The Martian Entropy Band was graced, whenever possible, by the wonderful addition of a light show called "the Light Opera", though the term "Illuminatus" was also involved. Hopefully Mike (the Spaceman Bassman) and Wayne, the creators of the show and its equipment, will chime in here to add some detailed descriptions (and possibly pictures) of their awesome array of state-of-the-art light-art madness. The stages the Martian Entropy Band performed on were often resplendent with swirling blobs of color, sometimes oscillating in time to the music, with images such as the Starship Enterprise flying overhead, and rotating Lissajous patterns of laser light making flower shapes.
But, until I can talk one of them into telling you about it themselves, let me describe one light show accessory that Mike built, that was a real gas.
DISCLAIMER: DANGER! The following described events and actions are EXTREMELY dangerous. We STRICTLY advise that you DO NOT TRY THIS AT HOME OR ANYWHERE without sufficient technical advice and supervision. If you are unsure about anything you are doing with electrical equipment like this DO NOT PROCEED further until you know EXACTLY what you are doing or have the necessary technical assistance. Contact with any voltage above 25-50 volts CAN KILL YOU, and high voltages such as are described here can arc through the air in unexpected ways.
One evening Mike revealed to us at the House of Madness that he had acquired a neon sign transformer. This 20 pound-plus object converted good old 110 volt AC current into about 10,000 volts, and would deliver it with a highly-dangerous amount of current. Of course, the first thing to do with it (we were young and relatively foolish) was to straighten out a couple of coat hangers into gentle arcs and attach them to the screw terminals on the transformer so they extended nearly vertically upward, gradually getting farther apart with height.
When the transformer was plugged in, a beautiful buzzing arc appeared where the wires were closest together, and then rose upward until it broke at the top of the wires with a loud "snap" and reappeared at the starting point. Mike had built his own Jacob's Ladder. We all thought this was absolutely awesomely cool. Mike, Wayne, and I knew, before it was turned on, that as little as 10 milliamps of current can stop one's heart, and that this arcing monster was certainly capable of that, and were wary. Everyone stayed safe, however, and to my recollection nothing bad ever happened.
Before long hard-working, creative Mike had packaged the wires in a tall wooden box with a plastic front on it, so we could watch the arc do its thing in safety. He also put a wooden box around the transformer, with a power switch on the front. He drilled a hole in the back of the vertical box, which was perhaps three feet high, right at the point where the arc would start, so that burnable objects such as cigarettes could be inserted and lighted via the arc. We were a bit afraid to hold anything while it was inserted, suspecting that someone could still receive a shock that way, but I don't remember it ever happening.
Mike wasn't going to stop there, however. As this was to become part of the light show and be placed on stage with the band, Mike painted the wood box parts black and put a number of different colored blinking lights in it, labeled with totally unrelated symbols, a Greek letter among them. Then he put a 1 rpm electric motor in side with a flourescent orange clock hand on it that rotated continuously when the unit was on, and labeled the clock face in four quadrants: High, Higher, Highest, and PHEW!.
This was just an example of the tireless creativity that went into what was truly a world class light show, and brought us and our fans many hours of laughs and entertainment. I believe Wayne has many slides (thousands?) of the light show, and I am encouraging him to dig through them and digitize some so we can show them to you here on the MEB fan-site.
Long live the Light Opera and Illuminatus show!