//Proof copy of unused front cover for single sleeve, Your Generation/Day By Day, Generation X, Chrysalis, 1977.//

Presented here for the first time in nearly 35 years, this is Barney Bubbles’ original artwork for the front cover of Your Generation, the 1977 debut single by Generation X.

The design was rejected because the photograph was considered too routine. What a shame. This is a typically high-impact Bubbles work  combining concise photographic presentation with audacious typography.

The quartet’s manager Jonh Ingham, the journalist who had been at the forefront of punk reportage, has dug it out from his archive exclusively for this blog.

“I cut, folded and glued it, so we could see what the sleeve would look like held in the hand,” says Ingham.

In the photograph – possibly by Ray Stevenson -  the usually peroxide blonde frontman Billy Idol (centre left) has dyed red hair.

“That would have been an issue if we had gone with Barney’s first idea,” says Ingham. “But the band rejected it because they thought it looked too much like a ’standard’ group photo/cover. At the time almost no punk sleeves had band photos.”

The decision not to use the artwork has broader significance, particularly in terms of appraising Bubbles’ contribution to the development of graphic design in the 70s.

//Front cover, Your Generation, designed by Barney Bubbles to be the back cover.//

In the event, the graphic he planned for the back cover – the Constructivist-style play on the number 45 containing song titles and credits – appeared on the front and was repeated on the back without the info.

This example of Bubbles’ plundering of the history of 20th Century art has been cited by designer Peter Saville as an inspirational spark for a post-Modern approach to graphics by the new generation of music industry designers. This in turn enabled them to keep pace with developments in the wider world of commercial design.

“We saw the Generation X cover and received a very clear signal: Mr Barney Bubbles was saying: ‘Constructivism has our blessing’,” says Saville in Reasons To Be Cheerful.

“‘Our response was: ‘Yes, this is the way’.”

Would this message have been broadcast so effectively had the graphic appeared only on the back cover? Who’s to know? It’s certainly something to ponder as we admire this missing piece of the puzzle after nearly 35 years.

Read here how Bubbles drew inspiration for the Generation X sleeve from the work of Henryk Berlewi and El Lissitzky.

Read Jonh Ingham’s back pages here.

]]> http://www.barneybubbles.com/blog/archives/5437/feed 0 http://www.barneybubbles.com/blog/archives/5163 http://www.barneybubbles.com/blog/archives/5163#comments Fri, 17 Jun 2011 10:17:33 +0000 Paul Gorman http://www.barneybubbles.com/blog/?p=5163

Sticker, 5cm x 12cm, 1977. Courtesy: Ace Archive.

This sticker for short-lived punk-folk band Amazorblades was produced by Barney Bubbles in 1977 as part of a commission from pioneering London indie label Chiswick.

According to Roger Armstrong, who founded Chiswick with Ted Carroll (with whom he runs the enduring and successful independent Ace Records), Bubbles also produced the sleeve for Amazorblades’ single that year, Common Truth/Messaround.

We’ve added the design to the site’s singles sleeves section, along with that for another Chiswick release from 1977; guitarist/songwriter Alan Lee Shaw has revealed Bubbles produced the sleeve for I Wanna Be Free/Automobile by his band The Rings.

See both here.

Front, fold-out sleeve, Revelations: A Musical Anthology, Revelation Enterprises, 1972. 24" x 36".

This year’s Glastonbury Festival will celebrate the work of Barney Bubbles, who created the extraordinary sleeve for the Glastonbury Fayre triple album set Revelations – A Musical Anthology.

Since 2011 marks the 40th anniversary of the Fayre, Bubbles’ biographer Paul Gorman is staging two events at the Festival’s Spirit Of 71 Cafe  to mark the late graphic designer’s involvement with the album, the festival and many of the performers who have played there.

• Barney Bubbles Sound + Vision, 10pm, Saturday June 25.

