//Selection of slides from Hawklords projection.//
With the legacy of Situationism the subject of a couple of posts on my blog, it seems timely to point up Barney Bubbles’ inclusion of frames from Christopher Grey’s Leaving The 20th Century: The Incomplete Work Of The Situationist International in his slide-show for Hawkwind’s post-punk offshoot Hawklords.
Kosmo Vinyl has sent this photograph taken of himself with Barney Bubbles (centre) and an unidentified person (right)* in the west London offices of Stiff Records in 1977.
“I have no idea what we are looking at,” says Vinyl, the former plugger/publicist/ideas man for Dury and The Clash who later became a record producer.
“The way I’m holding whatever it is, I’d say it’s a book or a magazine. I love the way it captures Barney’s enthusiasm and amazement.”
Vinyl has also provided some fascinating tales and insights into the creative partnership conducted between Bubbles and the late Ian Dury.
Check out the Barney Bubbles references in this clip for Kim Ann Foxman’s track Creature.
Copies of the 24-page Barney Bubbles exhibition booklet are now available exclusively from this site.
Click on the Process exhibition booklet link in the right hand column.
Featuring the cover image of the ingenious hammer & sickle artwork for Nick Lowe’s 1979 album Labour Of Lust, the illustrated booklet includes:
Process: The working practices of Barney Bubbles uses the three areas of Chelsea Space to guide visitors through the methods by which this master designer realised his audacious creations.
And there’s a continuous soundtrack of the music for which he designed, from Cressida to Costello, from Hawkwind to The Damned, from Iggy Pop & James Williamson to Red Dirt.
In the entrance to Chelsea Space is selected ephemera – adverts, badges, music press ads, stickers – as well as books, magazines and other finished artwork and designs, including the rug made in the image of a panel on the cover of Brewing Up With Billy Bragg.
There is also a showreel of 10 of the videos directed by Bubbles (including two never publicly displayed before: Incendiary Device and Darling, Let’s Have Another Baby for Johnny Moped).
A face-off is conducted between Elvis Costello (in 1977’s Warholian 60″ x 40″ Live Stiffs poster) and Chuck Berry (in the form of the wall-mounted sculpture created by Bubbles for music publisher Peter Barnes) at each end of the ramp.
On the ramp wall are posters, sleeves and other exhibits denoting approaches, recurrent themes and areas such as art direction, colour usage, application of symbols, photographic treatment, geometric arrangement, etc.
In the main room there is no finished artwork, excepting a copy of Damned Damned Damned with it’s deliberate printing error, and an NME Book Of Modern Music to demonstrate from whence Bubbles was taking his design leads at the time of production.
Sketches and proposals, along with personal effects, influences, paintings and sketchbooks rest on plinths and trestles colour-schemed to a typically exuberant Bubbles palette.
The walls are lined with pen and ink artwork, PMTs (Photo Mechanical Transfers), proofs, proposals, paste-ups, photography, etc. There’s a guide to the technical aspects of producing artwork in the pre-digital age, as well as a professional CV.
If you get the chance, do drop by; we’re around a lot of the time so can be on hand to talk you through the show and answer any questions.
Video and music track listings for the show are available here.
All photos Donald Smith.
"Shiva Jones and the Quintessence": Sketch by Barney Bubbles (top, bearded) with group members outside 307 Portobello Road, May, 1969.
One of the more abstruse credits for Barney Bubbles appeared just as he was embarking on his career in music design.
In the sixth and final issue of underground magazine Gandalf’s Garden, Bubbles was credited with “topiary”, in keeping with the horticultural lexicon employed at the offshoot of the Chelsea head shop/restaurant of the same name.
Front cover, Gandalf's Garden 6, 1969.
Exterior Gandalf's Garden, World's End, London SW10, 1969.
Issue 6 of Gandalf’s Garden was published in late 1969, and included a feature on Quintessence. The flute-led jazz/raga/rock ensemble’s recently released debut album In Blissful Company was Bubbles’ first 12in sleeve design (with his Teenburger Designs assistant John Muggeridge, or ‘J. Moonman’ as he was styled on the cover).
Pages 9-10, Gandalf's Garden 6.
Page 2, Gandalf's Garden 6.
The feature was enlivened by a pink duotone image of the group, and an Island Records advert for the new album appeared in the same issue. Bubbles received the credit for supplying both of these.
“Since he’s listed among those responsible for ‘topiary’ (i.e. artwork) in the issue, all I can say is that he did SOMETHING!” said Rosemary Pardoe, who is responsible for Gandalf’s online presence.
Gandalf’s mainman Muz Murray does not believe Bubbles ever provided layouts. “However, he kindly offered his Barney Bubbles’ Light Show for the benefit concerts we did with Marc Bolan, David Bowie and Quintessence,” added Murray.
