Tomorrow night (April 14) I was supposed to be appearing at London’s regular event Word In Your Ear, the live successor of the much-missed The Word magazine founded by publishing titans Mark Ellen and David Hepworth.

//Smash Hits, January 6-19, 1983//

In the era of social distancing Mark and David have come up with the online Word In Your Attic, the results of which are posted on Youtube. For the episode to coincide with the publication of my Malcolm McLaren biography they asked me talk about 10 objects relating to McLaren from my archive.

//Mayoral campaign materials, 2000//

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Tags: Billy Fury, Charles M. Young, David Hepworth, Harold Pinter, Ian Dury, Mark Ellen, Mayor Of London, Neil Tennant, New Musical Express, Nick Kent, Patrick Casey, Pennie Smith., Robin Maugham, Rolling Stone, Smash Hits, The Herd, The Kinks, The Politics Of Flash, The Servant, The Story of Oxford Street, The Word, The Zombies, Who KIlled Bambi?, Word In Your Attic, Word In Your Ear, Writers Guild Of America

//AC/DC Desk (with plug stool), Get Happy!! lightbulb poster, ‘Kill Time’ Stiff Records clock + Ian Dury Cocktail cabinet//

You wait years for a Barney Bubbles exhibition and then two come along in the space of a month.

On the heels of the mini-show of Barney Bubbles music designs at Fred Perry’s basement space in Covent Garden comes a different take on the work of the late graphics maestro.

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Tags: Billy Bragg, Blockhead logo, Brian Griffin, Conran Design, Fred Perry, Ian Dury, Jake Riviera, Left Book Club, Nick Lowe, Paul Carrack, Rob Tufnell, Squeeze, Suburban Voodoo, Suzanne Spiro

//But Is It… ART, t-shirt design, Ian Harris for Jasper, 1979//

I’ve dug into collector and graphic artist Ian Harris’s rich archive again and turned up a brace of t-shirts he designed in the late 70s for Jasper, the eponymous London-based fashion label operated by entrepreneur Jasper Hamilton Holmes from showrooms in central London.

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Tags: Antony Price, Brown's, Crolla, Elvis Costello, Geoff Cooper, Georgina Godley, Hawkwind, Ian Dury, Ian Harris, Jane Whiteside, Jasper, Jasper Hamilton Holmes, Ronnie Stirling, Stiff Records, Stirling Cooper, The Damned, Whistles

//The Stiff Records clock. Concept: Jake Riviera, design: Barney Bubbles, lettering: Caramel Crunch, 1977. No reproduction without permission//

Stiff Records was on fire in 1977.

The British independent record label, with owners Jake Riviera and Dave Robinson snapping up acts and art director Barney Bubbles applying his unsurpassable skills to the visualising of their music, came straight out of the traps 40 years ago this month with the release of the first ‘punk’ LP Damned Damned Damned by – who else? – The Damned.

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Tags: Caramel Crunch, Dave Robinson, Demon Records, Elvis Costello, F-Beat, Ian Dury, Jake Riviera, Larry Wallis, Max Wall, Mick Farren, Nick Lowe, Stiff Records, The Adverts, Wreckless Eric

There has been a breakthrough in my challenge to Dame Vivienne Westwood, her co-author Ian Kelly and publisher Picador over their lifting of substantial amounts of material from my book The Look: Adventures In Rock & Pop Fashion for the designer’s 2014 “authorised biography”.

The paperback edition of Vivienne Westwood published last week contains a whopping 27 acknowledgements citing me and The Look.

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Tags: Alain Dister, Barry Plummer, Bob Gruen, Cool Cats, David Dagley, David Parkinson, Ian Dury, Ian Kelly, Kris Doyle, Masayoshi Sukita, Norma Moriceau, Nostalgia Of Mud, Paul Baggaley, Picador, Pirate, Robyn Beeche, Tony Stewart

//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.

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Tags: Almost Blue, Billy Bragg, Colin Fulcher, Elvis Costello, Elvis Costello & The Attractions, Generation X, High FIdelity, Ian Dury, Ian Dury & The Blockheads, Johnny Moped, Making Music Modern: Design For The Eye & Ear, MoMA, Museum Of Modern Art, Philip Johnson's Architecture & Design Galleries, The Marquee

//Vivienne Westwood quoted on p85 of her new book written with Ian Kelly and published by Picador this month. This is also spoken in Westwood’s accent by the actress Paula Wilcox in the audiobook which has been published here and in the US//

//Westwood’s former partner Malcolm McLaren said this to me during a 1999 interview. Subsequently I quoted him on page 22 of my book The Look: Adventures In Rock & Pop Fashion, first published in 2001, second edition 2006//

Jenni Murray: You’ve said ‘clothes were politics long before fashion’. What did you mean by that?

