Horace Panter Cassettes Large Format (C90) Signed Limited Editions
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Reuben Colley Fine Arts at Carters 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 era 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 for example, ‘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 technology 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, it still has its disciples, with ‘Cassette Store Day’ now an annual event 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 now in the hands of Horace Panter takes its place in a 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 as a single and was 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, and since 1974 has been located in a former builders' guild hall on Köthener Straße No. 38 in the Kreuzberg district of Berlin, Germany. Amongst English-performing musical acts it used to be known as "Hansa Studio By the Wall". Teen Spirit Signed Limited Edition of 25 Copies 92 x 61 cm £500 unframed / £695 fully framed 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. The facility had previously been a production factory of the British company, Vox. Sound City contributed its signature analogue 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. Dave Grohl, former Nirvana drummer and current lead singer of the Foo Fighters, purchased the custom Neve 8028Console from Sound City's 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 Signed Limited Edition of 25 Copies 92 x 61 cm £500 unframed / £695 fully framed 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 but Paul Weller would dare to lyrically combine nihilism, 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. It was 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 Signed Limited Edition of 25 Copies 92 x 61 cm £500 unframed / £695 fully framed “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 16th June 1978 and initially released that September on independent Belfast record label Good Vibrations, before the band—at the time unobligated to any record label—signed to Sire Records on 2nd October 1978. Sire Records subsequently obtained all copyrights to the material released on the Teenage Kicks EP and the song was re-released as a standard vinyl single on Sire's own label on 14th 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 on 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.