Gorman will DJ a vinyl-only set of music relating to Bubbles’ work as Kate Moross VJs a very special projected light show.

• The legacy of Barney Bubbles, 12.30, Sunday June 26.

Discussion and q+a with contributions from those who worked with Bubbles on Revelations, including Jeff Dexter, and artists who collaborated with him at other stages of his career, including Billy Bragg.

The 40th anniversary celebrations are being organised by Andrew Kerr, who is launching his memoirs Intolerably Hip at this year’s festival.

Inner, fold-out sleeve, Revelations: A Musical Anthology, Revelation Enterprises, 1972. 24" x 36".

Sleevenotes, Revelations: A Musical Anthology.

Bubbles' advert for Revelations, Frendz, May 12, 1972.

This year’s Glastonbury features many who benefited from Bubbles’ designs, including:

• Nick Lowe (Acoustic Tent, June 25)

• John Cooper Clarke (Acoustic Tent, June 26)

• Edgar Broughton (Spirit Of 71 stage, June 24)

• Nik Turner (with Space Ritual, Spirit Of 71 stage, June 26)

• Robyn Hitchcock (Spirit Of 71 Stage, June 26)

Poster, Nick Lowe, Live Stiffs tour, 1977. 60" x 40".

Double-page spread from The John Cooper Clarke Directory, 1979. 10" x 14".

Front Cover, Xitintoday, Nik Turner's Sphynx, Charisma, 1978. 12" x 12".

Front cover, (I Want To Be An) Anglepoise Lamp/Fat Man's Son, The Soft Boys (inc Robyn Hitchcock), Radar, 1978. 7" x 7".

Details of the activities at the Spirit Of 71 Cafe are here.

Among the lesser-known Barney Bubbles designs to emerge during last year’s research for the second edition of Reasons To Be Cheerful was the black-on-black label for Sheet Music for a single release by post-punk act The Vampire Bats From Lewisham.

The Bats line-up included producer/engineer Laurie Latham and guitarist Steve Bolton. Latham was responsible for the sound of Ian Dury’s releases and featured on the inner sleeve of Do It Yourself, while Bolton’s unreleased project Boltz was later to benefit from another set of Bubbles designs.

A PMT for the band’s Sheet Music  logo was among the hundreds of exhibits in Process.  Embossed black-on-black on the record label, the arm of the letter ‘T’ was constructed by a graphic “sheet tuck”.

As explained below, the sleeve for the single was a very early effort by Vegas Design’s Julian Balme.

7" single sleeve. Back + front of Cairo, Amazulu, Towerbell Records, 1983.

The single sleeves section of this site has been updated today with the addition of yet more images, bringing the total number of Barney Bubbles’ designs for the 7″ format there to 85 (and there are more on their way…)

The additions include Bubbles’ sleeve for ska rock band Amazulu’s single Cairo (see the top of this post).

Rock 'N Roll Legend In 4/4 Time/ Johnny Scott, Aura, 1979.

The cover of Johnny Scott’s slice of late 70s pub rock Rock ‘N Roll Legend In 4/4 Time was for Aaron Sixx’s Aura label; Bubbles’ association with Aura was investigated here.

New Amsterdam picture disc EP, Elvis Costello & The Attractions, F-Beat, 1980.

Music business multi-format releases reached a peak at the turn of the 80s; above is a rare example of Bubbles’ designing for picture disc with this version of Elvis Costello & The Attractions’ New Amsterdam EP.

Label design. Let There Be Rats/ /Drums Drums Drums, Paradiddle, 1984.

Bubbles designed the label ident for his friend Rat Scabies‘ imprint Paradiddle in 1983. The sole release was Scabies on a Sandy Nelson trip for a Will Birch production of his Let There Be Rats single.

These designs are also discussed in the new edition of Reasons To Be Cheerful: The Life & Work Of Barney Bubbles.

