//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.

The SI content dovetailed neatly with the dystopian Hawklords project, for which Bubbles designed the sleeve of the concept album 25 Years On, was well as the booklet available on the tour, stage set, choreography, costumes, lighting and promotional ephemera.

//Page from Chris Grey's Leaving The 20th Century. (c) Derek Harris.//

//12" x 12" sleeve, front cover, 25 Years On, Hawklords, Charisma, 1978.//

//From Hawklords tour booklet.//

//Left: sticker. Right: postcard, both 1978.//

//Hawklords live, 1978. Photographer: Unknown.//

Working with frontman/lyricist/conceptualist Robert Calvert, Bubbles art-directed a team which included photographers Frances Newman, Bob “Bromide” Hall and Chris Gabrin, who shot a film about the fictional totalitarian organisation central to the plot, Pan Transcendental Industries. The PTI slogan “Reality you can rely on” appears on the album front cover.

Many of the performative and non-rock elements were abandoned after just a few dates of the only tour by the original line-up; these slides have never been published outside of Reasons To Be Cheerful.

“I wasn’t involved in the slide-show, though a couple of the word-boards – such as ‘Operate Without Blades’ – may have appeared in my PTI film,” says Chris Gabrin.

The comic was produced in France in 1968 as part of the Situationist arsenal during the May évènements and later translated into English; it was this version which appeared in Grey’s book, which was published in 1974.

Here’s (Only) The Dead Dreams Of The Cold War Kid, a standout track from 25 Years On and a career highlight from the wayward career of the late Robert Calvert:

Posters, each 60" x 40" designed by Barney Bubbles for the October 1977 Stiff Records UK tour Live Stiffs. Photography: Chris Gabrin.

Exhibits in Chris Gabrin's exhibition at Dimbola Lodge, Isle Of Wight.

Chris Gabrin’s exhibition From Hear To Photography includes a doozy for Barney Bubbles fans – for the first time since their creation more than three decades ago, Bubbles’ huge Live Stiffs poster designs are displayed together.

Each measuring 60″ x 40″, the posters are among the best examples of Bubbles’ vivid application of colour. Their Warholian fizz captures the energy of Britain’s new wave scene at its height.

Photo: Chris Gabrin.

Photo: Chris Gabrin.

The exhibition at Dimbola Lodge on the Isle Of Wight presents Gabrin’s 70s music work. In this period his photography was used in many Bubbles’ designs.

“About a third of the 70 or so exhibits are based around work I did with Barney,” says Gabrin, who points out that the show was the brainchild of Brian Hinton, curator at Dimbola Lodge (once the home of 19th century photographer Julia Margaret Cameron).

“I first saw her work when I was at college in the late 60s,” adds Gabrin. “The museum and galleries are a charitable trust run by part-timers and volunteers. It’s a national photographic institution which deserves as much support as possible.”

Photo: Chris Gabrin.

Gabrin shot the poster portraits of Elvis Costello, Ian Dury, Nick Lowe, Larry Wallis and Wreckless Eric during a photo-session for the Stiff Records’ autumn 1977 Live Stiffs UK tour.

This shoot produced a range of imagery which found its way into promotion, advertising and, in the case of the live album which followed, a couple of record covers.

Music press ad, 1977.

Music press ad, 1978.

Front cover, 12in sleeve, Stiffs Live Stiffs, various artists, Stiff Records, 1978.

Reissue, Music For Pleasure, 1980.

From Hear To Photography is on until October 2 at Dimbola Museum & Galleries,  Terrace Lane
, Freshwater Bay, Isle Of Wight.

Full details here.

]]> http://www.barneybubbles.com/blog/archives/5271/feed 1 http://www.barneybubbles.com/blog/archives/4982 http://www.barneybubbles.com/blog/archives/4982#comments Sat, 21 May 2011 19:47:27 +0000 Paul Gorman http://www.barneybubbles.com/blog/?p=4982

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.

Having MC-ed dates on the autumn 1977 Lives Stiffs tour, Vinyl worked closely with Dury, who became Stiff’s priority act after the departure of co-founder Jake Riviera with Elvis Costello and Nick Lowe.

