I had a fascinating experience meeting and photographing Horace Panter for the book. Not only is he the bass player in The Specials, but he is also a respected artist. I had seen him watching Dave Wakeling's English Beat at Oxford, which gave me the idea to contact him about being part of the book. I met him at his house and you can read all about the experience in the book, including seeing his collection of bass guitars and his original works of art. To see how you can order the book click here.
One of my favourite collections of his work are the cassette editions. Bands like The Jam, The Clash, Madness, Blur and of course The Specials feature. The cassettes feature details of the original recording sessions, the one below is Blur's She's So High. You can visit Horace's website by clicking here.
During the course of putting the book together, I tried to support the people who were so generously supporting me, and so I decided to treat myself to one of Horace's prints. He did a limit edition print of a blank TDK tape, which you could personlise with your own design. I chose to have mine personalised with a recreation of an old Radio 1 In Concert by The Alarm I had recorded back in 1984. I still have the original tape so I was able to send Horace the details with my own handwriting and he came up with the design you can see at the top of this page.
It's a lovely piece of work, and will always remind me of my love of not just The Alarm, but of my meeting and the time spent with Horace. The book has now raised over £900 for Beating Bowel Cancer. I'd love it to raise £1000, so it's edging closer towards the magic figure. My mother has major surgery this week in her continuing battle with bowel cancer.
No comments:
Post a Comment