Wizz,
Scene & Heard,
The Crystal Ship

Wizz ran the lightshow at a London club called The Crypt back in the early 80’s and also did lights for The Taste Experience.

The Crypt was a legendary club in Londons Deptford and actually held under a disused church and was THE place for the psychedelic underground for a good few years. Many big names and obscure names rubbed shoulders at this venue.

Wizz also shared the lighting with Hassid Casualty at a Stonehenge Benefit at Londons Hammersmith Clarendon back in 1986.

Wizz also operated under the name Scene & Heard, namely at The Taste Experience with help from Gary Goodman.

Update - January 2003

I started out doing an Art foundation course in Loughton Essex and specialised in Fine Art by the end of the course I was building "Environments" and incorporated slide projections and sound recordings and mirrors, water, liquid ,objects, transforming rooms etc. I went on to do a Degree in Fine Art at N.E.L.P now University of East London.

They advertised a mixed media course and had their own film dept. In the second year I was getting disillusioned with the pressure to specialise in one particular area. I really wanted to incorporate lots of different media not specialise in one.

Anyway I ended up in the film dept as they seemed the most open minded, and I was fiddling with film and slide projectors and taking lots of acid, not to mention partying and gigging.

Scene and Heard

I was living in South London in a co-op and some of my friends knew Doctor and the Medics, they said I would love them. I saw them at Woolwich tramshed and saw John Brodel and his wife Suzy doing a light show as Shiva Photonics and realised that was what I should be doing,I was totally off my head and blown away and even wandered on stage during their set.

I met Wiz at Glastonbury festival in 1984? through friends from college and then later in the year I ran into him at New Cross Gate Station. He was studying photography at ULU and was also doing some stuff with slide projectors. I went to a party where he had three Kodak carousel projectors and a dissolve unit.

He was thinking of starting a light show with a guy called Sim who worked for an audio visual company and Scene and Heard was born.

The first Gig we had or I remember us doing was Ring of Roses at the Ambulance Station Squat in Old Kent Rd. After we went to the Crypt in Deptford where Ozrics and Magic Mushroom Band were playing at an all nighter, Shiva Photonics and Poris were doing lights, It was a good night with a brilliant atmosphere.

The Crypt was a good club and Alice in Wonderland or the Doctor had been running a Psychedelic night there on a Saturday. I think Wiz got talking to the Ex Copper Andy that was promoting nights there but had fallen out with Christian or Clive and as they had no light show on a Saturday, we took over.

We didn't have much equipment to start with but we soon bought some Optikinetics bits and some home-made stuff. My dad was a photographer for the Govt and I used his accounts and equipment to get loads of trippy artwork and imagery shot and developed. God knows what some of those companies must of thought! it must of looked as though the govt were up to some brainwashing! Between me, Wiz and Sim we amassed a large, varied and interesting slide library.

Soon we were DJ'ing and doing lights on every Saturday at The Crypt and although we never advertised we always seemed to be working, most of the week too.

At the start neither of us had a car and we would borrow an old cortina and try and fit gear in the back, boot and on the roof!! I then bought an old BMC laundry van, amazingly the guys that owned it had an old light show/disco and we ended up buying their old equipment. It was all pretty home built and included a kids coloured metal xylophone that "played" the home built light boxes.

It was definitely one of those times where everything just seemed to flow and there was lots of synchronicity.

I remember going to one of the early Mystery Trips in Chiselhurst Caves that was a fantastic night too, again Shiva Photonics were there with lasers as well.

I also remember filming, with friends from my college crewing, on a film that one of them was making of the Alice In Wonderland Mystery Trip in a Warehouse just south of the river.

I never heard what happened to this film I think Christian and the guy that was making it fell out over money don't know if it ever saw light.

Over the next year we would become a firm part of the Revival that was going on. We worked almost constantly at clubs, Student bars, odd nights and with many bands.

We did many/all of the Alice in Wonderland events and Mystery Trips, some Doctor and the Medics gigs, Clubs like The Taste Experience, and Alice in Wonderland (Greek St), Klub Foot Clarendon, Club 0 Mankind, Pigeon Toed Orange Peel, plus many others.

I seem to remember that in London ,anyway, at this time, there were three lightshows:- Shiva Photonics, Scene and Heard, and Hassid Casualty (Dead Dog) often all at the same big events

I eventually got to meet John Brodel who's work I really admired and we teamed up quiet often.

We ended up with over 12 Kodak Carousel projectors and several Audio visual computers, many effects projectors, 8mm and 16mm movie projectors, ohp, old odd slide projectors, I also got into boiling liquids in cut up slide projectors. We often swapped, lent and borrowed equipment and slides from John, and I had another friend join us at some gigs with small lasers.

Both light shows (Us and Shiva Photonics) plus lasers would sometimes join together, at the Scala all nighters for instance. As time went by Wiz and I would do two different events on the same night, often just using one or two towers of three projectors plus an effect or two, his girlfriend Kit joined us and sometimes took the lights out in her name (Suzy Creamcheese).

I did some small tours with bands Like Thee Purple Things and increasingly we separated, at some point I would call my solo outings The Crystal Ship.