“I first met Barney at 32 Alexander Street (Stiff’s Paddington headquarters),” says Vinyl. “He was downstairs with his own little space in the back, by an old sink, very basic.

“At that time Stiff was half a dozen people, if that, and I was keen to pitch in. If records arrived and needed unloading, it was all hands on deck, from the top to the bottom (which was probably me).

“Anyway Barney and I just hit it off, we were fellow enthusiasts. I had no idea about artwork or design; I don’t think I had ever thought about how a record cover came about.

“Barney would be down there being very positive, working away in front of me and chatting, completely unfazed by anything else going on. If I ever had a spare few minutes I’d go and see what Barney was up to – he was always there and always working.”

" Ian Blockhead". Poster fold, 30cm x 21cm.

"Charley Blockhead".

"Norman Blockhead".

"Micky Blockhead".

Poster. 59cm x 64cm.

Vinyl also played an important part in a photo-session of Dury with members of his newly formed band The Blockheads. Shot by Chris Gabrin, the results were used in a series of Bubbles’ designs, including an  eight-part fold-out tour poster and promotional and advertising material.

Aged 20 with a sharp New Wave/retro look himself, Vinyl helped the musicians, who had been part of mid-70s good vibes outfit Loving Awareness, make the transition to the streetwise appearances demanded by the post-punk period.

Dury, of course, handled his own look, as did his singular colleague from Kilburn & The High Roads, saxophonist Davey Payne. Songwriter/keyboard-player Chaz Jankel was absent.

“I helped out with Norman (Watt-Roy, bass), Charley (Charles, drummer), Johnny (Turnbull, guitar) and Mickey (Gallagher, keyboards), although I didn’t think of it as styling at the time,” says Vinyl.

“It was more a case of, ‘Let’s lose that dodgy jacket and stack heel boots’. It was a two-way street; they pointed out things that I or someone else was wearing and would say, ‘I like that’. They recognised that sartorially they were out of touch, but were keen to catch up.”

With a few bob from Dury’s management Blackhill Enterprises, Vinyl bought some clothes and found other garments, including a double-breasted suit designed for Ian Dury by Malcolm McLaren in 1974 at the Kilburn’s then-manager Tommy Roberts‘ behest. This “SEX Original” suit was worn by Watt-Roy, though not for this shoot.

Reverse poster fold. Ian Dury.

Dury with Turnbull + Watt-Roy.

Charles, Dury, Turnbull, Payne, Gallagher + Watt-Roy.

Watt-Roy + Charles.

Poster reverse.

“Once Mickey got a pair of creepers and a haircut he was away,” says Vinyl. “In view of the album title, it was Dr Martens all round.”

The front of Bubbles’ fold-out tour poster replaced the group’s faces with the business end of Ronson electric shavers.

On the flip, Bubbles exposed the production process which surrounded pop promotion by featuring Gabrin’s contact sheets adorned with crop marks, selections and decorations.

The same portrait shots from the poster were also used in tour adverts in which the heads were replaced with the then-new Blockhead logo, while ads for New Boots & Panties!! used frames captioned with Dury’s alternate title suggestions (including “Don’t Fart Before Your Arse Is Ready” and “Be Savoury”).

As essayed in Reasons To Be Cheerful, Bubbles and Dury’s working relationship flourished as a result of their shared understanding of art and design.

“As far as I am aware, Barney had a complete free rein/reign over the artwork for Ian and The Blockheads,” says Vinyl.

“Whatever he delivered, Ian loved. There was mutual respect and appreciation. Ian spent seven years at art school and then did some teaching, so I think he knew as well as anyone, perhaps more so, how talented Bubbles was.

“To me, they saw themselves as equals and were very aware of the craft and hard work each put into their art.”

Tour advert, New Musical Express, May 6, 1978.

Ads from the shoot were featured in Process: The Working Practices Of Barney Bubbles at Chelsea Space, Sept/Oct 2010.

As also detailed in Reasons and here, Bubbles’ creation of the Blockhead logo emerged during his initial conversation with Dury.

