//Front, John Cooper Clarke Directory, Omnibus Press, 1979. 10" x 7", 52pp (inc covers).//

//Front, Ian Dury Songbook, Wise Publications, 1979. 12" x 9", 68pp (inc covers).//

In 1979 pop songbook design was shaken up by Barney Bubbles and the artist Derek Boshier, who had come together to collaborate on the group exhibition Lives.

The show, which opened at London’s Hayward Gallery in March that year, was curated by Boshier from his purchases on behalf of the Arts Council collection. He commissioned Bubbles to provide the catalogue design, poster and private view invitation at the suggestion of the art critic Marco Livingstone.

Front, invitation card, 8.5" x 6".

//Back, invite card.//

//Front cover, Lives catalogue, 11.75" x 8.25", Arts Council Of Great Britain, 1979. 84pp (inc covers).

//Lives spread for Fritz Wegner.//

//Lives spread for 'Ovski' (a collaboration between Barney Bubbles and Chris Gabrin.//

Evidence of the artistic exchange conducted between Boshier and Bubbles can be found in the songbooks they each published that year. These share the Lives book’s canny use of spot colour, lively graphics, monochrome photography, quirky illustrational style and unusual lettering.

These elements were all manifest in Boshier’s Clash 2nd Songbook – read about this remarkable document here.

Clash 2nd Songbook was distributed by Music Sales, which also handled the Bubbles-designed Ian Dury Songbook while its Omnibus imprint published Bubbles’  John Cooper Clarke Directory.

//Double page spread, JCC Directory.//

//DPS, JCC Directory.//

The Ian Dury book is one of Bubbles’ best-known works, and was featured in the V&A’s 1991 exhibition The Art Of Selling Songs. Read Cynthia Rose’s review of that show and her pinpointing of Bubbles’ significance in Eye magazine issue 3 here.

//DPS, Ian Dury Songbook.//

//DPS, Ian Dury Songbook.//

//DPS, Ian Dury Songbook.//

//DPS, Ian Dury Songbook.//

Bubbles produced front cover variants for each book. The alternate for the Ian Dury title used a tight crop of a photograph of the performer to great effect. There were plans for another version of the book to be printed in green and yellow rather than pink and black, but this was scrapped at proof stage.

Meanwhile the other JCC book was in a different format, in that it wasn’t perfect bound but stapled. In addition it did not include the word ‘Directory’ or the publication year in the title.

//Front cover variant of the ID Songbook.//

//Front cover variant of the JCC Directory.//

Boshier’s engagement with music is the subject of a forthcoming exhibition at British gallery Pallant House. Read more here.

Top: Detail, Music press ad for The Rumour, 1979. Below: Detail, front cover, Cracking Up, Nick Lowe, 1979.

The collaged waving hand/face on the sleeve of Nick Lowe’s 1979 single Cracking Up is one of Barney Bubbles’ most recognisable creations, assisted into prominence by its usage on the front of Reasons To Be Cheerful.

The toothy grin was clipped from a photo of keyboard-player Bob Andrews, one-time colleague of Lowe’s in Brinsley Schwarz (and before that in 60s pop band Kippington Lodge) and one of Graham Parker’s collaborators as a member of The Rumour.

Barney Bubbles’ visual package for The Rumour’s 1979 album Frogs Sprouts Clogs And Krauts included a series of remarkable music press ads in which he collaged graphic flourishes from other elements of the campaign into close-up photo portraits.

Below are those featuring Martin Belmont and Andrews. Each of the ads contained the following text: “Aquarius deals with deomocratic communication between human beings who look upon each other as brothers. It’s ruler Uranus governs electricity and astronomy.”

//P33, NME, March 10, 1979.//

//P12, Melody Maker, March 10, 1979.//

Recently, while going through materials for next month’s exhibition White Noise in Chaumont, France, curator Sophie Demay made the link between the ad featuring Andrews and the Cracking Up smile.

Bubbles – who would have been working on both commissions simultaneously (Cracking Up and parent album Labour Of Lust were released within a matter of weeks of Frogs in the late spring of 1979) – evidently cropped the teeth out of the secondary image of Andrews to create the “mask” in the ad, and then placed them with the pink-screened glove on the cover of Lowe’s single.