Vivienne Westwood: I have no idea.

Jenni Murray: Was it something you said to Ian (Kelly) and now you’ve forgotten?

Vivienne Westwood: No…is that what it says in the book?

Jenni Murray: Yes

Vivienne Westwood: Well then, he might have got a misquote from somewhere.

Woman’s Hour, BBC Radio 4, October 14, 2014

I respect Dame Vivienne Westwood’s achievements; she has been a significant figure in shaping our collective visual identity.

As someone who is driven to investigate and interpret visual culture, that is important to me. I dedicated a chapter and sections to Westwood’s contribution to fashion with and without Malcolm McLaren in the 2001 and 2006 editions of The Look: Adventures In Rock & Pop Fashion.

But she is ill-served by the sloppy new book Vivienne Westwood, recently published by Picador and written by actor/author Ian Kelly. Read the rest of this entry »

Tags: Alain Dister, Anarchy In The UK, Barry Plummer, Bob Gruen, David Connor, David Dagley, David Parkinson, Ian Dury, Ian Kelly, Jane Mulvagh, Jenni Murray, John Lydon, Ku Khanh, Mary Shelley, Masayoshi Sukita, Norma Moriceau, Picador, Private Eye, Robyn Beeche, Vivienne Westwood, Woman's Hour

//Olympia Le-Tan handbag based on artwork for The Damned's 1977 LP Music For Pleasure, with promotional t-shirt for Fred Burns' documentary Johnny Moped Basically using 1978 lightbulb design//

So potent is the creative legacy of the graphic design master Barney Bubbles – who died on this day 30 years ago – that he is continually cited as an inspiration by contemporary visual communicators, while his name and work is attached to all manner of endeavours.

Recently, Bubbles artworks were chosen by the French fashionista Olympia Le-Tan to lead her exclusive collection of handbags. Meantime Tokyo lifestyle label retaW has named a range of fragrance products “Barney*” in celebration of “the many album covers he was responsible for in the 70s and 80s”.

//Barney* products named after Bubbles by Japanese lifestyle company retaW//

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Tags: (I Love The Sound Of) Breaking Glass, Basically Johnny Moped, Blockhead logo, Brian Griffin, Chalkie Davies, Elvis Costello & The Attractions, Fred Burns, Ian Dury, Imperial Bedroom, Music For Pleasure, New Kids On The Block, Nick Lowe, Olympia-Le-Tan, retaW, Royal Photographic Society, Spasticus Autisticus, The Damned, The Photographers' Gallery

//Dany Bubbles, 1963-66. Pencil and acrylic, 29" x 20" (framed)//

I sourced one of the paintings which is in More Than Fair, the exhibition of Ian Dury’s artworks which opens at his alma mater, London’s Royal College of Art, next month.

Dury gave the ultra-Pop Dany Bubbles to his friend and designer Barney Bubbles in the late 70s during their spell of collaboration which resulted in a series of triumphs: single sleeves such as Sex & Drugs & Rock & Roll, What A Waste and Hit Me With Your Rhythm Stick, the 28 wallpaper covers of the album Do It Yourself, the Blockhead logo…

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Tags: Blockhead logo, Do It Yourself, Hit Me With Your Rhythm Stick, Ian Dury, Jemima Dury, Jules Balme, Kosmo Vinyl, London Life, Royal College Of Art, Sex & Drugs & Rock & Roll, Tony Bennett, What A Waste, Will Birch

//Photo: Tom Sheehan Collection//

As an addendum to my recent post about the staging of the very special late night London concert given by Ian Dury’s art-rock ensemble Kilburn & The High Roads in 1974, here’s the badge commissioned by manager the late Tommy Roberts to flag up the concurrent release of the group’s single Rough Kids.

Then a neglected pop promotional medium – badges were considered kids’ stuff; the sole prominent champion was Barney Bubbles, who produced a range to go with his branding of space rockers Hawkwind and pub-rock outfit Chilli Willi And The Red Hot Peppers – the pre-punk barbed wire logo button was conceived and executed by Simon Haynes, designer of the ambitious stage set for the Kilburns’ gig at the King’s Road Theatre.

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Tags: Dawn, Handsome, Humphrey Ocean, Ian Dury, Kilburn & The High Roads, Let It Rock, Pye, Roberta Bayley, Rough KIds, SEX, Sex Pistols, Simon Haynes, Will Birch