for three days. For the last few years Rob Halliday has organised a Classic Gear section, showcasing historic sound and light equipment from yesteryear to great effect, rapidly becoming a big draw for the old heads to gather and reminisce about how things used to be done.
This year was the first time a darkened area had been set up to demonstrate projection, hosting Optikinetics co-founder Neil Rice and friends Nigel Bailey, Gareth Dean and Jennie Caldwell to recreate analogue light show practices. Neil showed off his 4x Tutor II x Opti Solar System and colour wheel set up, complete with a mini liquid squash plate he’d devised. Shown above, in this Jon Primrose-edited short, is a similar version to the set up we had a preview of in his home earlier this year.
Very saddened to hear that Larry Wooden passed away today after a short battle with cancer. Here’s a photo I took of him just over a month ago, through a lens we found whilst sorting through boxes of Larry’s life. He was an amazing man, full of ideas, sharp as a pin with a super dry wit. For a 70+ year old I’d regularly get messages from him at 1am and his telephone calls were always long ones.
He was born 1st Feb 1950 at The Limes, Norwich Road, North Walsham, Norfolk. A lover of photography from an early age – something that would influence a lot of his later interests – Larry started drumming lesson at ten years old after wanting to play them since he was seven. At 11 he swapped a previous interest in Hornby trains for a chemistry lab that he would then turn into a photo lab two years later in 1963. The same year, he first saw Dr Who on TV – a show he would love for a lifetime and name his lightshow after. Photographing the Doctor and Daleks directly from the TV, the enterprising Larry would sell the photos at school and make himself a miniature Dalek by studying the images at just 13 years old. During a stint helping him sort through his belongings we chanced upon this model, wrapped up in a box, not too worse for wear despite the 60 years since its creation.
In 1967 he gave up on his A Levels, learned to drive and his family moved to Longs Farm, Tollenshunt Major near Maldon in Essex where his dad was in charge of the Goldhanger Fruit Farms. He saw The Equals live at the Gaiety Theatre in Ramsey and joined his first band, D’Arcy Spice in 1968 alongside Jerry Arnold, Alan Valentine, Alan Jolly and Tony Loton. The same year he founded Orion Lighting and starting making lighting for the band. Their first gig was in 1969 at the Embassy Suite, Colchester with District Line, The Shey and Jimmy Pilgrim & the Classics and then Larry formed Nature’s Way in the summer who gigged relentlessly throughout ’70-71. Larry’s Doctor Who Lighshow was unveiled at the Felixstow Pier Pavilion on 24/04/71 and he would light the likes of The Groundhogs, Van Der Graaf Gernerator, Mott The Hoople, Osibisa, Uriah Heep, Keef Hartley, Desmond Dekkar, Dave & Ansell Collins, Geno Washington, Fleetwood Mac, Hot Chocolate and many more before quitting his day job at the tax office on Xmas Eve of 1971.
Nature’s Way promo shots, Larry in shades, beard and snazzy trousers.
Light shows and gigs continued throughout the early seventies including lighting The Sweet, Queen, Thin Lizzy, 10cc, Cockney Rebel, Suzi Quatro, Screaming Lord Sutch and Emperor Rosko among many more. Somewhere along the way Nature’s Way morphed into Peppermint Way and in early ’74 Larry retired the lightshow to concentrate on his lighting company. Orion made the first picture wheels, custom made control equipment like the 10 Way Chaser and the Spirochaser as well as manufacturing wheels for David Hone’s Solar Prism Lighting. He attended the BADEM (British Association of Discotheque Equipment Manufacturers ) lighting shows in ’76, ’77 and ’78, the latter of which would feature a four page colour Orion leaflet inside the centrefold of the Disco International program.
The Orion shop opened in 1978 at 20 Wethersfield Road, Colchester and ’79 and ’80 saw appearances at the Discom lighting shows in Paris where he demonstrated prototypes of the Galactic Floor – a light up disco flooring. The eighties weren’t kind to Larry though, Orion went bankrupt after the financial crash (like Pluto Electronics and many others), his marriage ended and he worked a succession of jobs and played in several bands to little success. But by the end of the eighties things were looking up; he was doing laser shows at the Andromeda Club, earning the nickname ‘Laser Larry’ and working the lights at the Hippodrome in Colchester, mixing the likes of Sister Sledge and the Drifters when they passed through. He booked the Rock nights there for a while, opened the Chaplins sandwich bar next door and even tried to unsuccessfully buy the venue at one point.
