Aural Plasma

After years of searching with no avail we are very pleased to now bring you the story of Aural Plasma after one of the original members emailed into us (see below).

Also, in terms of Light Show History for Eel Pie Island you might be interested to know that John Lethbridge's Mass Spectromter and Proteus were earlier resident Light Shows here.

Personnel:

Mikey Champion
Nigel Mayley

Aural Plasma arose out of an interest in alternative realities that can be created by using light and sound and experiencing these things for ourselves.

We were fascinated by and influenced by early practitioners at gigs we went to. 'Joe's Lights' from the Fillmore East and things that the Floyd and Soft Machine were doing gave us encouragement to start our own.

With little money but lots of ideas we gradually built up our equipment, from memory we had 2 Aldis projectors, the 500 and the Tutor Mk.11, I have a receipt for the first one -£11.10 secondhand, I loved that machine with it's retro look.

In addition we had an ordinary slide Projector that we used to project Blakeian images we intercut with exploding colours. Food dyes, oils and trichlorethylene.

We made our own liquid Wheels and experimented with tanks made from 2 plain slides of glass, spaced apart by matchsticks and glued with Araldite, primitive but effective.

We injected into the tanks already bubbling with heat and colour, we didn't think about the possible danger from the 'Trike'.

Nigel made Strobes which we also used without any apparent ill effects to anyone, to see Black Sabbath in that ghostly light was an experience!

After gigging around South London (Brixton Town Hall and the Hurlingham Club amongst others) we were spotted by Marc Newton of Eel Pie Island Club and had a residency there.

We projected from a room above the stage at one end of the Hall, it had been a Green Room for visiting Musicians during the Folk and Jazz eras that preceded the opening of Colonel Barefoot's Rock Garden where we operated in 1970-1971

We are included in the Eel Pie Museum where I sent my collection of posters from the island and have a mention in Andrew Humphreys book 'Raving on Thames' .

It was a great time to be young and we saw and heard a lot of our Heroes at the time.

Mike Champion - February 5th 2023

Click for bigger version

Warm Dust, Shades - Eel Pie Island

Colonel Barefoot's Rock Garden, Eel Pie Island 1970

Colonel Barefoot's Rock Garden, Eel Pie Island - June 1970

Climax Chicago Blues Band, Shades, Eel Pie Island - April 1970

Eire Apparent, Van Der Graaf Generator - Eel Pie Island January 1971

Litte Free Rock, Genesis, Julians Treatment - Eel Pie Island