“We wanted a logo that could be printed on t-shirts,” says Vinyl. “I clearly remember Barney told Ian he thought he had it before their telephone conversation was over. That was a maximum of five minutes from being asked, probably less.  Ian put down the phone and said, ‘He’s done it’.”

Vinyl says that Bubbles was jazzed that t-shirts bearing the logo were printed for the children of the band members and their management: “Barney loved the idea of kids wearing his design. I think it gave him some encouragement and perhaps the opportunity to do some very playful stuff.”

Few of Bubbles’ designs are more playful than the Tommy The Talking Toolbox ident for the band’s 1979 album Do It Yourself.

“Tommy was one of Ian’s absolute favourites,” declares Vinyl. “He couldn’t believe it when he first saw it. ‘Delighted’ would be an understatement.

“There weren’t many people Ian Dury trusted 100%. He’d been about a bit, but he trusted Barney completely.”

* CAN YOU IDENTIFY THIS PERSON? WE’VE ASKED AROUND AND NOBODY HAS COME UP WITH A NAME. IS IT IN FACT YOU? IF IT IS, GIVE US A SHOUT.

In 1978 painter Humphrey Ocean dipped his toe back into the music business with the one-off charmer Whoops A Daisy for Stiff Records, a suitably quirky ditty written by his Kilburn & the High Roads bandmate Ian Dury.

The man born Humphrey Anthony Erdeswick Butler-Bowdon had opted out of playing bass for the Kilburns a few years earlier to concentrate on his art, occasionally contributing to record covers for the likes of Wings and 10cc.

7in sleeve. Front cover, Whoops A Daisy/Davey Crockett, Stiff, 1978.

The winsome Whoops A Daisy was backed by a cracking version of the 50s film theme The Ballad of Davy Crockett and wrapped in a wonderful Barney Bubbles sleeve using Chris Gabrin’s photographs of Ocean performing the elaborate dance moves he had recently enacted on the Stiffs Live Stiffs tour.

7in sleeve. Back cover, Whoops A Daisy/Davey Crockett, Stiff, 1978.

These were exaggerated by the huge white suit Ocean had bought in Brixton Market during his time in the Kilburns.

Sleeve lettering, front cover.

Barney decorated the sleeve with detailed lettering (the H on the back from interlinked horseshoes to match the rhyming-slang name of Ocean’s backing musicians, Iron Hoof) and on release there was also a version of the black and white sleeve featuring blue spot-colour.

Sleeve lettering, back cover.

The accompanying poster was a delight. With Ocean’s name picked out in dance-step style, 35 frames from the Chris Gabrin shoot were presented  in sequence with the instruction: “Cut poster out and make Humphrey Ocean’s Daisy Disco Do It My Way flickbook.”

Poster 30in x 20in, Stiff, 1978.

We’ve put them together here to accompany the tune:

And here Ocean is called to the stage to join the Sex & Drugs & Rock & Roll finale of the Stiff tour and shows us how it’s done:

7in sleeve, laminated card. Front cover, Whole Wide World/Semaphore Signals, Wreckless Eric, Stiff, 1977.

Overshadowed during the early days of Stiff Records by the label’s priority acts Elvis Costello, Ian Dury and Nick Lowe, the 2001 publication of Eric’s great memoir A Dysfunctional Success and the use of the deathless Whole Wide World in Will Ferrell-starrer Stranger Than Fiction have provided the, er, wider world with a taste of his talents in recent years.

Over the coming weeks, the considerable fruits of his partnership with US singer-songwriter Amy Rigby can be witnessed first-hand on a series of European live dates.

In comparison with his former stablemates, Eric Goulden benefited fleetingly from the design work of Barney Bubbles, though they maintained a friendship from introduction early in 1977 to Barney’s death late in 1983; they shared common ground in having attended art schools (Goulden studied sculpture at Hull).

On the line from his home in France, Goulden confirms that Barney wasn’t at Stiff for the first six months of the label’s existence, when the design direction was handled by Chris Moreton.

