1968 – Painting the Orange Shop
Cliff Cooper, Founder & CEO of Orange Amps:
When we opened the shop, we painted it inside and out in a really bright shade of orange. Even from a distance you couldn’t help but notice it – the shop front had this luminous, really powerful aura. However, shop owners nearby complained and the council told me to change it back to its original dark brown colour. I wouldn’t agree, and after a plethora of letters had exchanged hands, the council decided to let it go. I think they took the view that it didn’t really matter because the shop was soon to be demolished anyway.
We opened the ground-floor premises as a music shop on September 2nd 1968. The basement studio wasn’t covering its overheads so I was forced to sell my band’s Vox equipment in the shop in order to pay wages. It sold the same day – we were now in the music retail business. The main distributors at that time for Marshall, Gibson and Fender would not supply us even when I offered to pay them up front, so I was forced to sell second-hand guitars and amplifiers. We began manufacturing our own amps at the start of 1969. That was also the year that Vox went into liquidation and so there was room for another amplifier company. My background in electronics proved very useful and, needless to say, I called the amplifiers Orange. That’s how it all started.
The shop was very cramped. You can see the stairs going down to the studio on the right in this photo which was taken after the Customs & Excise swoop [covered in a later post].
Great article what was the original shop address!??
I remember the Orange Store in Shaftesbury Avenue, as I exchanged my Gibson EB3 Bass for a Brand new Fender Mustang Bass which I still have to this day and I expect to be buried with it ! I seem to remember it being 1969.
Don’t take it out to gigs much these days although when we play decent size venues like the O2 Academy’s I take it with me.
Hi Leslie. About the location of Orange shop I am a bit confused. Here’s why: I bought my first bass (a cherry Vox Cougar) in September 1969. I was 16. All these years I thought the shop was Orange, on or very close to a corner in Shafstbury Av. maybe some 100 yards south of Macaris, same side of the avenue. The door was on the side I think. A very small shop where I first saw the gorgeous new Orange equipment.
Problem is, this can’t be 3 New Crompton St. that is described in all these articles! It is relatively close yes, but can’t be the same, or can it? Cheers.