Concert posters, 1969.
Bubbles, whose basement at 307 Portobello Road was used as rehearsal space by Quintessence, also regularly provided lights for their performances at the Sunday Implosion events at London’s The Roundhouse.
The GG6 Quintessence image and advert share the design approach Bubbles adopted for the black-and-white 12-page booklet he placed inside the Blissful Company gatefold (the front and back covers were paintings by ‘Gopala’, a member of the group’s posse, and the inner a photograph of the group and their circle).
Pages 6-7, In Blissful Company booklet, 1969.
Pages 9-10, In Blissful Company booklet, 1969.
The 12in sq booklet presented italicised song lyrics and credits with images of the band-members amid coarse dot patterns, shimmering elipses and die-cut apertures leading to an op-art quadrant.
This complementary and juxtaposed use of the square, triangle and circle were repeated by Bubbles throughout his career, denoting his understanding of the power of primary shapes (defining features of art movements he investigated, such as the Bauhaus).
Profiled in the BBC doc New Horizons: The Alternative Society, Quintessence took part in the 1971 Glastonbury Fayre (which led to the fund-raising album of the following year housed in Bubbles’ tri-fold sleeve).
A version of the group is still led by founder Shiva Jones. You can catch up with their latest news here.
Exciting news – the Barney Bubbles exhibition opens in London this autumn.
PROCESS: The working practices of Barney Bubbles will run from September 14 to October 23 at leading London gallery Chelsea Space.
PROCESS will present many fascinating exhibits – some displayed for the first time in public – to pinpoint Barney Bubbles’ approach to the body of design work which has cemented his reputation as one of the greats in his field.
By examining Bubbles’ activities from leaving art school in the early 60s to his death in 1983, PROCESS also traces an important strand in the development of the practice of graphic design.
Situated as it is within the grounds of Chelsea College Of Art & Design in the shadow of Tate Britain, Chelsea Space’s hosting of PROCESS will provide students of design and the visual arts and other creative disciplines – as well as the visitors to the home of British art – with vital insights into pre-digital working methods across the range of media.
Delineating the stages of production, PROCESS will also investigate the ways in which Bubbles conjured brilliance by his unique conflation of references and influences.
PROCESS will be complemented by a series of events, including an opening party, talks, q&as and performances from musicians, designers, photographers and others who worked with Bubbles.
We’ll be unveiling details of that programme over the coming weeks, so keep your eyes peeled. Already we’ve agreed participation with quite a few people, some of whom will be speaking publicly for the first time about their association with, and appreciation for, the work of this intriguing and elusive figure.
Chelsea Space is the place where The Clash, B.A.D., Carbon Silicon and Gorillaz mainman Mick Jones launched his installation The Rock & Roll Public Library, which has evolved as it has toured other spaces.
Similarly we’re looking for PROCESS to be the first manifestation in a rolling series of Barney Bubbles shows over the coming years.
For more info on the exhibition keep in touch by subscribing here and contacting us at info@barneybubbles.com
Prompted by the forthcoming regrouping of Hawklords at Nik Turner’s Barney Bubbles Memorial Concert on Sunday November 29, here’s yet another exclusive: Barney Bubbles’ sketches for a front-and-back-printed t-shirt for the Hawkwind splinter group’s 1978 dystopian project 25 Years On.
Hawklord t-shirt design Barney Bubbles, 1978. (C) Reasons 2009.
These were drawn in the bottom right-hand corner of an otherwise blank sheet of one of his pads, and feature the heraldic/masonic symbols Barney incorporated in the concept album’s design.
Hawklords booklet 1978. Design/Concept: Barney Bubbles. Photography/Concept: Chris Gabrin.
As detailed in Reasons To Be Cheerful, years before merchandise became an ancillary money-spinner for the music biz, Barney was integrating his Hawkwind approach by providing tees for the band and gig-goers based on his designs for X In Search Of Space, Space Ritual and Doremi Fasol Latido and the Hawkwind/Man 1999 Party US tour poster.
Lorry Sartorio 1964. Design/Concept/Photography: Barney Bubbles. (C) L. Sartorio/Reasons 2009.
As we’ve noted here, Barney first designed t-shirts in 1964, creating one worn by his girlfriend Lorry Sartorio for a poster he made for college band The Muleskinners (featuring his pal and Face Ian McLagan).
Alfalpha t-shirt detail, 1976. (C) Jeff Dexter.
In 1976 he supplied an amazing logo design for his friend Jeff Dexter, then co-managing Hawkwind with Tony Howard and also looking after an ill-fated combo Alfalpha. This logo appeared on badges Barney created in conjunction with his friend Joly McFie of Better Badges and t-shirts in fluorescent pink on black with a diamante in the text. ”They were very kool – made by his other mate Alan Holden from Sunrise Studios,” says Jeff.
