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Many
moons ago, way down in darkest Hampshire, there was once a band called
The Lens. With their spacy, melodic and mainly instrumental music, they
were hardly the darlings of the late 1970’s music press which were
championing the cause of punk rock and the New Wave at the time, but
that didn’t bother The Lens. Not only were they producing some very
innovative music, they were popular too, and gigs around the Southampton
and Bournemouth areas were generally packed to the rafters. Nationally
they were feted (notably by the long-deceased Musicians Only) as the new
saviours of progressive music, but this was a false dawn and although
members of The Lens would go on to become major players in the so-called
New Wave of Progressive Rock, this lay some years ahead. 20
years after the demise of The Lens a compilation of their music is
timely, for the two main writers, Mike Holmes and Martin Orford went on
to form IQ, one of the most significant and enduring progressive rock
acts of the late 20th century. The new CD “A Word In Your Eye” features new recordings which catalogue
their earliest writing collaborations and provide an insight into an era
when although their music flew in the face of fashion, they provided the
missing link between the old and new schools of Progressive Rock. The Lens – a brief historyThe
idea of The Lens dates back to 1976, when self-taught guitarist Mike
Holmes met Peter Nicholls and Niall Hayden, allegedly in a queue for
Genesis tickets. Peter was an art student and part-time actor and Niall
had a drum-kit, so they decided there and then to form a band,
originally called The Giln. Despite a wealth of good intentions, nothing
much happened for a while, until the band (now called The Lens, and with
a bass-player, Rob Thompson and a keyboard player Pete Blackler) started
playing a few shows at local colleges in 1977. The position of drummer
was somewhat negotiable at this point, with Brian Marshall sometimes
replacing Niall Hayden, or occasionally both of them appearing on stage
in a cacophonous double act. Likewise, the role of Peter Nicholls was
similarly nebulous, and though always nominally a member, his residence
in Manchester normally meant that he was absent from most of the
Southampton-based gigs. At one notable performance at Netley Abbey in
1977, Peter announced all the songs and told stories between tracks, but
didn’t actually sing. Following
Netley Abbey, major line-up changes took place with Rob Thompson and
Pete Blackler either leaving or being pushed (no one can quite remember
which!), and Martin Orford joined on keyboards in September 1977.
Martin’s first gig with the band was at Prices College, Fareham, and
featured the unusual line-up of guitar, keyboards, two drummers and no
bass player, but this was a short-lived arrangement and Niall Hayden did
not appear again with the band. Although
he had not hitherto played bass, Brian Marshall’s brother Les was
considered to be a good musical prospect and after he joined the band in
early 1978, the core of The Lens’ definitive line-up was in place.
Soon afterwards, electronics whizz Kevin Sharp also joined on ARP 2600
synthesizer, but although he provided some fine effects on the band’s
initial cassette release “No TV Tonite”, his non-musical “Brian
Eno” type role in the band became increasingly superfluous as the
musical emphasis changed from spacy hippy tunes in a vaguely Hawkwind/Ash
Ra vein to very complex progressive rock. With a good mix of both these
styles, “No TV Tonite” proved a popular purchase for the many
devotees of The Lens, and despite its rough- and-ready recording
quality, hundreds of copies were sold. After
Kevin Sharp left, The Lens settled down to life as a four-piece, and the
live shows began to develop a distinctive identity, with Mike Holmes’
sometimes manic persona and Pythonesque sense of humour well to the
fore. The light shows were invariably impressive, and the band always
tried to incorporate effects lighting, pyrotechnics and sometimes films
and projections into the show, however small the venue might be. They
started incorporating vocals too (although there was still no sign of
Peter Nicholls at this stage), with Martin singing in a rather muted and
understated style on some of the band’s own compositions while Mike
absolutely let rip with some quite stunning Brian Ferry/Bob Calvert
impersonations! To
further enhance the band’s visual presentation, Carmine Brudenell, a
work colleague of Mike’s, started turning up to shows and dancing in
front of the musicians. Although a far cry from Hawkwind’s amazonian
Stacia, Carmine wafted gracefully in front of the band and was a big hit
with the bikers at Southampton’s Park Hotel, so she was willingly
adopted as a permanent fixture. The
cracks were definitely starting to appear in other areas though, and the
worsening relationship between the Marshall brothers, coupled with
Brian’s ongoing (allegedly arthritic, but possibly limp) wrist
problem, meant that gigs were becoming increasingly scarce. In an
attempt to halt the decline, drummer Mark Ridout was recruited from
Saruman Grass (a precursor of the band that was later to become Jadis),
but though Mark proved a very able and dynamic player, the days of The
Lens were clearly coming to an end. Brian
Marshall now cut a rather unhappy figure on stage, being relegated to
Kevin Sharp’s old job of providing synth noises and effects, but he
lacked the subtlety and control that Kev had once brought to the role. With the feud between the Marshalls now assuming epic (and sometimes, it has to be said, extremely humorous) proportions, Mike and Martin decided in early 1981 to fold The Lens and form a new band, which was to be called IQ. And the rest, as they say, is history............
The
following The Lens CD is available through G.E.P. Limited: |
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