By 1992 he had moved on and was still gigging, briefly ran both an embroidery business and a dating agency, was once the UK’s sole developer of 3D stereo photographs and a keen practitioner of lenticular animation. He had interests in magic tricks, sci-fi and fantasy, family trees and gadgets of any kind – I’ve never met a man with so many watches and laptops. I only knew him for the final years of his life, tracking him down for my book on projection wheels and interviewing him about his Dr Who Lightshow and Orion Lighting years. After that we became friends and he graciously took part in the launch party, showing off his original wheel art and taking questions all night. He certainly didn’t waste a moment, a keen member of the lighting community and a very unique man.
RIP Lawrence ‘Larry’ Michael Wooden (1950-2025)
The Telepathic Fish party last Sunday was a proper fishing trip down memory lane. Not only for the tunes we played and the old decor we dug up but the people who came from far and wide, some of who we’d not seen in decades. The CDJs and Matt Black‘s AV set up may have been state of the art but the projectors were classic old school with liquid wheels, rotating prisms and op-art FX. The floor was covered with matting, rugs and cushions and our original inflatable ‘amoeba’ was revived, pulsating away in a high corner all night. There were reflective fish hanging from the tunnel walls, David‘s badge-making corner under UV lights that illuminated the flourescent paint of some of our original banners and a jar of free fish sweets to take.
Mario played his first public gig in years, Doug Shipton ably followed with a blend of deep digs into the German end of his collection and I spun multiple decks with a retro set drawing mainly from the early 90s. KiF Productions arrived as doors opened and performed a live soundtrack to their ‘Still Out’ ambient road trip film homage to the KLF and Mixmaster Morris closed with two hours of his usual eclectic brilliance. Below are just some of the highlights – thanks to photographers Mike Sumpter, Nancy Brown, Mario and Larissa Aguera, Chiara Acanfora and Simon Wright for pooling their photos. My short sweep of the room above gives you an example of the every-moving nature of the space.
It’s seemingly been a month of losses so far and sadly news of another reached me this week, less than two weeks after I’d posted about him for the first time. Doug Lear, formerly one of the UK’s leading exponents of the Magic Lantern (both in performance and collection) passed away on March 6th. Bizarrely, on that very day, I met with friends Neil and Sally Rice who had known him for decades and Neil passed me a red photo album given to him by Doug some years before. Inside this treasure trove is a collection of press cuttings, flyers and other ephemera from his days of giving Magic Lantern performances alongside his then wife, Anita, on their two canal boats.
With Neil’s permission I’m posting some of the contents as a record of their activites in the 80s and 90s, hopefully people will find them along the way and they’ll be useful for research. Also included were four copies of The New Magic Lantern Journal by The Magic Lantern Society from the late seventies / early eighties. This was a reactivated version of an original publication that ran around the late 1800’s to the early 1900’s – several issues of which can be perused on the Internet Archive. I hope you enjoy these pieces of history as much as I do, RIP Doug.
With a growing family, the couple opened a museum, tea room and theatre in Wales in 1991, leaving the boats behind. For more information, see my previous post on the Lears. 
I bought some badges at the weekend at my local carboot; two lovely Epcot Centre ones – Disney’s futuristic science centre from the 80s, a Freak Out one which I’m unsure is original or not and another named ‘Lears Magical Lanterns’. The last one had piqued my interest as magic lanterns are the original light shows from Victorian times, a now obsolete curio of the past that still retains a devoted following online. I wasn’t familiar with the name but thought I’d add to my small collection of light show-related badges and look it up when I got home. This fascinating 1983 BBC documentary on the Lear family and their travelling magic lantern show (via two canal boats!) was the first to appear. It’s a beautiful look back at an idyllic age where the young family pursue their passion, preserving the outdated artform for audiences whilst travelling the UK’s canals. There’s a particularly good Chromatrope display around the 16 minute mark.
My good friend Neil Rice knew the Lears well and visited them at their home in the 80s, fuelling his fascination with the history of projection in the process. He remembers they had, “Lanterns of every shape and size which they knew the life history of. Plus circa 10,000 slides, hand painted and early photographic. 3000 of them mechanical.” The Lears also visited his Optikinetics lighting business in Luton and even performed at the dealer launch of their early ‘80s Mode/Optikinetics roadshow.
