Pablo Lightshow

Pablo Light Show was formed in 1964 by 5 Artist & Technicians from the Lower East Side of NY City and then in 1965 we were joined by a brilliant technician called Bill Williams from Winnipeg, Canada and three Artists from Toronto.

Th name comes from Hermann Hesse’s book Siddhartha.

Around the year of the “Summer of Love” I met Pat Firpo and thru him met Rudy Stern and Jackie Casin who were doing Light Shows for Timothy Leary.

They shared with us how to paint on glass and the basic use of Slide projectors

My Primary influence was Glenn Mckay, who when I met him had split from Jerry Abrams, The both used the name “Head Lights”. Glenn was connected and touring with the Jefferson Airplane.

We really Bonded when he came to New York City and he was going to do a Light Show at the Whitney Museum.

He taught me about the concept of not defining space and and the use of free-form images, what kind of oil soluble dyes he used and where I could get them.

Another person I had the honor to work with is Bill Ham and I spent time working in his home studio, preparing for a Light Show with the Beach Boys at the Monterey Fair Grounds.

For a number of years I worked with a band called CAT MOTHER AND THE ALL NIGHT NEWS BOYS. (above our Workspace Cat Mother practiced).

We did a outdoor Light Show at Woodstock, two years before the BIG ONE. Michael Jeffries, who managed Jimi Hendrix saw the Band & our Light Show (He signed Cat Mother) and had the band open for Jimi on a couple of short tours.

We had a light show designed for each of the Band’s songs. We had Photo Images and Abstract ones. Jimi liked the abstract ones and we used those when we jammed with him.

Just showing up and doing a Light Show with them we worked with:

Creedence Clearwater Revival
Iron Butterfly
Steppenwolf
Country Joe and the Fish
The Fifth Dimension
Brian Auger & Julie Driscoll
Santana
Grateful Dead
The Lov’in Spoonful
Traffic

Jay Moss - September 2020

L-R Jay Moss, Unknown, Pablo

MC5, Children of God, Pageant Players, May 13th 1969 - Hotel Diplomat, 108-116 W. 43rd Street, New York

Fillmore East, New York, 1969