The Lens

Situated in Southampton (Britain) and active through the second fifty percent from the 1970s, the Zoom lens served being a laboratory for Mike Holmes, Peter Nicholls, and Martin Orford. Following the group ended its actions in 1981, the three of these would type IQ, with Marillion the very best outfit from the neo-prog influx. Holmes, a self-taught guitarist, artwork pupil Nicholls, and drummer Niall Hayden allegedly fulfilled within a solution stand line for the Genesis concert in 1976. The teens decided on the effectiveness of their common likes in music to create a group. Initial known as the Giln, then your Zoom lens, they recruited bass participant Rob Thompson and keyboardist Pete Blackler and began to perform at regional schools sometime in 1977. Holmes, being proudly located in Manchester, skipped many concerts and taken care of a few just as professional of ceremonies, forcing the group to focus on instrumental materials. In the first times, Brian Marshall would replace as well as second Hayden. The music implemented a vein of intensifying rock even more trippy than symphonic, nearer to Hawkwind and Ash Ra Tempel than Genesis or Yes. By Sept 1977, Thompson and Blackler had been out and Orford acquired joined. A couple of months afterwards, Hayden quit, departing Marshall in charge of the drums. His sibling, Les Marshall, who acquired never handled a bass electric guitar, was hired non-etheless for that placement. The “traditional” lineup from the Zoom lens have been reached. Kevin Clear joined briefly, aiming to suppose a Brian Eno-like function that quickly became unfit as the music advanced toward even more straight-forward prog rock and roll. But he shows up on No Television Tonite, the group’s lone documenting, a cassette that marketed a couple of hundred copies pursuing some accounts. The group continuing to perform, mainly in Southampton and Bournemouth, and appreciated the encouragement from the music newspaper Musicians Just. But things had been beginning to break apart, mostly over the matter of brothers Brian and Les Marshall’s countless fighting (the second option became sort of mythical number in the annals of IQ). Carrying out a brief substitute by drummer Tag Ridout (of Saruman Lawn, a proto-version of Jadis), the group disbanded in early 1981. In past due 2001, Holmes and Orford came into the studio room to re-record the majority of the Zoom lens’ repertoire (released on Large Electric Pea like a Word within your Attention) and sometimes performed collectively under that name, mainly starting for IQ.