Horace Panter - Home - Reuben Colley Fine Arts · Horace Panter now takes its place in that world ... including moving a guitar ad lib ... re-charted and The Jam entered the Guinness

Horace Panter Cassettes

Large Format (C90) Signed Limited Editions

Repositories of Memory

Each cassette image in these editions and originals is historically accurate and serves as a reminder of a great period when bands would take these small pieces of plastic home (or to their car stereo) and listen to what they had created in the recording studio that day.

These are not straight forward copies of a cassette tape. Horace researches the band, the recording studio where each track was created (most of which sadly no longer exist) and sometimes the dates of the recording, this information is then used to create the painting. Not all of these are based on demo cassettes; some, as with ‘Top 40’, are iconic tape designs with wording that resonates with the viewer. These pieces of art are, as the artist himself calls them, ‘repositories of memory’

The History of the Cassette Tape

On 30 August, 1963, a new bit of sound recording tech that was to change the lifestyle of millions was revealed at the Berlin Radio Show.

For Philips, the unveiling of its new Compact Cassette tape and accompanying recorder was about enticing people to buy a fuss-free portable recording system. The company had succeeded in putting together a format for recording, storing and playing back audio that immediately made sense - and delivered so many convenient improvements over existing systems that its success was assured.Although the Compact Cassette tape (now just known as the cassette tape) was a new design for handling tape media, what Philips had produced was an innovative approach to existing technologies rather than an out-and-out invention. Indeed, the emphasis was very much on portability, and Philips had no intention of trying to match the fidelity of reel-to-reel recorders that had marker-pen-thick track widths and fast tape speeds. If you needed superlative sound quality, then those tape machines were there and would continue to be for many decades more in pro audio circles.

Horace Panter C90 Collection

The humble cassette is now over 50 years old and although no longer a mass format for the transportation of music still has its disciples, with ‘Cassette Store Day’ now an annual event, this based on the immense success of ‘Record Store Day’.

This masterpiece in engineering appeared on the market as the whole Pop Art movement was taking off, and in the hands of Horace Panter now takes its place in that world which celebrates the art of the mundane and disposable. These large cassette images, as well as being wonderful stand alone pieces of art, could happily hang next to Warhol’s Soup Cans or Lichtenstein’s adapted comic book panels.

Cassettes

C90 Editions “The increase in scale from the smaller image size c30 range of originals and limited editions gives a new dimension to a mundane object, thereby elevating its status to

monolithic.” Horace Panter 2014

Heroes

Signed Limited Edition of 25 Copies 92 x 61 cm

£500 unframed / £695 fully framed

"Heroes" is a song written by David Bowie and Brian Eno in 1977. Produced by Bowie and Tony Visconti, it was released both as a single and as the album title track. A

product of Bowie's fertile 'Berlin' period, life in the city was crystallized into a tale of two lovers who come together in the shadow of the 'Wall of Shame' (though here "the

shame was on the other side"). While not a huge hit at the time, "Heroes" has gone on to become one of Bowie's signature songs and is well known today for its appearance in

numerous advertisements.

The Hansa Tonstudio is a recording studio, since 1974 located in a former builders' guild hall on Köthener Straße No. 38 in the Kreuzberg district of Berlin, Germany. Famous for

its Meistersaal recording hall, amongst English-performing musical acts it used to be known as "Hansa Studio By the Wall".

Teen Spirit



Kurt Cobain did not begin to write "Smells Like Teen Spirit" until a few weeks before recording started on Nirvana's

second album Nevermind, in 1991. When he first presented the song to his band mates, it comprised just the main riff and the chorus vocal melody which bassist Krist Novoselic dismissed at the time as "ridiculous." In response, Cobain made the band play the riff for "an hour and a half." In a 2001 interview, Novoselic recalled that after playing the riff

repeatedly, he thought, "'Wait a minute. Why don't we just kind of slow this down a bit?' So I started playing the verse part. And Dave [started] playing a drum beat." As a result, it is the only song on Nevermind to credit all three band

members as authors. Cobain came up with the song's title when his friend Kathleen Hanna, at the time the lead singer of the riot

grrrl band Bikini Kill, spray painted "Kurt Smells Like Teen Spirit" on his wall. Since they had been discussing anarchism, punk rock, and similar topics, Cobain interpreted the slogan as having a revolutionary

meaning. What Hanna actually meant, however, was that Cobain smelled like the deodorant Teen Spirit, which his then-girlfriend Tobi Vail wore. Cobain later claimed he was unaware that it was a brand of deodorant until months

after the single was released. Nirvana recorded "Smells Like Teen Spirit" at Sound City recording studio in Van Nuys, California with Butch Vig in