“Then Barney swam into the picture,” says Goulden. “I liked him a lot. Barney was easygoing and looked kind of normal; short-ish hair and always wearing some kind of anorak. To look at him, you wouldn’t have thought this bloke had any history.

“He was a strange man, an acid casualty on some levels. It was unusual for someone who’d been such a part of the Ladbroke Grove/Notting Hill hippie scene to cross over and working with people like The Damned.”

Barney created an ident (which, like those produced for other Stiff artists, appeared on the record label). “He used the guillotine to cut jagged strips of paper which he put together to make up my name,” says Goulden. This logo was paired on the front cover of Whole Wide World with a crop from the Chris Gabrin portrait from A Bunch Of Stiffs.

From the inner to A Bunch Of Stiffs, April 1977. Photo: Chris Gabrin.

For the back, Goulden was despatched to a photo-booth and ordered to improvise semaphore signals. Barney then cropped and bleached out one of the frames. “I’d never seen anything like it; he made it look incredible,” Goulden adds.

7in sleeve, card. Back cover, Whole Wide World/Semaphore Signals, Wreckless Eric, Stiff, 1977.

“To me Barney was like The Beatles. When I was a kid you wouldn’t be quite sure of how they sounded when you first heard one of their new records. Sometimes you’d think: ‘They’ve lost it,’ because it was so unexpected, and Barney was a bit like that. Every time he did something new, it was so over-the-top you were taken aback.” 

A clutch of 1977 Stiffs with personalised labels.

One of the five subjects of the 60in x 40in day-glo posters Barney and Gabrin created for the Stiffs Live Stiffs tour of late 77, Goulden was around when the pair collaborated on the sleeve for Music For Pleasure.

12in sleeves. Back cover and inner "lino" shots, Music For Pleasure, The Damned, Stiff, 1977.

“I went with him to a lino shop in Westbourne Grove where he bought the roll which is on the inner sleeve,” says Eric. “The Damned were made to lie on it at Chris’s studio and shot from above, so it looked like they were standing up. Very odd, but it worked brilliantly.”

One of Barney’s great lost designs was the sleeve for Goulden’s unreleased 1977 Stiff EP, Piccadilly Menial. With the catalogue number LAST3, this was to comprise the title track, Excuse Me, Personal Hygiene and Rags & Tatters .

“It was on graph paper and in the style of an architectural drawing,” says Goulden, who recalls  it was akin to the axinometric lettering Barney created for The Soft Boys. The EP was replaced in the schedule with Reconnez Cherie,  the B-side of which was the Benny Hill theme tune-quoting Rags & Tatters.

Music press half-page advert, The Soft Boys tour, 1978.

“Barney had angles to him,” says Eric. “People would say ‘Oh it’s just Barney, a bit of a wacky image with some splashes and other esoteric stuff’ but in fact he thought things through and was way better than his imitators, of course. Unfortunately, in that way, he inadvertently created the look of the 80s, which was horrible and gaudy.”

Dansette, detail, front cover Musical Shapes, Carlene Carter, F-beat, 1980

Poignantly, Goulden saw Barney not long before his death in November 1983. ”I visited him at his house off the Balls Pond Road,” says Eric. “He got Nuggets out and played it really loud on this Dansette on legs in the basement.”

Of similar ages with deep art school roots, Barney and Dury commenced their partnership in the spring of 1977 just as both were heading for the top of their game, with Barney installed at Stiff after a hiatus of more than a year and Dury preparing to unleash the career-defining records and performances which brought him enduring national treasure status.

Back cover photograph by Chris Gabrin.

Unlike his treatment of others, Dury was never-less-than respectful of Barney. “Barney was easily the most incredible designer I’d ever come across,” Dury told Birch.

Poster for Sex & Drugs & Rock & Roll, Stiff Records, 1977. Tom Sheehan Collection.

Dury said Barney “scared the shit out of me. He was righteous. He didn’t have the faults or the ego and he made me feel second class. I wanted his approval in a strange kind of way”.

And, as Birch details, when Jake Riviera departed Stiff with Nick Lowe and Elvis Costello at the end of 1977, remaining partner Dave Robinson was left with Dury’s recently released New Boots & Panties!! as his main chance for commercial survival.