In its algorithmic wisdom YouTube served up this later programme from 1992 directly after the first, revisiting Doug Lear nearly a decade later. Times have changed and their marriage is on the rocks with Anita filing for divorce, bringing dire consequences for the magic lantern show. They now have a museum for the lanterns and optical toys in Wales but financial burdens facing Doug mean he might have to sell their collection of antique projection equipment to pay the bills. It’s not a straight forward documentary like the first, but contains flashback period pieces inserted to illustrate the golden age of magic lanterns. It’s an all too familiar tale of technology slowly but surely evolving to make way for the latest innovations, mercilessly leaving yesterday’s practitioners in its wake as audiences move on to the latest thing. We’re left hanging at the end as to Doug’s fate as he walks into the light and ponders what to do as next.
After the Lears split up, Christies auctioned their collection in the mid 90s, fetching circa half a million pounds with most of it going to the Getty Museum. Anita pursued a career in laser-cut marquetry with customers like Stella McCartney while Doug studied the Turin Shroud at Birmingham University, continuing his musical career before eventually meeting a new partner and settling in North West Wales. Doug and Anita made their peace before she passed away in 2017 and there is more about the Lears in her obituary on the Magic Lantern Society website. Amazing what the purchase of one small badge can uncover.
While we were there he gave us an impromptu light show using a four-projector, colour wheel and vintage Optikinetics Solar System set up he’d made then let us all have a play. Here’s a clip of just some of what we achieved using the kit with a set of custom slides I’d made under his direction. This is all analogue, no digital FX, shot against the wall in his living room by Hannah using her phone then edited in Premiere later.
The song is an edit of ‘Through With You’ by The Lemon Pipers, one of Neil’s favourites, they also have a song called ‘Rice Is Nice’, hence the title of this post.
More gorgeous live macro painting by Akiko Nakayama in the video for Floating Points‘ new single ‘Key 103’ from the forthcoming album, Cascade on Ninja Tune. There’s also another similar video I missed for second single, ‘Del Oro’, these really need to be watched on the highest definition you can manage to get all the detail.
Next gig – we’re reprising our Candlemas performance of last year on January 28th with a variety of liquid lights and slides plus music and food at the Royal Foundation of St. Katherine in east London. Curated by Heena Song, she’ll be joined by Julian Hand, Paul Naudin, Joe and Janie of Whyte Light Visuals and myself for an evening of psychedelic projection in and outside around the grounds of the Foundation. Nearest train station is Limehouse and then it’s just round the corner, you should be able to see the lights from the train. Tickets are available here or on the gate and the event runs from 6pm to 9pm.
Music:
Kosmischer Laufer – Volume 5 LP (UCR)
Soia, Julien Sénélas, Jérôme Vassereau – In C for 11 Oscillators and 53 Forms LP (unjenesaisquoi)
Cate Brooks – Tapeworks DL (Cafe Kaput)
Memorials – Music For Film: Tramps! LP (State 51 Conspiracy)
King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard – PetroDragonic Apocalypse… LP (Album of the year)
Field Lines Cartographer – Moonbuilding Sessions LP (CiS Subscription Library)
Brian Eno – The Lighthouse radio station (Sonos) (most listened to)
Niholoxica – Source of Denial LP (Crammed Discs)
SareemOne – Olivine Window
Coast Contra – Breathe & Stop Freestyle/Never Freestyle/Scenario Freestyle
Move78 – Grains LP
Heiroglyphic Being – The Moon Dance LP (Apnea)
Raj Pannu – Past Crimes EP 12″ (To Pikap Records)
Gordon Chapman-Fox – The Nine Travellers LP (Castles In Space Subscription Library)
Podcasts:
Oh God What Now?
