//Lynam – just about visible on the right – talks through the extraordinary sleeve design and packaging for Armed Forces, the 1979 album by Elvis Costello & The Attractions//
A film of last month’s celebration of design hero Barney Bubbles by American graphic designer Ian Lynam is now available to view online.
//The wacky picture is a photo-booth shot of Bubbles on the Stiff Records’ summer day-out in 1977. Courtesy Caramel Crunch//
Photographer Nick Knight has posted a fond tribute to Barney Bubbles.
//Back and front cover, C’Est C Bon, Carlene Carter, F-Beat/Epic, 1983//
Among the contributions Knight made to designs by the late graphics maestro was one of Bubbles’ last, for Carlene Carter’s 1983 LP C’est C Bon.
//Bubbles’ drum-head for Willie Wilson of Quiver is the centrepiece of this arrangement by artist/designer Steven Thomas of pieces from John Pidgeon’s Poole pottery collection. Photo: John Pidgeon//
This drum-head design by Barney Bubbles for Willie Wilson, sticksman of early 70s folk-rockers Quiver, makes a fine addition to the group of artworks produced in this medium by the late graphics maestro.
// 5 x Barney Bubbles designs, 1981/2. Photo above: Nina Sologubenko//
Last week I had an exciting encounter with the rare and adventurous furniture designs produced by the late graphics master Barney Bubbles in the early 80s.
//”This photograph was taken by Chris Morris in my bedroom at Commonwood Cottage in Downley village near High Wycombe in 1965 (when I swapped my mod life for university). I’m wearing an almost unwearably itchy John Stephen herringbone wool shirt. Apart from the Ricky Tick poster, I’d permanently pasted up two vintage London Transport posters I found in the attic. My old man wasn’t too pleased about that”. From http://johnpidgeon.com//
//Front cover of Pidgeon’s 1974 book//
I highly recommend John Pidgeon’s blog; Pidgeon is another of those unpindownable figures in the cultural landscape. His considerable talents have been expressed from music journalism and magazine publishing through roadie-ing for The Faces and composing songs with their recently departed and already much missed keyboard maestro Ian McLagan to commissioning stunning design work from Barney Bubbles and producing BBC documentaries and radio comedy (and in the process promoting the talents behind hit series such as Dead Ringers, Little Britain and The Mighty Boosh).
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//Left: Poster, 30 x 20″, one of a series of four, for Generation X residency at The Marque, Soho, London, September 1977. Right: Poster, 60 x 40″, one of a series of five for Stiff Records package tour of UK, October/November, 1977. Design (c) Barney Bubbles Estate//
//Installation view of Making Music Modern dominated by Bubbles’ Costello poster. Also note his Do It Yourself sleeve and Generation X poster. Photo: John Wronn//
New York’s Museum Of Modern Art is featuring seven works by the late graphics maestro Barney Bubbles in the current exhibition Making Music Modern: Design For The Eye & Ear.
//Watched by the crowd, writers/poets/frontmen Robert Calvert and Michael Moorcock (left), drummer Simon King and bassist Lemmy prepare for lift off, August 25, 1973. Photo: Dave Walkling//
//Detail of pic above showing Bubbles’ drumheads and speaker designs//
Following my post of photos from the free music festival at Windsor Great Park to the west of London in 1973, attendee Dave Walkling has sent a couple of sharp images which capture the anticipation in the crowd just before Hawkwind’s set.
//Drumhead painted by Barney Bubbles in 1972. Photo: (c)//
//From left: Nik Turner, Stacia Blake, Simon King and Lemmy during Hawkwind’s set at the Windsor Free Festival on August 25, 1973. Note the drumhead on the left. Photographer: Unknown//
A rare design by the late graphics master Barney Bubbles has come to light after four decades; the psychedelic sci-fi drumhead was painted for Hawkwind when the space rocking Sonic Assassins undertook tours around the world following their success with the Silver Machine single in 1972.
//Ian McLagan, right with guitar, in Twickenham Art School band The Cherokees, sketched by Barney Bubbles – then Colin Fulcher – in 1963//
//”Come Cossack”: Ticket designed by Bubbles for The Muleskinners’ Christmas 1964 gig on Eel Pie Island//
Rolling Stone’s obituary description of Ian McLagan as “jovial and charismatic” has nailed the character of this charming man.
It seems to me that Mac chose to accentuate the positive and keep playing his vital music, an admirable trait in one who had often been dealt an unfair hand by the fates (not least when his beloved wife Kim was killed in a car accident in 2006).
As an alum of the early 60s Twickenham beat scene, Mac was a valued contributor to Reasons To Be Cheerful, my book about his art school friend, the graphic designer Barney Bubbles.
//Shinobu Kanai aka “Shinny” in a Seditionaries top in Episode 9 of the first series of The Return Of The Saint, broadcast November 1978?//
//Kanai in The Great Rock N Roll Swindle, 1980//
// As “Japanese Woman” in the opening sequence of Insignificance, 1985//
Currently doing the rounds of the punk groups on various social networking sites is this clip from the cheesy 70s revival of classic 60s British television series The Saint.
Entitled The Arrangement, episode nine of The Return Of The Saint was broadcast on November 5, 1978 and starred such UK TV drama stalwarts as Carolyn Seymour, seen here looking glam in a car in Soho’s Wardour Street outside The Marquee where the great Aussie band The Saints are crashing through Swing For The Crime from their Eternally Yours album.
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