The decision was made to throw all resources behind the polio-stricken performer and his band The Blockheads. Barney art-directed a sustained marketing and promotional campaign made up of several elements: his Blockhead logo, numerous press ads, several posters, a songbook and a tour programme. Together these helped maintain the album’s presence in the charts for more than a year and set up hits What A Waste and number one smash Hit Me With Your Rhythm Stick.

NME, February 4, 1978: Ian Dury and Davey Payne.

The cover of Birch’s book is a delightful rendition by Dury’s friend and mentor Sir Peter Blake, while on the back is a photo by Chris Gabrin from sessions for a series of music press ads.

Melody Maker, February 4, 1978: Fred Rowe and Ian Dury.

These are littered with Dury’s skewiff humour and guttersnipe poetry and feature some of the  possible titles he had drawn up for his debut solo album.

NME January 28, 1978: Ian Dury and Charley Charles.

Gabrin’s monochromatic clarity  and his strong working relationship with both parties was an important element in the Dury/Bubbles dialogue. “We were working full-pelt at the time,” said Gabrin the other night. “There was so much to do to keep up with press ads and tours.”

Right: Melody Maker, January 28, 1978: Norman Watt-Roy and Ian Dury. Left: Sounds, February 4, 1978: Ian Dury and John Turnbull.

Gabrin’s band portraits of Dury and The Blockheads (and minder Fred “Spider” Rowe) hit the UK’s music weeklies in February 1978.

Poster, Stiff Records, 1978.

A Gabrin photograph from an earlier session (which Barney had overlaid with a lurid orange screen for one of five giant posters for the Stiff tour) was used for a standard sized poster to hammer home the album’s availabiity. The year ended with more band shots in the incredible fold-out programme for the December 1978 Hanky Pantie tour.

8" x 6" tour programme cover, December 1978.

The matchstick portrait cover was even used for the manufacture of hankies (to be knotted and worn on the head). A couple of Stiff employees – maybe Paul Conroy or Andy Murray can identify them? – sport these in the Top Of The Pops audience for Dury and The Blockheads’ triumphant performance of Hit Me.

Ian Dury & The Blockheads perform Hit Me With Your Rhythm Stick, Top Of The Pops, December 1978.

By 1983, when Dury was filmed by director Franco Rosso for a Channel 4 documentary, the wordsmith was in a very different place. 

On one of his regular separations from The Blockheads and main writing partner Chaz Jankel, Dury’s career was about to hit the skids as he recorded the half-baked 4000 Weeks Holiday. During the making of the film, management company Blackhill collapsed, but there are some sequences where it’s office can be seen decorated with Barney’s designs.

As well as Blockhead logo stickers there are posters for Do It Yourself and also the spoken-word album Blackhill’s Peter Jenner  released on Charisma by cricket commentating legend John Arlott.

This was cooked up with Charisma publicist and Barney’s friend Glen Colson, who recalls how he came up with such faux cricket positions as “Wayward Short Leg”.

Poster, Charisma Records, 1982.

By the time the documentary was screened in 1984, Barney had died at his own hand.

“Barney Bubbles told me a few straighteners towards the end of his life,” said Dury, towards the end of his own. “Barney told me: ‘You were a horrible piece of work in those days Ian.’ I said: ‘Barney, I didn’t want to be’.” 

Left: 12" cover, Jukebox Dury, Stiff, 1981. Right: 7' cover, What A Waste, Stiff, 1981.

A couple of years earlier, Barney had delivered his views on Dury’s behaviour via the designs for 1981 greatest hits Jukebox Dury and it’s single, the reissued What A Waste.

Gone is the affection of the New Boots & Panties!! era. In it’s place, with stark contrasts, the bleached-out image renders Dury as Frankenstein’s monster, while the jaunty razor-blade earring is now used for chopping out coke, lobotomising the artist.

Will Birch’s book is a fully rounded portrait of this extraordinary man, and is heartily recommended.

Here’s a chance for you to get your hands on a FREE copy SIGNED by the author.