May 1991. Vig suggested some arrangement changes to the song, including moving a guitar ad lib into the chorus, and trimming down the chorus length. The band recorded the basic track for the song in three takes, and decided to keep

the second one. Vig incorporated some sonic corrections into the basic live band performance because Cobain had timing difficulties when switching between his guitar effects pedals. Vig was only able to get three vocal takes from

Cobain; the producer commented, "I was lucky to ever get Kurt to do four takes!”

Sound City Studios was a recording studio which started in 1969, located in Van Nuys, Los Angeles, California, USA.

The facility had previously been a production factory of the British company, Vox. Sound City contributed its signature analog sound to more than a hundred certified gold and platinum albums. The studio was privately held

from 1970, until it closed its commercial studio services in May 2011. It is now reserved for the exclusive use of its tenants. Dave Grohl, former Nirvana drummer and current lead singer of the Foo Fighters, purchased the

custom Neve 8028Console from Studio A, installing it in his private recording studio. In 2013, a documentary on the studio was made by Grohl simply titled Sound City.

Going Underground



Such was their popularity that by the time of The Jam’s 10th single “Going Underground”, it was already a guaranteed Number 1 before it was even released. The band’s universal appeal meant it had notched up 200,000 sales in advance orders, securing the band their first top spot in 1980 and

making them the first group since Slade (with 1973’s Merry Xmas Everybody) to go straight into the charts at that position. And who else would dare to lyrically combine nihilism, with a hatred for

complacency, a call for peace and political cynicism and still top the charts? When the band’s label capitalised on the success, reissuing their singles back catalogue, six of them re-charted and The Jam entered the Guinness Book Of Records alongside Paul’s heroes, The Beatles having equalled the highest number of Top 50 single chart hits at one time ever by a recording artist.

Townhouse Studios (officially named The Town House) was a recording studio in West London. Built by Richard Branson in 1978, and managed by Barbara Jeffries as part of the Virgin Studios

Group. The Virgin Studios Group was acquired by EMI when Richard sold Virgin Records to EMI in 1992.

Teenage Kicks



“Teenage Kicks" was the debut single by Northern Irish punk rock/new wave band The Undertones. Written in the summer of 1977 by the band's principal songwriter, John O'Neill, the song was

recorded on 16 June 1978 and initially released that September upon independent Belfast record label Good Vibrations, before the band—at the time unobligated to any record label—signed to Sire

Records on 2 October 1978. Sire Records subsequently obtained all copyrights to the material released upon the Teenage Kicks EP and the song was re-released as a standard vinyl single upon Sire's own label on 14 October that year, reaching number 31 in the UK Singles Chart. In 1978, John Peel played the song twice in a row on his Radio 1 show. Peel often rated new bands' songs with a

series of asterisks, with each song judged upon a scale of one to five asterisks: Peel was so taken by "Teenage Kicks" he awarded the song 28 stars. In a 2001 interview given to The Guardian, Peel stated

that apart from his name, the only words he wished to be engraved upon his gravestone were "Teenage dreams, so hard to beat." In February 2008, a headstone engraved with these words was

placed on his grave in the Suffolk village of Great Finborough.

In March 1978, the Undertones recorded a demo tape at Magee University in Derry and sent copies of the tape to various record companies in the hope of securing a record deal, but only received official

letters of rejection. The band had also sent a copy of their recordings to influential BBC Radio 1 DJ John Peel, requesting he play the songs on his radio programme. Peel replied to the band,

offering to pay for a recording session in Belfast. On 16 June 1978, the band recorded their debut four-song EP "Teenage Kicks" on a budget of only £200. The EP was engineered by Davy Shannon at

Wizard Sound Studios, Belfast – and was released on Belfast's Good Vibrations record label.