Cartoonist Kayfabe
Jonny Trunk’s Patreon Show
What Goes Around
The Bunker
The Bureau of Lost Culture
Not A Diving Podcast with Scuba
Gigs / Events:
Art of Noise @Jazz Café, London
The Light Surgeons – SuperEverything launch @iklectik, London
Quadraphon debut @Ramsgate Music Hall, Ramsgate
Beyond The Streets exhibition @Saatchi gallery, London
Pop Up Subculture festival, Stroud
Holotronica, @IMAX Bristol
Sunroof / Finlay Shakespeare @iklectik, London
0282 Club, the library, Burnley
Paul Cousins @iklectik, London
The Light Surgeons – The Consensual Hallucination @iklectik, London
Memorials at the State 51 Summer Psych party @State 51, London
Queens of the Stone Age @Glastonbury
FogFest2 @iklectik, London
JG Thirlwell & Emsemble @Bush Hall, London
The Book & Record Bar 10th anniversary party, London
Machina Bristronica, Bristol
Visiting Peel Acres with Eilon Paz of Dust & Grooves
Nihiloxia @the Jazz Cafe, London
NEXT Festival, Bratislava, Slovakia
Design / Packaging:
Yves Malone – A Hello To A Goodbye LP (Castles In Space)
Drumetrics – Phuzzle (Drumetrics)
Waclaw Zimpel – Train Spotter LP (State 51)
David Boulter – Factory 3″ CD (Clay Pipe Music)
Fluctuosa – Wetware EP 12″ (Analogical Force)
Fluxus – Orbit & Shine LP (Castles In Space)
Floating Points – Birth4000 12″ (Ninja Tune)
Cate Brooks – Easel Studies LP + badge (Clay Pipe Music)
Brian Eno – Top Boy OST CD (Beatink)
Artists:
Kallamity
Soda
Nick Taylor (Spectral Studio)
Louise Mason
Francis Castle (Clay Pipe)
Tradd Moore
KO_Computer
Kishi Omori
Autone1
Mike Mignola
Geometric Love
Anna Readman
Zoe Thorogood
Colin & Maria @ Time Released Sound
Books / Magazines / Comics:
Medical Grade Music – Steve Davis & Kavis Torabi (White Rabbit)
Doctor Strange – Fall Sunrise – Tradd & Heather Moore (Marvel)
Tales To Enlighten – The New Testament – Matt King and James Edward Clark
Beyond The Streets exhibition book
Pop – Milton Glaser (Phaidon)
Kevin O’Neill Apex Edition (2000AD)
Mark Stafford – Salmonella Smorgasbord (Soaring Penguin Press)
Savage Impressions – Bruce Lichen (Independent Project Records)
Hexagon Bridge – Richard Blake (Image)
Monica – Daniel Clowes (Fantagraphics)
Acid Valley – Luke Insect
Petrol Head – Rob Williams & Pye Parr (Image)
Lawless – Dan Abnett & Phil Winslade (Rebellion)
Giant Robot Hellboy – Mignola/Fegredo (Dark Horse)
Facelss & The Family – Matt Lesniewski (Oni Press)
Film:
Barbie
Squaring The Circle : The Story of Hipgnosis
Another year over and what have I done?
Designed a retro jungle cover for District 1727 release Rinse Out The Raw Steel
Opened for The Art of Noise two nights running at the Jazz Cafe
Designed The Home Current & Peter Wix and UNE CDs for Spun Out Of Control
Performed at Candlemas with Julian Hand, Heena Song, Paul Naudin and Whyte Light Visuals
Started working with visual artist PuttyRubber with my Quadraphon turntable at live gigs
Designed the Stasis 12″‘Quondam Sequences’ for De:tuned
Edited a short video for Holotronica after their Bristol event (not sure this ever got broadcast/finished actually)
Restarted my Infinite Illectrik label with 7 monthly releases from May
Mixed two new volumes of The Funky Eno with selections provided by Nohbodhi
Gave talks about Wheels of Light in Stroud and Brighton
Collaborated with Graham Dunning live with visuals by PuttyRubber and Chromatech for FogFest2
Appeared on the 45 Live and What Goes Around podcasts
Wrote the theme for the new Why? podcast
Remade and remixed Amon Tobin’s Permutation LP artwork for the 25th reissue
Continued the weekly Mixcloud Select series of archive mix uploads
Designed and illustrated Wonders of the Undersea World LP for Trunk Records including a sheet of stickers to make your own cover design.
Designed zoetropes for T Rex, Donna Summer, Dr Who, Lily Allen and Steps(!)
