Chameleon Lightshow

Born in Brighton in 1972 we were heavily influence, and helped, by Jon Smeeton (Liquid Len) as we were all Hawkwind fans.

Our mobile disco was a 4 man thing, 1 on sound and 3 on lights.

We had 3 scaffold towers and a large white screen and we used Tutor 1000s for liquids and backgrounds, tutor 2s for cassette and 6” wheel effects and a range of hacked slide projectors from the junk shops with 250watt lamps poked in them and colour and strobe wheels made from meccano and old motors.

We built red/uv fluorescent strobes, bubble tanks in projectors with fish tank pumps, bubble machines and home made pyro stuff (Christ, health and safety would have nightmares now!).

I even made remote ignition pots for transformation powder using a coil of resistance wire from a scalextric hand controller.

We did school and uni dances and promoted the odd gig ourselves until settling into a residence at the Hungry Years Rock Club on Brighton seafront where we added a movie projector and ran some cartoons as well.

Eventually we moved into a touring lighting company, Chameleon Lighting – where our warehouse in Ealing was shared with the Spot Co and Flying Pig - being reasonably successful until we disbanded in 1993 and I ran away to live a quiet life in Devon!

Peter Barnes and George McDuff were my 2 fellow directors, Peter is a successful touring and TV LD and George ran Chamsys for ages, but I believe he sold it?

I still own some Tutor 1000s if anyone is interested…

All the best

Colin Jones - June 2020