Ian Dury t-shirt, 1978. (C) Ian Dury Family Estate/Reasons 2009.
And when punk and new wave took off, Barney provided many t-shirt designs for his friends, such as this Lissitzky-informed Ian Dury tee from 1978.
Back, Imperial Bedroom US tour t-shirt, 1982. (C) Reasons 2009.
By 1982 Barney was contributing not only his album covers but also detail from the artwork to t-shirts, such as the “bedbug” which appeared on the back of the top fronted by his Imperial Bedroom painting for a US tour by Elvis Costello & The Attractions.
Front, Hank Wangford Band sweatshirt, 1983. (C) Reasons 2009.
When his friend from the 60s counterculture days Sam Hutt – aka Hank Wangford - started to make waves on the UK music scene around the same time, Barney not only supplied album artwork but also came up with a wonderful range of t-shirt designs which mixed Argyll knitwear and grey marl with cowpoke.
Back, Hank Wangford Jogging With Jesus t-shirt 1983. (C) Reasons 2009.
Tickets for the Barney Bubbles Memorial Concert at the 229 Club, London on Sunday November 29 are available here.
As a corollary to yesterday’s doings on Do It Yourself (and a riff on the recent El Lissitzky post), thought you’d like to see this rare shot of a t-shirt Barney Bubbles designed for his mate Ian Dury in 1978.
The Blockheads‘ soundman Chris Warwick is wearing one in the self-timed shots on the Do It Yourself inner sleeve.
The articulation of blocks and rectangles which assemble Dury’s name is inspired by Lissitzky’s 1922 book About 2 Squares, in which ordered objects are scattered by the impact of the two quadrants of the title. As a result perspective and projection are challenged and a new order is imposed.
And they see a black mess, About 2 Squares, El Lissitzky, 1922.
Barney’s arrangements of ordered rectangular forms were rooted in Lissitzky’s investigations, particularly the so-called “prouns“.
Music press ad, La Dusseldorf, La Dusseldorf, Radar 1978.
1978 offers a number of examples in Barney’s work, including a music press advert for La Dusseldorf’s self-titled debut and the sleeve and booklet for 25 Years On by Hawklords.
Booklet, 25 Years On, Hawklords, Charisma 1978.
Then there is the sleeve of Hit Me With Your Rhythm Stick. That’s the song which made Ian Dury’s name, taking him to the top of the charts.
Back + front cover, Hit Me With Your Rhythm Stick, Ian Dury & The Blockheads, Stiff Records, 1978.
And Dury’s refusal to include the track on his second album brings us back to where we started: the all-out campaign to promote Do It Yourself.
We’re indebted to Doug Smith for providing this original and previously unpublished Barney Bubbles artwork complete with printing instructions.
Logo by Barney Bubbles. (C) Doug Smith 2009.
The former Hawkwind manager and a close friend of Barney’s, Doug says: “I always thought we asked him to do it, but what with my memory being what it is, I wasn’t sure. Anyway, I came across it the other day and sure enough there’s Barney’s writing at the bottom.”
Zip Nolan Highway Patrol was a creation of Barney’s friend Michael Moorcock dating back to the late 50s, and appeared in Fleetway Publications’ comic Lion in various forms until the early 70s. Original artwork is currently fetching three figures on eBay.
Original Zip Nolan artwork, 1963.
In 2005 the Zip Nolan character was revived in the six-issue Albion, plotted by Alan Moore and written by his daughter Leah Moore and her husband John Reppion. This was published as a book by Wildstorm in the US and Titan in the UK.
Left: Albion issue 3. Right: The Albion book, Titan.
Michael doesn’t recall having seen Barney’s Zip Nolan logo until now. “I’d guess it was Barney doing a pop art rip,” he says. “I hadn’t written a Zip Nolan since 1963.”
As revealed here, Barney had worked for Fleetway around that time, having been commissioned to produce a Mods & Rockers special for the company in 1964 (which gave rise to the R&B Here Tonight t-shirt and the award-winning Muleskinners poster).
The lettering style of Barney’s Zip Nolan logo chimes with that for The Glastonbury Fayre triple-album package of 1972.
Left: Clear vinyl envelope. Right: Booklet cover. The Glastonbury Fayre, Revelation, 1972. (C) Jeff Dexter.
1972 also saw the publication of a Lion annual featuring on it’s cover – who else? – Zip Nolan. And the character was to inspire a single of the same name a few years later by The Cult Figures, an obscure power-pop tune produced under the wing of indie pioneers Swell Maps.
SIGNED COPIES - £14.99
