The Union Light Company, The Emergency Exit, Seattle University, January 14
This poster, which advertises a concert and lightshow at the Eagle’s Auditorium, is a piece of counterculture ephemera. In response to the commercialized and mainstream music scene currently on offer, the Free University of Seattle rented space at the Eagle’s, managed to wrangle a city permit by side-stepping teen-dance laws, and hired a hippie band and psychedelic light artists for a new kind of performance. This event attracted over six hundred attendees and helped open the way for more so-called light dances in Seattle.
Emergency Exit was formed in 1965 by Paul Goldsmith (b. unknown), Luther Rabb (1942-2006), Bill Leyritz (1945-2006), and Jim Walters (b. unknown). Although the band members all had a history with mainstream Rock ‘n’ Roll, their willingness to experiment with new sounds for new audiences led them to produce music best characterized as Garage Rock. The group only performed together for a couple of years, disbanding in 1967, but members continued playing music individually and with other groups. Luther Rabb, in particular, would go on to form the band Ballin’ Jack and later tour with Santana and War.
Union Light Company formed in 1966 at the first lightshow in the Seattle area, from the improvisational performance of artists Carol Burns (1939-2014), Ron McComb (1938-2018), Annie Duggan (b. 1944), Ron Moe (b. unknown), Julia Shumm (b. unknown) and Quentin Rhoton (b. unknown). Lightshows emerged in the 1960s counterculture scene, enhancing the psychedelic and transcendent experience of concerts using projectors, theatrical lights, and a mix of found and handmade slides. Union Light Company’s performances were neither entirely random nor fully scripted. Instead, the artists responded to the music of the bands they performed with and the energy of the audience on any given night. The group left Seattle for New York in 1967 where they performed at Cafe Au Go Go and collaborated with The Group Image. Discouraged by the commercialization of lightshows and hippie culture, Union Light Company disbanded in 1968.