Send your answer  to the question below to thelook@rockpopfashion.com – we’ll be announcing the winner’s name on February 14 .

Q: What is the title of the B-side of Hit Me With Your Rhythm Stick?

Good luck!

A spot of detective work has resulted in confirmation from musician, producer, engineer and now academic and orchestra leader Andy Arthurs that Barney Bubbles did indeed design the sleeve for his 1978 electropop single I Can Detect You (For 100,000 Miles).

Until now this curio has not been recognised as a Barney artwork. We were put on the trail by blog fan Mark Lungo, who put 2 + 2 together correctly, having spotted the familiar tropes and stylistic tics in Detect’s design and added in the fact that Barney was at that time in-house designer at Radar Records.

Andy, these days professor and head of music at Queensland University, confirmed that the cover was Barney’s, organised by Radar mainman Andrew Lauder. We will be featuring an interview with him shortly.

Backed with the song I Am A Machine, the sleeve was also used for the single’s release on affiliate label TDS Records, for whom Barney created “blackboard” music press adverts developing the use of faux mathematical equations. The TDS logo itself bears a resemblance to that which he produced for magazine Let It Rock a couple of years earlier.

On the TDS sleeves the label’s address is 120 Parker Street W1 – in posh Mayfair. It seems there was some playfulness afoot; Radar was based at 60 Parker Street, another thoroughfare in what was then down-at-heel Camden’s borders with Bloomsbury.

Andy had been around the British music scene for a number of years by the time of the single’s release, having started at George Martin’s AIR studios in 1971 and received engineering credits on albums such as Bryan Ferry’s These Foolish Things.

During the immediate post-punk era he produced singles and albums by such new wave acts as Tot Taylor’s Advertising, Stranglers’ spin-off project Celia & the Mutations, power-pop band Tonight (also on TDS), mod revivalists The Chords and 999. 

Barney had many connections to the latter band led by Nick Cash, who had been a one-time member of his friend Ian Dury’s pub-rock outfit Kilburn & The High Road. 

999’s designer was George Snow, who had known Barney since his days at underground paper Friends. Snow is the man credited with pioneering acceptance of computers and digital technology in British graphics and illustration circles by another Barney fan, Andy Martin.

999 were also signed to Radar, having been at Lauder’s previous label UA, and the photographer responsible for many of their sleeve shots was Barney’s friend and collaborator Chris Gabrin.

Meanwhile Andy Arthurs produced 999’s eponymously-titled debut album for Radar as well as such releases as The Soft Boys’ (I Want To Be An) Anglepoise Lamp, which also benefited from a Barney sleeve, and wrote tracks including Skin Tight for Noosha Fox.

Nowadays Andy is ultra-busy, complimenting his professorial duties at Queensland with his involvement in 18-piece orchestra Deep Blue.

And his release has now been added to our virtual exhibition of Barney’s single sleeves. 71 and counting! More to be added soon!

These provide us with an opportunity to reveal exclusive images surrounding one of Nik and Barney’s most intriguing collaborations (which also centred on a multi-media happening at the same venue).

As covered by his stellar contribution to Reasons To Be Cheerful, Nik’s friendship with Barney began at the dawn of the 70s when they were introduced by the late writer and performer Robert Calvert.

Hawkwind Love & Peace poster (c) N. Turner.

“We struck a chord in each other,” says Nik. “Barney came along to a Hawkwind gig and saw that my vision of the band’s spirit embodied a lot of the concepts and ideals to which he related. After that he was happy to apply his creative energy, designing the Peace & Love poster for us, and then the X In Search of Space album sleeve, log-book and concept.”

Full-page advert for X In Search Of Space, Oz 38, 1971.

Barney realised the visual identity of Hawkwind on every level as the space-rockers progressed through the first half of the 70s. When Nik left the band in 1976 he embarked on a trip to Egypt. “That was in part inspired by the common interest Barney and I had in Egyptology and ancient civilisations,” Nik explains.

“While there I recorded flute music inside the King’s Chamber of The Great Pyramid, and this became the album Xitintoday by my new group Sphynx.”

