Alan Kane

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The Stratford Hoard

Exhibition 3: Electric guitars and Beatles Memorabilia

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The Stratford Hoard

An exhibition of collections brought together by Alan Kane

In the lead up to the 2012 Games, Art on the Underground is delivering a series of contemporary art commissions in Stratford that have individuals and communities at their heart. Alan Kane was commissioned to produce new work for 2008/09. The Stratford Hoard extends Alan Kane’s fascination with the process of researching, finding, categorising and displaying a wide range of collections from the valuable to the obscure.

It is estimated that one in four adults in the developed world could be considered to be collectors or to have a collection. What people collect is entirely influenced by their individual circumstances and tastes. Collections can be seen as personal histories or self portraits created through the accumulation of objects.

A fascinating cache of collections from people who live nearby, or have an association with the station, has been unveiled over the last 10 months. Each collection on show reveals the infinite relationships between individual objects and those who collect them.

Exhibition 3: Electric guitars and Beatles Memorabilia

Exhibition 3, now at Stratford station, contains collections from the following people:

• Pete Nash: Beatles Memorabilia
• Simon Murphy: Guitars and effects pedals

Pete Nash

Beatles Memorabilia

Images by Alan Kane

For nearly 25 years Pete Nash has been collecting almost anything that has a connection to the Beatles. In that time he has amassed many thousands of objects produced by or concerned with the band.

His collection and subsequent knowledge of the Beatles is so extensive that he has become widely regarded as a leading authority on Beatles memorabilia and an expert on worldwide Beatles releases.

Pete is a 'second generation' Beatles Fan (since 1975), former staff writer for The Beatles Book Monthly, he is editor of the British Beatles Fan Club magazine and contributor to magazines such as Record Collector, Mojo, Q, NME and various music journals, as well as contributing to The Beatles Anthology book and film.

Find out more about the British Beatles Fan Club.

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Simon Murphy

Guitars and effects pedals

Images by Alan Kane

"People who have more than a few guitars are generally divided up into collectors and players. Collectors usually place great importance on condition and originality, and some even deliberately avoid playing their instruments to minimise wear and tear.

I’m a player – I have a lot of guitars, but play all of them, and swap parts around and tinker. I like to personalise them. My first guitar in 1980 had no pickups or wiring, so right from the start I’ve been chopping and changing.

For about 10 years I had one guitar. It’s heavy. By the early ’90s I was playing in bands more, lugging equipment around, and needed something lighter. I started looking in markets and junk shops for cheap guitars. I found three or four at this time, fixed them up and was happy.

The internet opened things up, and in the last decade I’ve bought several more on e-Bay, plus a couple of donations from friends. I have 15 guitars now, but they come and go. I’ll be selling at least one this year.

I’ve built my own guitars from parts and some basic electronic instruments also. I’m not a very technical person by nature, but I learned how to do it by experimenting. I’m in my 40s now, but my attitudes are still informed by the DIY/Punk ethic of the 1970s.

I made all the effects pedals on display myself, starting in 2003. So they are not a collection in the usual sense, they are utilitarian objects for making guitars sound different.

Some are recreations of rare fuzz pedals or hobby magazine projects from the mid-1960s, and others are newer designs. The circuits are drawn up and shared on the internet, alongside discussions of which are the best transistors, etc, for each circuit.

I also make them up – most of the parts I can buy locally. In some respects I do admit they are mostly quite similar, but if you listen closely the sounds they produce are very varied.”

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Previous exhibitions

• View exhibition 1: July 2008 - October 2008
• View exhibition 2: October 2008 - January 2008

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Supported by:

Links

• The Stratford Grapevine page
• Stratford Research Project page
• Alan Kane & Jeremy Deller’s Folk Archive (a review by Tom Morton)
• Billys & Charleys
• Milk Bottle News
• Postcard Collecting
• Hunter Davies – Collecting Enthusiast and writer for the Guardian
  

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