Designed the Pulse Five EP, poster and postcards for FSOL, working with Jonas Ranson again on the screenprint
Designed the De:tuned 15 logo and T-shirt for the label’s fifteenth year in 2024
Designed the Clerkenwell Kid Junkyard Melodies album + ephemera and 3″ Xmas Winter Warmers companion CD for Stephen Coates/The Real Tuesday Weld
Designed the A’bear album sleeve for Castles In Space
Contributed vintage graffiti photos to the second Old So Kool book about the UK graf scene in the 80s
Ongoing research into at least three other book projects…
RIP:
Alan Rankin, Jeff Beck, David Crosby, Burt Bacharach, Raquel Welch, Alain Goraguer, Lee Purkis aka In Sync, Paul O’Grady, Al Jaffee, Jah Shaka, Mary Quant, Mark Stewart, Frank Kozik, Andy Rourke, Peter Jones (Colourscape designer), Martin Amis, Kenneth Anger, Tina Turner, Astrud Gilberto, John Romita Snr, Glenda Jackson, Jane Birkin, Paul Rubens, Jamie Reid, Michael Parkinson, David McCallum, Mark the 45 King, Benjamin Zephaniah, Ian Gibson,
Looking forward to:
Candlemas II
Gary Hustwit’s Eno film
The Time Released Sound Book – A Decade of Handmade Music Packaging
Furiosa – A Mad Max Saga
The Hoppy documentary
Richard Norris’ autobiography, Strange Things Are Happening
Sophia Satchell-Baeza’s ‘Sensuous Laboratories’ book
The The’s new tour
Doug Shipton’s new Fundamental Frequencies label
More collaborations
A daily post throughout December of records, CDs, books, comics or other ephemera that I’ve bought or been given recently from independent artists, labels or publishers who would welcome your support.
#11. Kevin Foakes – Wheels of Light + Four Corners Books
Got to plug something of my own – my book on projection wheel designs for British light shows has been out for just over a year now and the lovely people at Four Corners Books have a wealth of obscure publications to complement it.
There’s still time to buy from Four Corners before Xmas and, if you spend over £30 on their site, they’ll send you a limited edition enamel pin designed by John Morgan, plus a Bearandas postcard as an extra stocking filler. Offer ends 18 Dec, while stocks last
https://www.fourcornersbooks.co.uk/books/wheels-of-light/
https://www.fourcornersbooks.co.uk/
In other news, Optikinetics – a major part of my book – have reached their Kickstarter goal for their new home projector, the Kino. There’s still time to order one though and get a variety of additional wheel add ons. The projector can be held in one hand, is very quite and can be controlled via a app on your phone. You have just 4 days left to back the campaign – check it out here
I was struck by the cover art to Floating Points‘ new single, ‘Birth4000’ the other week as it resembles the liquid light shows I so love. On further investigation, it seems that’s not far off as the artist, Akiko Nakayama, projects her ‘Alive Painting’ onto huge canvases from microscopic sizes. Her website is well worth some investigation and she made a video for the single which you can see below as well as a billboard that Ninja Tune showed off somewhere in London recently.
Not only was my book ‘Wheels of Light’ published a year ago by Four Corners Books but it’s now available in the US with free UPS ground shipping from D.A.P. – they are also supplying bookstores too if you want copies for your store. Order here
In other related light show news, Optikinetics are close to fulfilling the Kickstarter for their new Kino projector, a mini home projector that takes 6″ wheels and includes several options to back including one with my book and vintage Pluto wheels.
You can back the campaign and get your own home projector here
I made a video for my Magnetic Cartridge Quartet ‘Polykicks B’ track from the Buried Treasure ‘Decapod’ compilation – all made using a vintage Strand Patt theatre light with 18″ glass optical effects discs, patterned glass or coloured gel inserts.
The label’s 10th anniversary party is tonight, Sat 14th at The Couch in Bracknell – compilation and ticket here
https://buriedtreasure.bandcamp.com/album/decapoda
The track was made live using my Quadraphon turntable, edited down and given a sonic scrub on the mix by Osymyso. The video footage was filmed using an original Strand theatre light with 18″ rotating glass disc attachments and other visual tricks. Thanks to Rob Halliday for access to the lights and for working the FX.
Opti(kinetics) have launched their mini projector the Kino via Kickstarter including an array of wheels, mirrors and even my Wheels of Light book as added incentives. One of the wheels on offer is an original vintage Pluto wheels from the 70s, the company bought the remaining stock from the company many years ago and once these are gone they’re the last of the surviving stock. You can pledge your support here for this lovely little projector that will take magnetic 6″ FX wheels and can be controlled via a phone app. I’ve used a prototype and they are beautiful and work straight out the box, perfect for home use rather than clubs and gigs.
I’ll be at the East Street Tap in Brighton on June 7th to talk about my Wheels of Light book and show some projections for the monthly Sound Affects night. It’ll be a brief talk with a Q&A as I’m sharing the bill with sound artist Fiona Miller and author Richard Evans who will be talking about their own projects respectively.
Tickets and info here