Gangsters



After we toured with The Clash on the 'On Parole Tour' we asked their manager Bernie Rhodes if he would look after us. He said yes and he decided we had to get out of England so he sent us to Paris, France to get out act together 'cos he thought we weren't right yet! Terry, Roddy, Jerry and Horace they hitched, and they got a lift, I think Terry or one of them got a lift in a Rolls-Royce!

Anyway, we all got to Paris and booked in the Hotel, got settled in and this woman walked in. A very beautiful woman, she knocked on the door 'bang,bang' - 'Are you from England?' she said. 'Yes' we replied, 'Well the last band that were from England that stayed here smashed my hotel up' which we thought was bad

news, but we did't realise how bad. (note: last band was The Damned!) These two other guys walked in, I had my guitar just lazing around strumming a few chords and singing fun songs, and this guy took the guitar off me and took Roddy's guitar. The

woman said 'You pay for the damage that the last band did, if you don't pay - no guitar!' We thought it was a joke, but the woman was serious - 'no payment, no guitar'. So I went mad, it was my cream telecaster, that guitar meant everything to me, I'd had to stuggle to get it, 'cos I wasn't working and I had to pay for it, so it was tough. So there was a big argument, we got pushed

downstairs, and the woman decided to throw us out of the hotel, so we got down to the lobby and there was a big argument pushing around until the glass door to the hotel got smashed. The police arrived - 'English, Jamaicans' they cried, and showed

no interest at all, they just didn't want to know smoking their cigarettes. I went crazy 'I want my guitar back...'. The guy from the club arrived and started talking to the woman and he told us to go to the club. It took us about 10 minutes to walk there - all the

way I was screaming at passers by 'I want my guitar back!'. By the time we got to the club the guitars and all equipment was there - I thought wow, these guys are wicked. How did they do it? They just back pulled guns and demanded all the guitars and

everything, and there we are!!! - so “GANGSTERS”.

The songs intro 'Bernie Rhodes knows dont argue' is for Bernie, and the 'Can't interrupt while I'm talking, Or they'll confiscate all your guitars' comes from the hotel incident. My line in the song was 'They use the law to commit crime'.

Everything in “Gangsters” was about that trip, and it was a brilliant trip in the end because it gave us our first hit record - can't complain about that.

Lynval Golding – July 2000

For information about ‘Horizon Studio’ see ‘Enjoy Yourself’ C90 below.

Enjoy Yourself



“Enjoy Yourself “ is Carl Sigman and Herb Magidson's 1940's chestnut, performed by the champagne king Guy Lombardo, it was given the royal seal of approval with Prince Buster's "Enjoy It", before enjoying itself immensely at

The Specials' hands!

The group had been performing the song live to fans' fervent response, often utilizing the number to end their pre-encore set.

This explains why two different versions book-end their More Specials album. The one that kicks off the set is an

exuberant expression of carpe diem, set to a rollicking arrangement where keyboardist Jerry Dammers vies for attention with the brass section led by Dick Cuthell's blasting cornet and Rico Rodriguez blazing trombone.

By contrast, the reprised version is slow, moody and almost oppressive, even with the Go-Go's adding vocal support, with the emphasis now coming firmly down on the ominous warning "Enjoy yourself, enjoy yourself, it's later than

you think." The opener's more fun, the closing more disturbing, and taken together the two perfectly encapsulate the group's

conflicting emotions towards the world at large.

The Rocket public house in Coventry bears the plaque that should have been located on Horizon Studios, sadly the studios and indeed the building that housed them has long gone. Horizon studios was very much the tangible face of

2-Tone during its rise to fame. It was here that The Specials first vinyl outing “Gangsters” and their second album “More Specials” were recorded. Bad Manners and The Selecter also recorder here. The Rocket provided liquid lunches between long recording sessions. The exact location of the studios are opposite the Rocket, where the bollards to the

entrance road to Central Six now lies.