7in sleeve + record with custom label. Stretcher Case Baby/Sick Of Being Sick, The Damned, Stiff Records, 1977.

A backlog has been steadily building of Barney Bubbles designs to be added to the singles + album sleeves section of this site.

We’ll be getting round to sorting the listings out soon with much more fabulous artwork, but the recent contact with Kosmo Vinyl has spurred on the addition today of Bubbles’ sleeve for The Damned’s free single Stretcher Case Baby/Sick Of Being Sick, issued in the summer of 1977 to celebrate the first anniversary of the band’s debut gig.

Clockwise from top right: front cover; label A-side; label B-side; back cover.

Stiff pressed up a run of 5,000 copies to coincide with the gigs The Damned were booked to play at The Marquee from July 3-6 1977.

Members of the band’s fan club, Damned Disciples, were also sent copies and 250 were given away via the NME.

“I watched Barney put the design together,” says Vinyl of the sleeve, which – complete with custom label – amped up The Damned’s Gothic tendencies by using Charles Allen Gilbert’s fin-de-siecle illustration All Is Vanity: the image of a woman looking at herself in a mirror forms the outline of a death’s head.

60in x 40in poster, 1977.

On the front and label is the band logo Bubbles had recently created. This also appeared on his large Damned poster featuring lead singer Dave Vanian in full Nosferatu mode.

Bubbles also designed another poster for the residency.

“The Marquee gigs were canceled after  a row over the positioning of a row of the ‘Dave Vanian’ posters – one of my favourite Barney designs – across the back wall, covering up the Marquee logo,” says Vinyl.

“Jake (Riviera, The Damned’s manager and Stiff co-founder) pulled the shows, though I can’t remember if the first one went ahead anyway.  If it did it would have been because the house was already full.”

Gilbert’s illustration was also used for the front cover of Def Leppard’s 1993 album Retro Active, while Bubbles’ version with the Damned logo is available on t-shirts.

Top photo from King Bee.

Barney Bubbles Inside out from Lisa Whitaker on Vimeo.

This 100-second career resume has been created by Lisa Whitaker, who is currently studying graphics at Leeds College of Art.

The DVD – housed in an “inside-out” sleeve and accompanied by a poster – came out of a course brief for a collection of 100 design objects in which she compiled album sleeves, including Bubbles’ design for Imperial Bedroom by Elvis Costello And The Attractions.

“I am fascinated by this talented man and his links to other creative people,” says Whitaker. “My moving image piece Barney Bubbles Inside Out pulls together the research and is aimed at graphic designers, record collectors and music lovers as a way of spreading the word about inspirational figure.”

Whitaker’s backgrounder on the project is here.

The absorption and reinterpretation of Barney Bubbles’ oeuvre continues apace, as evinced by this, the design for Punks Jump Up’s Blockhead EP by Michael Willis.

With an overall feel of Bubbles’ compositional techniques – particularly that of realising physiognomy by use of abstract and unusual elements – Willis’ artwork draws on such Bubbles’ creations as the BLOCKHEAD logo, the Tommy The Talking Toolbox ident, the Space Ritual tour material and the typography of the Revelations and Doremi Fasol Latido packages.

Since he was one of the pioneers of the so-called “age of plunder” (as Jon Savage pointed out in his 1983 piece on post-modernism for The Face), it was perhaps inevitable that the reintroduction of Bubbles’ work to a new generation of graphic artists and designers – via Reasons To Be Cheerful and Process – would result in the master himself being plundered.

One of the most satisfying aspects of staging Process has been engaging with visitors who knew Barney Bubbles personally.

Film producer Linda Gamble dropped by last week; she worked at Virgin Records in the 70s and 80s and knew Bubbles via her then-boyfriend Will Birch.

Touchingly, Linda brought a thank-you note Bubbles sent her and Birch in 1982 for a record player they had given him. The note – in an envelope proclaiming “Bring Back The Birch” – accompanied a painted drumhead which Bubbles suggested could either be used in performance or placed on the wall as an artwork.