To complete the synergy, Cracking Up featured Andrews on keyboards (though he was not credited). Andrews, of course was also responsible for the fractured piano playing on another Lowe single, I Love The Sound Of Breaking Glass.

//The Rumour ad tilted horizontally.//

Front, 7" sleeve, Cracking Up/Basing Street, Nick Lowe, Radar Records, 1979.//

There are many other visual links shared by the two album campaigns – read here about Bubbles’ extraordinary design package for Frogs Krauts Clogs And Sprouts.

Visit Blueprint’s site here.

British Design is on until August 12; find out more here.

]]> http://www.barneybubbles.com/blog/archives/5538/feed 0 http://www.barneybubbles.com/blog/archives/5522 http://www.barneybubbles.com/blog/archives/5522#comments Mon, 09 Apr 2012 08:20:12 +0000 Paul Gorman http://www.barneybubbles.com/blog/?p=5522

//4 x 12" colour variants, back cover, My Aim Is True, Elvis Costello, Stiff Records, 1977.//

Selected works by Barney Bubbles will appear in  this summer’s group exhibition about the visual language of music, White Noise: Quand le graphisme fait du bruit (When graphics make the noise) at the 23rd International Poster & Graphic Design Festival in Chaumont, France, from May 26 to June 10.

White Noise is being put together by Sophie Demay and Étienne Hervy, the Chaumont festival artistic director and former editor of French graphics magazine Etapes, and includes contributions from a number of contemporary graphic artists – read more here.

//Back cover + outer bag, Oora, Edgar Broughton Band, Harvest, 1973.//

//Front covers, clockwise from bottom left: Neat Neat Neat, The Damned, Stiff, 1977; Damned Damned Damned, The Damned, Stiff, 1977; Boogie On The Street, Lew Lewis, Stiff, 1976 (not Barney Bubbles design); Save The Wail, Lew Lewis Reformer, Stiff, 1979; One Chord Wonders, The Adverts, Stiff, 1977; Whole Wide World, Wreckless Eric, Stiff, 1977.//

Here are some more of Sophie’s shots taken during a recent run-through of potential exhibits:

//3 x 7" variants, New Amsterdam, Elvis Costello & The Attractions, F-Beat, 1980 (with Sophie's heavily annotated copy of Reasons To Be Cheerful).//

//UK + US editions, inner + label of Musical Shapes, Carlener Carter, F-Beat, 1980.//

//Ian Dury back covers from left: Sex & Drugs & Rock & Roll, Stiff 1977; What A Waste reissue, Stiff, 1981; Jukebox Dury, Stiff, 1981.//

//12" outer + inner of A Case Of The Shakes, Dr Feelgood, UA, 1980.//

//Glastonbury Fayre label, Revelations, 1972.//

Cover, packaging + inserts, Revelations: A Musical Anthology For Glastonbury Fayre, Revelations, 1972.//

//Booklet on sleeve, The Future Now, Peter Hammill, Charisma, 1978.//

//Booklet, In Blissful Company, Quintessence, Island, 1969.//

//12" outer + inner, "Dream Kid", Sutherland Brothers & Quiver, Island, 1973.//

//2 x music press ads for album release Frogs, Sprouts Clogs And Krauts and tour dates by The Rumour, 1979.//

Read about White Noise here.

Promotional poster/double-sided fold-out tour programme for Ian Dury & The Blockheads, 1978. 59cm x 84cm.

Ian Dury With Love, 60in x 40in poster, 1977.

These two stunning Barney Bubbles posters will be taking centre stage in the graphics section of the V&A’s forthcoming exhibition British Design: 1948-2012.

The story behind the 1978 tour poster/programme was investigated here. The giant Ian Dury Loves You was one of five large-scale pieces produced for the Live Stiffs tour of 1977. The photography used in both designs was by Chris Gabrin, who exhibited the Live Stiffs together for the first time at an exhibition of his work last year, as featured here.

Details of British Design: 1948-2012 here.

Thanks are due to the indefatigable Brian McCloskey for turning up this little-known interview given by Barney Bubbles to journalist Johnny Black for an early 80s Smash Hits feature on the fledgling promo video industry.

The quotes from Bubbles appeared exactly 30 years ago in the issue of the teen mag dated Jan 21- Feb 3, 1982.

Just a couple of months earlier the graphic designer had relented for the only full interview of his career (for the November 1981 issue of The Face).