Ghost Town

Signed Limited Edition of 25 Copies

92 x 61 cm £500 unframed / £695 fully framed

“Ghost Town” spent three weeks at number one and 10 weeks in total in the top 40 of the UK Singles Chart. Addressing themes of urban decay, deindustrialisation, unemployment andviolence in inner cities, the song

is remembered for being a hit at the same time as riots were occurring in British cities. Internal tensions within the band were also coming to a head when the single was being recorded, resulting in the song being the last single recorded by the original seven members of the group before splitting up. However, the song

was hailed by the contemporary UK music press as a major piece of popular social commentary, and all three of the major UK music magazines of the time awarded "Ghost Town" the accolade of "Single of the

Year" for 1981. In March 1981, Jerry Dammers heard the reggae song "At the Club" by actor and singer Victor Romero Evans played on Roundtable, the singles review show on BBC Radio 1. Fascinated by the record's sound, Dammers

telephoned the song's co-writer and producer John Collins a few days later, although as Dammers first phone call was in the middle of the night, Collins initially took it to be a joke. Following further

conversations with Dammers, Collins travelled up from his home in London to meet the Specials at their rehearsal studio and agreed to produce their new single.

After becoming overwhelmed with the multitude of choices available in the 24-track studio used during the recording of More Specials, Jerry Dammers had decided that he wanted to return a more basic set-up, and

after a recommendation Horace who was familiar with the place, the band chose the small 8-track studio in the house owned by John Rivers in Woodbine Street in Royal Leamington Spa. The studio, which consisted of a recording space in the cellar and a control room in the living room, was too small to accommodate all

the members of the band, so rather than their normal recording method of playing all together, Collins recorded each band member playing one at a time and built up the songs track by track.

There are two recording rooms, the first being the main 31 square metre one. The second is a 13.6 square metre 'live' room which is wood panelled, optimising it for the recording of drums.

One Step Beyond



“One Step Beyond” is a tune written by Jamaican ska singer Prince Buster as a B-side for his single "Al Capone". Madness covered it for their debut 1979 album, One Step Beyond..., also named after

the song. Although Buster's version was mostly instrumental except for the song title shouted for a few times, the Madness version features a spoken intro by Chas Smash and a barely audible but

insistent background chant of "here we go!". The spoken line, "Don't watch that, watch this", in the intro is from another Prince Buster song, "The Scorcher". Also, that line became a trademark during

the early promos of MTV, where the video was in heavy rotation. According to Alan Winstanley, one of the producers, the released Madness version was a rough mix, created by taking the original 1 minute 10 second instrumental and repeating it, with the second half

treated with an Eventide harmonizer to make it sound slightly different. Langer and Winstanley intended to do a full remix but found that the double-length rough mix had already been sent for

mastering before they got the opportunity.

For information about ‘Eden Studios’ see ‘Night Boat to Cairo’ C90 below.

Night Boat to Cairo



“Night Boat to Cairo” is a song by British ska/pop band Madness from their debut 1979 album One Step Beyond.... It was written by Mike Barson and Suggs (Graham McPherson), and was also

included on the Work Rest and Play EP, which peaked at #6 in the UK music charts.

Eden Studios was a commercial recording facility in west London. It opened in 1967, originally at 11 Eden Street in Kingston upon Thames (now under the Eden Walk shopping centre), before moving to 20-24 Beaumont Road in Chiswick in 1972. It was started by Philip Love, Mike Gardner and Piers

Ford-Crush. Love and Gardner owned the studio and worked there as Financial and Technical Directors, respectively. Ford-Crush retired in 1998. The studio closed in July 2007 and the Chiswick

site knocked down for housing.

Good Times



"Good Times" is a 1979 song composed by Bernard Edwards and Nile Rodgers. It was first recorded by their band, Chic, for their 1979 album, Risqué. In August of that year it became the band's second

number one single on both the Billboard Hot 100 and soul singles chart. Along with the tracks, "My Forbidden Lover", and "My Feet Keep Dancing", "Good Times" reached number three on the disco charts. The song has become one of the most sampled tunes in music history, most notably in rap and hip-hop music. Billboard magazine named "Good Times" the number one R&B single for 1979.

The song is ranked #229 on Rolling Stone's list of the 500 Greatest Songs of All Time. The lyrics are largely based on Milton Ager's "Happy Days Are Here Again." It also contains lines

based on lyrics featured in "About a Quarter to Nine" made famous by Al Jolson. Nile Rodgers has stated that these depression-era lyrics were used as a hidden way to comment on the then-current

economic depression in the United States.

Nile Rogers has a copy of this limited edition in his recording studio.

The industrial building on 53rd Street, in the Hell's Kitchen neighbourhood of mid-town Manhattan was constructed as a power station by Consolidated Edison, at that time the city's largest electric utility. The electrical power produced in this facility was used to drive the trams on Ninth Avenue.