“I kept this note all these years because Barney was such a great guy,” says Linda.

As detailed in Reasons To Be Cheerful, around this time Birch commissioned sleeve designs for his band The Records as well as a cover for a compilation of tracks by his previous outfit Kursaal Flyers. While working together he and Bubbles had entertained themselves by creating an imaginary beat group, The Blue Genes.

In his note, Bubbles recommended referring to Merseybeat or Andrew Lauder (who had reissued such gems as The Merseybeats’ Beat & Ballads via F-Beat’s catalogue wing Edsel).

12″ sleeve. Front cover, Chocs Away, Kursaal Flyers, UK Records, 1975.

Back cover, Chocs Away, Kursaal Flyers, UK Records, 1975.

Credit details, back cover, Chocs Away.

Left: Fry’s packaging, 1968. Right: Fry’s 5 Boys 1902.

Birch first met Bubbles in 1975, when the designer produced the sleeve for Kursaal Flyers’ debut album Chocs Away.

Developing the chocolate aeroplane theme of the cover, Bubbles cast the five Kursaals on the back as variations of Fry’s 5 Boys (who appeared on the confectionery company’s packaging from 1902 until a marketing overhaul the year after Chocs Away’s release).

For his credit, Bubbles chose “Grove Lane”, after the street/neighbourhood where Kursaals’ manager Paul Conroy shared a flat with photographer Adrian Boot.

By the early 80s, the designs for Music On Both Sides, In For A Spin and their attendant singles captured Bubbles during his final reductive phase, relying on repetition of primary shapes and restricted palettes.

Thus The Records designs centred on jukebox lozenges and stars, while that for In For A Spin arose from a visit of Birch’s to Bubbles’ studio in January 1983.  “The title came out of a discussion I had with Barney,” says Birch. “I remember him alternating between sketches of a ‘spin dryer’ and aeroplane propellers,  as in ‘taking a plane up for a spin.”

12″ sleeve. Front cover, Music On Both Sides, The Records, Virgin, 1982.

Back cover, Music On Both Sides, The Records, Virgin, 1982.

7″ sleeve. Front cover, Imitation Jewellery, The Records, Virgin, 1982.

12in sleeve. Front cover, In For A Spin, Kursaal Flyers, Line, 1983.

7″ sleeve. Front cover, Radio Romance, Kursaal Flyers, Line, 1983.

Thanks to Linda Gamble for bringing in the note and providing us with an opportunity to present yet more fantastic designs which we were unable to include in Process.

The show is on for another three weeks (until October 23), open Tues-Sat, 11am-5pm.

Courtesy of Chelsea Space director Donald Smith, here are some more photos underlining what fun was had at last week’s private view for Process. These and others will soon appear on the Chelsea Space site.

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Video commissioner Cynthia Lole, Caz Facey, writer Nick Vivian and Jake Riviera view the exhibits.

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Donald Smith with writer Chris Salewicz and Jerry Dammers.

Designer Olaf Parker with writer/curator Paul Gorman.

Musician Leo Williams with Paprika and Leo Junior.

Painter and former Kilburn & The High Roads member Humphrey Ocean with the 1977 Psstt! ad featuring himself and Ian Dury.

Jake Riviera, music publisher Peter Barnes, Mick Jones and Nick Vivian.

Kate Moross and her VJing team.

Clothier Lloyd Johnson whispers to arts event organiser Michael Barnett while musician Bruce Marcus chats to the V&A’s Catherine Flood.

Mick Jones and Jerry Dammers.

Nick Lowe talks Barney.

Chelsea College’s Nobby Graham and Lloyd Johnson.

Writer/filmmaker Paul Tickell looks on as artist Bruce Maclean strikes a Blockhead pose.

Musician/writer Dave Barbarossa and his wife Alison view the music press ads.