Lining up with such “producers” (actually directors) as Dave Robinson – with whom Bubbles worked at Stiff Records – Bubbles’ comments to Smash Hits were made in the wake of his magisterial video for the previous summer’s number one for The Specials, Ghost Town:

“A good video can sell a record which might not do so well. The record companies know that. I think Chrysalis would agree that The Specials’ Ghost Town video helped sales a good deal. This year I intend to make videos which are really inexpensive but really inventive. It can be done you know.

“For Ghost Town we had a convoy of three cars, started filming about midnight on Saturday and finished at ten on Sunday morning. They really got into all the fighting and action scenes, leaping out of moving cars as if they’d done it all their lives. At one point a £2000 camera fell off the car roof, but when we saw the results we kept them in because they looked so great.”

As you can read in Chapter 5 of Reasons To Be Cheerful,  Bubbles didn’t direct too many more promos; his “inexpensive/inventive” formula resulted in fabulous clips – such as Is That Love for Squeeze – which were canned as too experimental by scaredy-cat record companies.

Frustrated, Bubbles left the promo business behind and returned professionally to producing record sleeves, all the while painting privately.

Here is the Smash Hits Jan – Feb 3 cover and four page video feature from Like Punk Never Happened, Brian McCloskey’s wonderful site which reproduces each full issue of Smash Hits exactly 30 years after publication:

Visit Like Punk Never Happened here.

Barney Bubbles' fold-out poster for UK tour by Ian Dury & The Blockheads. 59cm x 64cm. 1978. To be featured in the exhibition British Design 1948-2012.

Today the rehabilitation of Barney Bubbles’ legacy moved a step further with the BBC Radio 4 broadcast of a half-hour documentary about the personal life of this graphic design master.

I was refused a preview copy, having been told last summer by the presenter/writer Mark Hodgkinson that I would not be needed as a contributor. No mention was made of my book, exhibition or this blog.

The exclusion of the latter three projects feels clunky even from an objective P.O.V. (as confirmed by a number of supportive messages).

While I am perfectly content not to have been involved – not my cup of tea, ’nuff said – I am also extremely chuffed that Bubbles and his legacy have reached another staging post in the journey to widespread appreciation.

Barney Bubbles' Ian Dury poster for Stiffs Live Stiffs tour. 60" x 40". 1977. To be featured in the forthcoming exhibition British Design 1948-2012

Next stop: the inclusion of some amazing Barney Bubbles/Ian Dury collaborations in this spring’s big British Design show at the V&A show. Watch out here for exclusives.

Listen to In Search Of Barney Bubbles here.

//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 1 http://www.barneybubbles.com/blog/archives/5406 http://www.barneybubbles.com/blog/archives/5406#comments Mon, 31 Oct 2011 22:08:57 +0000 Paul Gorman http://www.barneybubbles.com/blog/?p=5406

//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:

Designs by Barney Bubbles feature in three exhibitions which have opened in London this week.

Above are 24 of the Crown wallpaper variations of Bubbles sleeve design for the 1979 album Do It Yourself By Ian Dury & The Blockheads, as featured in the Donald Smith-curated group show Ideal Home at Chelsea Space.

Below is sneaky iPhone shot of Bubbles’ extraordinary design for Armed Forces by Elvis Costello & The Attractions, which was released the same year as Do It Yourself and appears in the V&A’s big autumn show Postmodernism: Style & Subversion 1970-1990.

And above is a shot of Bubbles’ Elvis Costello poster for the 1977 Live Stiffs tour, which looms large in the subterreanean Old Vic Tunnels, venue for Stuart Semple’s exhibition Mindful Of Art, which is in aid of mental health charity Mind. The poster was sold last night at a gala auction hosted by Stephen Fry and Melvyn Bragg.

Also on display is a video installation by Kate Moross incorporating many Bubbles designs. Beamed from three TV screens this powerful light-show is cut to Hawkwind’s live 1972 track Orgone Accumulator.

Ideal Home is at Chelsea Space, Chelsea College Of Art & Design, 16 John Islip Street, London SW1P 4JU until October 22. Details here.

Postmodernism: Style & Subversion 1970-1990 is at the V&A, CRomwell Road, London SW7 2RL until January 15, 2012. Details here.

Mindful Of Art  is the Old Vic Tunnels, Station Approach, London SE1 8SW until next Monday, September 26. Details here.