MusicTank

Born in Shoreham by sea, Horace learnt to play the clarinet and saxophone from the age of 10. At 14 he began playing semi-professionally in Jazz bands in pubs and clubs around the Brighton area, and went on to join ‘Rocky Sharpe and the Razors' the precursor to ‘Darts', working extensively on the London gig scene in the mid 70's.

Founder member of R&B/doowop band ‘Darts', Horace, then Horatio Hornblower, signed a record deal with Magnet Records at the age of 19. ‘Darts' had a string of top ten hits including 3 number 2 singles in a row. Horace wrote the 1979 top ten hit, ‘Get It' and played on all the bands releases. After 2 Gold and a Platinum album, 8 years of extensive touring and musically directing and appearing in the West End hit ‘Yakety Yak', ‘Darts' finally called it a day and Horace became a busy session musician.

After enjoyable stints in eighties bands ‘Lovely Money' and ‘Hitlist', Horace decided to use his experience to advise and promote other musicians and set up a local authority backed music marketing agency in Hackney called HAMMA.

HAMMA released records for local bands (NME, Melody Maker and Music Week records of the week), promoted the ICA Rock Weeks and pioneered the very first ‘demo juries'.

In 1990 Horace began working for the Musicians' Union as the Union's Careers Adviser. In 1997 he became the London Official negotiating for members at the Royal Opera House, English National Opera and West End theatres. In 2003 Horace was made Assistant General Secretary in charge of live engagements and now oversees all of the Union's trade agreements in the live sector.