I was in my previous band for 13 years and it was a gruelling apprenticeship,” said Silky. “We had a record deal but it didn’t work out and we lost money at gigs.

Over the last thirty years I’ve read allot about The Specials and the Two Tone bands and although this doesn’t really add anything to the story it is great to hear it first hand from someone who was there rather than watching on, which I was doing myself. The stories reverberate with a freshness particularly in the parts of the book which were taken directly from the tour journal Horace kept throughout the American and Japanese tours which ultimately led to the break up of the band. Horace vividly describes his life before The Specials, the band's formation, their meteoric rise to the top of the charts, and their equally swift disintegration. Listen to any of DOGP’s debut album 69 Candy Street or watch any of their slightly south of sensible videos and you can see that Madness influence burning brightly. Though the band comprises just the two of them, they regularly perform as a nine-piece including a full brass section and it’s clear these guys are taking having fun very seriously indeed. We enjoy having a DIY label as much as we enjoy the music side of things. It is empowering. It is inspiring to us.There's something -particularly charged, too, about familiar songs sung by a familiar voice, even if it's the first time song and voice have met in public. Suggs's matter-of-fact staccato is unmistakable, and a number of the songs Madness essay are standards. There's Desmond Dekker's 'Israelites', a touchstone not badly damaged here by the Madness treatment. There's Bob Marley's 'So Much Trouble in the World', more consolatory than Marley's righteous original. When both our bands imploded we got together. I wanted to do something more British and his songwriting has a real British style.” We were both in bands on the Essex circuit, explained Silky, “he is a bit younger than me so they often supported us and we got on really well.

And that meant not only returning to his first musical love, ska, but also to the summer house at the bottom of his nan’s garden in Warley, Brentwood, where he wrote and rehearsed his very first songs. Fast forward five years, and a bevy of rising bands are busy stealing the tension, genial blokeishness and ska homages that Madness, the Specials et al traded in at the cusp of the Eighties. There's the Ordinary Boys, beloved by Morrissey, and a gang of their fans, the Ordinary Army, born well after Madness's heyday. There's Hard-Fi, who, arguably, owe a greater debt to the Specials than Madness. But Hard-Fi have proved once again that this particularly British double helix of cheer and unease, one shared by many of the home-grown bands of the early Eighties, makes for peculiarly successful pop music. DOGP have enjoyed good support from the very word go but neither Silky nor Top Kat have forgotten the years they spent learning the ropes with their previous bands. Madness were my first musical love,” he said. “I remember when I was five my dad gave me a copy of Divine Madness in VHS and from that moment I just wanted to be Suggs! We love songwriting and we love performing and we take that seriously while having fun doing it. What I’m trying to say is that we’re professional about what we do.”

Lots of nice photos included tho not enough discussion of the clothes (yeah, yeah, he discusses why not but still!). It's also interesting because this came out like a year before they all reunited (sort of...) and he's very generous in his evaluations of everyone's contributions and pretty forgiving of everyone's various quirks and you do kiiiind of wonder whether he'd write some of this the same way now. Overall tho, it's a fun read and a neat look at one of my cat's favourite bands.

Madness look beyond the Caribbean, too. There's an upswing take on the Kinks' 'Lola' that doesn't grate quite as much as it could. A potential cod-reggae calamity is averted on their rendition of the Supremes' 'You Keep Me Hanging On', thanks to Madness's lightness of touch. You'll let Madness off for things that you would never let, say, naff old UB40 get away with. As I said, in my previous band we had a record deal that didn’t work out. You’re signing over your career to someone else and you are not in control.” In Ska'd for Life Horace takes the reader on a musical odyssey with the Specials from their early days on Coventry's punk circuit to chart storming success with singles like 'Too Much Too Young' and the eerily prescient 'Ghost Town', released as the race riots saw Toxteth and Brixton go up in flames. Written with wry humour, taking an affectionate look at a band whose sublime music remains influential today, this is a must for all Specials fans. The result is that he and bandmate Top Kat – another Essex boy, from Ongar – have developed a sound that’s classy, brassy, fun and frisky and has grown steadily since the formation of DOGP in 2016. The internet gives us more opportunities so we are trying to use it to build relationships with our fans, and I run the record label from my one-bedroom flat.

We’re happy to be light-hearted and to keep it fun but we are serious about our career,” said Silky. We have a 30-day return policy, which means you have 30 days after receiving your item to request a return. Interesting account of Horace's time as bass player for The Specials, from meeting Jerry Dammers in the mid 70's to playing small clubs and pubs with The Coventry Automatics and the eventual rise and fall of The Specials, one of the UK's biggest bands from 1979 to 1981. The band plan to release their second album next year, with plans for an online fan club and a UK tour – hopefully with an Essex gig included – coming together. One of the lessons they’ve learned is that the evolution of technology and the shifting patterns of making and receiving music mean more opportunities for bands like DOGP.

As bass player with the Specials, in his second-hand suit and pork pie hat, Horace Panter was a member of one of the most innovative and exciting bands to come snarling out of the punk era. Founded by Jerry Damners, their fusion of punk, reggae and ska created a new musical fashion, spearheaded by their own record label Two Tone. They stood for unity and racial harmony in a polarised society. They even got British men dancing again. We are planning to put out an album every year for the next ten years – then we’ll see how it goes from there. It was animated and it was fun – it was like watching a musical. My younger brothers were still in nappies but we’d all be together skanking to it. I decided there and then that that was what I wanted to do.”It’s a rite of passage for any aspiring musician but with Death of Guitar Pop we have been able to taste the fruits of our hard labour.” Read More Related Articles