[sdiy] Francesco Lupica & The Cosmic Beam

[Cynthia Webster]

I've been to many of Francesco's cosmic beam concerts!

For a while back in 1979/1980 or so some friends regularly held Friday 
night
concert type parties at one of the lofts in the old Helms Bakery 
Building in West Los Angeles with Francesco playing to really 
sophisticated laser light shows.

Lots of us filmmakers and motion picture special effects people used to 
hang out there, which is how the instrument made it into the first Star 
Trek movie.
(After spending a year on the Star Trek visual effects crew, some 
partners and I formed a small effects shop on the West side called 
Young, Fast, & Scientific, and we would often cruise over to the Laser 
"Beam" parties on a Friday night.

The sound of the beam itself was wonderful resonating throughout your 
whole body. There were other strange sounds there, sometimes you could 
hear a bunch of squaking and wheezing sounds behind you...

Life extension gurus Durk Pearson & Sandy Shaw were regularly there and 
recommending Vasopressin nose inhalers to folks as a means of mind & 
memory enhancement.  It was wild to see groups of people in the audience 
with all of their little inhaler bottles squeezing Vasopressin between 
sets. It was a real scene!

Cynthia




John Blacet wrote:

> I've heard of this guy. Looks like you would need two beefy roadies 
> and a large van to move this beast around!
>
> Matt Simpson wrote:
>
>> downtime at work, so I figured i'd regale the list w/a somewhat nifty 
>> story.
>>
>> i've been into synth-diy for a long time (hell, it's what prompted me
>> to go to gatech & get my compe degree...i wanted and still want to
>> build crazy sound equipment), and i'm finally getting around to
>> actually *doing* things.  the past 8 years have seen me immerse myself
>> in information & networking with talented folks.  much like everyone
>> here, it's a driving passion.
>>
>> i've been dating my current girlfriend, missy, for 2 years, and she's
>> mentioned her uncle before, saying he made a whole lot of new age
>> music on the west coast for a number of years, including making his
>> own insturments which were described very vaguely to me.  she hadn't
>> met him, but she's heard his records for ages.  last year she & I went
>> up to see her family for her mom's funeral, and these are the folks
>> that have known him for a really long time, and they kept playing his
>> record.  interesting new age stuff.
>>
>> missy's an artist.  primarily visual, but always really into music. 
>> now that she's making music w/me, she's suddenly extremely interested
>> in finally talking to her fabled uncle.
>>
>> she caught up w/him last night.  turns out his instrument, the Cosmic
>> Beam, isn't what i thought it was:
>>
>> http://www.virtualvenice.info/music/francisco.htm "Inside the tent 
>> was a guy playing a very long metal beam, like a
>> steel I-bar, with a few piano type strings stretched from end to end.
>> He had it hooked up with an electronic pickup, so it could be
>> amplified and use echoplex effects. In one hand he held a thick metal
>> cylinder, like a giant version of the one steel guitar players use.
>> With the other hand he plucked, stroked, bowed and hammered on the
>> strings while moving the bar. The harmonics and textural magic from
>> this instrument, which literally moved through your body, was so
>> incredible people would stay for hours..........John Beal"
>>
>> her uncle's name is Francesco Lupica, and has apparantly been heavily
>> involved in the west coast music scene for several decades now. 
>> having read his descriptions of his instrument & seen pictures of it,
>> i'm dying to meet this guy now.
>>
>> long story short:  It's pretty rad to be dating a girl who's uncle is
>> heavily into very similar things as I.  double plus bonus, considering
>> missy's a treasure herself.
>>
>> hooray!
>>
>> threv
>>  
>>
>