Xitintoday promotional poster. (c) N. Turner/Reasons 2009.

Barney agreed to design the album sleeve and booklet on condition that he applied the principals of concrete poetry (where typographical arrangement is as important as the words in conveying meaning).

Barney’s mastery of typography had long enabled him to communicate depth of meaning in this way, so concrete poetry became a natural area of investigation for a visual artist fascinated by symmetry, symbolism and shape.

These, of course, were central to his other abiding interests such as cosmology and Egyptology, as evinced by the poster he designed to promote the release of Xitintoday, which is constructed around a favourite symbol of Barney’s, The Eye of Horus.

When he was approached by Nik, Barney had already embarked on developing a series of concrete poetry artworks in 12″ x 10″ frames for a group exhibition which he was helping to organise at his London squat. He also planned the printing of a limited edition of a poem which consisted of one word:  ”nowhere”. This appears in the booklet he designed for Xitintoday as do many other examples, such as the word “day” made up of repeated use of the word “night” in white on black.

Examples of Barney's concrete poetry. (c) C.Fawcett/Reasons 2009.

As this page of drafts and notes shows, Barney was fascinated by the form. Among the options are the Xitintoday cover’s constellated tiny pentagrams created from the word “twinkle”.

Big star: detail from Xitintoday's front cover.

Barney’s interest in concrete poetry was stimulated by his relationship with the photographer Frances Newman, who was later to marry his friend Brian Griffin. Newman’s partner had been Tom Edmonds, the concrete poet who died in 1971 and contributed to the important collection Gloup And Woup along with such exponents as Bob Cobbing, John Furnival and it’s most celebrated figure, the Benedictine monk Dom Sylvester Houedard.

Xitintoday front cover, Charisma Records, 1978.

Xitintoday’s release was heralded by an all-day happening at The Roundhouse, for which Barney choreographed the dancers in Sphynx’s stage show.

Billed as Nik Turner’s Bohemian Love In, this featured an eclectic supporting cast, including ex-Bonzo Dog Doo-Dah band member Roger Ruskin Spear and his robots, former T. Rex member Steve Took’s Horns, punk poets Patrik Fitzgerald and John Cooper Clarke, sci-fi author Michael Moorcock and Tanz Der Youth, the band briefly led by The Damned’s Brian James.

Both John Cooper Clarke and Tanz Der Youth also benefited from Barney designs; the former with his songbook Directory 1979 and the latter in the shape of the sleeve for his Radar single I’m Sorry, I’m Sorry.

I'm Sorry I'm Sorry by Tanz Der Youth, Radar, 1978.

Among the attendees at The Bohemian Love In were Calvert and Hawkwind founder Dave Brock, both then putting together new  group Hawklords and recording dystopian concept album 25 Years On.

Hawklords postcard 1978. Pauline Kennedy Collection.

They brought Barney on board and, working with photographer Chris Gabrin, he moved away from concrete poetry into bleak futurism and monochromatic expressionist territory to which he applied the new punk day-glo spray-can aesthetic. This is covered extensively in Reasons, as are the rest of Nik’s collaborations with Barney, through the releases by his band Inner City Unit to the extraordinary Ersatz under the guise of The Imperial Pompadours.

“Throughout this period I lived with Barney off and on, in various studios and houses,” says Nik, who is organising the event with another of Barney’s friends, promoter John Curd.  ”We always had wonderful times together, full of inspiration and creativity, weird, wild and wacky. I’ll always remember him as being a great fan of object trouve, and feel a debt for all his help and inspiration over the years.”

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- – COMPETITION – -

Two free tickets for The Roundhouse event

This week we are giving away two free tickets for The Hawklords/Space Ritual 09/Barney Bubbles Memorial event at The Roundhouse on Sunday, March 8.

Grab a chance of winning them by sending your answer to the question below to: thelook@rockpopfashion.com by midnight GMT on Sunday March 1.

We’ll announce the lucky winners the following day.

Q: Who recites Sonic Attack on Hawkwind’s The Space Ritual Alive in Liverpool and London?

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