After the power plant was decommissioned, a TV production company took over the building in 1963, and it hosted the sound stage of popular game show Let's Make A Deal for a couple of years. Then, in 1977, well-known engineer Tony Bongiovi opened his recording studio in the complex,

calling it The Power Station as a nod to the original purpose of the building. It was renamed Avatar in 1996.

Top 40



For many people Sunday evenings were spent recording the top 40 off Radio 1 onto a cassette, finger hovering on the pause button... perfecting the art of starting and

stopping the recording to avoid the ramblings of the DJ.

How many tapes are out there with the first and last 10 seconds of every song missing?

Blank Expression – Sony C90



The label on this signed limited edition print has purposly been left blank. As with actual cassettes you are able to put whatever you want on them for whoever you

want (like giving an ‘art’ mix tape to someone)

HOW IT WORKS Horace Panter will hand paint whatever wording you would like onto the print, be it an

album or song that means something to you, or personal mix tape title.

This means that each print of the edition of just 25 copies is not only hand finished by Horace Panter but is totaly unique.

HORACE PANTER - BIOGRAPHY

Born in Croydon in 1953, Horace graduated with a degree in Fine Art from Coventry’s ‘Lanchester Polytechnic’ in 1975. It was there that he met Jerry Dammers and together they formed The Specials, a band that went on to become one of the most defining British bands of the 1980s. He travelled the world (and its art galleries) as a musician and then, from 1998-2008, was the ‘Head of Art’ in a secondary school. It was in 2008, when The Specials reformed, that he found he had the time to explore his own art practice. Horace’s first solo exhibition was in 2009 at London’s Strand Gallery and he has since exhibited throughout the UK, including at the AAF London, The London Art Fair, The Groucho Club and The London Print Fair at The Royal Academy as well as in galleries in Bath, Manchester, Aberdeen, Bournemouth, Bristol and Liverpool. In 2014, as well as his one man exhibition at Reuben Colley Fine Arts, Horace also exhibited in Singapore where, alongside his show, Fred Perry launched a limited range of Horace Panter Polo shirts featuring the cassette images. He has also worked on collaborations with a number of other companies, including Club Wembley, Sheaffer Inc., Teenage Cancer Trust, Amy Winehouse Foundation, Screaming Records DK and Stone Foundation (the latter two involved designing record labels and album covers). Much of Horace’s figurative work is based on traditional forms of iconography infused with a Pop Art sensibility, with influences ranging from Peter Blake, Kenneth Noland, Wayne Thiebaud and Joseph Cornell as well as the naive style of Henri Rousseau. He is interested in how iconography has always served a purpose for religious or political propaganda in which art reflects an ideology and is used as a tool to reinforce the prevailing rhetoric of absolutist regimes. His aim in creating contemporary iconography is to question the narrative of the icon by reproducing and questioning its status and authority in a post-modern setting. In this, he follows the Pop Art mantra of ‘elevating the mundane’; his icons are often of people who are ‘unseen’. His more recent paintings and collages, pay tribute to his favourite musicians, owing more to the influence of Peter Blake, Andy Warhol or Kurt Schwitters, with an emphasis on the visual narrative of the subject presented in fragmented pieces but expressing a cohesive history, as can be seen in his ‘Chicago Blues’ series. In his cassette series, the artefact is celebrated along with the cultural/historical context of seminal albums and the recording studios in which they were made. It could be argued that his paintings are autobiographical in as much as they emerge from experiences, places and people that he has met on his travels as well as from his love of music; from his childlike images of robots to his more reflective portrait of Amy Winehouse, each work could represent a part of his kaleidoscopic and colourful sense of the world.

Reuben Colley Fine Arts 50 & 52 St Mary's Row, Moseley, Birmingham. B13 8JG

Tel : 0121 449 3744

Email : [email protected]

Opening Times

Monday – 10am until 6pm Tuesday - 10am until 6pm

Wednesday - 10am until 6pm Thursday - Closed

Friday - 10am until 6pm Saturday - 10am until 6pm

Sunday – By Appointment Only

Documents

Horace Panter - Home - Reuben Colley Fine Arts · Horace Panter now takes its place in that world ... including moving a guitar ad lib ... re-charted and The Jam entered the Guinness