//Four of the five 60in x 40in posters designed by Bubbles for the 1977 UK tour by Stiff Records’ artists//

//Jacket sported by Jake Riviera in the late 70s decorated with badges, adorned with a ‘Jesus Of Cool’ promotional tie produced for Nick Lowe and accompanied by a Roberta Bayley photograph of Riviera in the jacket in 1977//

Music fan and pop ephemera collector Mike Hobday is realising a long-held ambition this weekend with a show of designs by the late graphic artist Barney Bubbles at The White Room Gallery in Leamington Spa, Warwickshire.

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Tags: 1977, Clive Langer & The Boxes, Jake Riviera, Leamington Spa, Live Stiffs, MIke Hobday, Roberta Bayley, Stiff Records, The White Room Gallery

//Polaroids taken on the journey by Bayley courtesy of the NYU Richard Hell Archive//

//Opening spread of my feature in GQ UK March 2015//

“I’m forever grateful for Jake for giving us the opportunity. It was magical that he wanted to encourage Roberta and me to use our abilities in a new way. Just another example of his beautiful style.”
Richard Hell

The new issue of GQ UK contains my piece about the quixotic 1980 US road trip undertaken by Roberta Bayley and Richard Hell in a Cadillac Eldorado belonging to Jake Riviera (who conceived and sponsored the journey).

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Tags: 1980, Cadillac Eldorado, GQ, Jake Riviera, NYU, Richard hell, Roberta Bayley

//Richard Hell + Jake Riviera, outside the Chelsea Arts Club, London, Feb 2014//

I’ve had few, if any, lunches as enjoyable as last week’s hook-up with Richard Hell and Jake Riviera for a piece I am writing for GQ magazine.

Richard and Jake first met outside CBGB in March 1976, having been introduced by photographer Roberta Bayley, who was working the club door that night.

With Dr Feelgood’s Lee Brilleaux, Jake had witnessed Richard in performance the night before with Johnny Thunders in the first – and soon to disintegrate – line-up of the Heartbreakers at Max’s Kansas City.

We dined less than half a mile away from Chelsea embankment, where Richard and the rest of his next band the Void-Oids spent a pretty miserable-sounding sojourn on a leaky boat when in the UK on tour with The Clash in 1978.

As Richard recounts in his fabulous memoir I Dreamed I Was A Very Clean Tramp, he and Jake have shared a series of adventures over the years, some of which I will be covering in my GQ feature which should be out in the summer.

I Dreamed I Was A Very Clean Tramp is out in paperback this week; buy here.

Tags: CBGB, Chelsea Arts Club, Dr Feelgood, GQ, I DReamed I Was A Very Clean Tramp, Jake Riviera, Lee Brilleaux, Max's Kansas City, Richard hell, Roberta Bayley, The Clash, The heartbreakers

//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

//Detail, Ian Dury's Billy Bentley boxing gown, commissioned from Sex, 1974. Photographer: Adrian Turner.//

Ian Dury was as much a visual as verbal stylist.

The late performer’s wordsmithery comes into focus in daughter Jemima’s soon-to-be-released book ‘Hallo Sausages’, which also conveys his rich and idiosyncratic sartorial presence.

Published by Bloomsbury on October 28, ‘Hallo Sausages’ presents lyrics to 170 of Dury’s songs, some scribbled and heavily anotated, others meticulously typed and displayed to best effect in the book design by another member of Dury’s extended family, Jake Tilson (brother of Dury’s widow Sophy; their father is the eminent British artist Joe Tilson).

Making a merit of the archival jumble Dury left behind on his death in 2000 (a bunch of lyrics were found in a carrier bag bearing Barney Bubbles’ familiar Blockhead logo), this is a lovingly put-together document, the songs and Jemima Dury’s reminiscences adorned by a bank of rare, personal and professionally-taken images.

To celebrate the publication of ‘Hallo Sausages’, here’s a selection of key items from Jemima’s Dad’s wardrobe with some background material sourced from my recent book about one-time Kilburn & The High Roads manager Tommy Roberts. Jemima has also contributed a couple of images from her own archive.

Meanwhile, at the end of this post, there’s an opportunity to win a signed copy of ‘Hallo Sausages’.

//Onstage at London's Lyceum, 1981. Photographer: David Corio.//

Pearly King jacket

Rooted as he was in London lore, Dury added this authentic Pearly King jacket to his stage ensemble in the late 70s. According to Sophy Dury, he later found out it had belonged to an Eastender named John Snow (hence “JS Of Mile End” on the back). Snow’s mother had loaned the jacket to her friend Mrs. E. Rainbird, who wore it on VE Níght.
In a 1985 letter to the BBC radio broadcaster Libby Purves (who interviewed Dury that year) Mrs Rainbird wrote that she recognised the jacket from his TV appearances. Purves complied with her request to pass the letter outlining the provenance to Dury, who put it in one of the jacket pockets, where it remains.

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Tags: 'Hallo Sausages', Anton Corbjin, Bloomsbury, Chris Killip, Colin Thomas, David Corio, Humphrey Ocean, Ian Dury, Jake Tilson, Jemima Dury, Joe Tilson, Kilburn & The High Roads, Let It Rock, Malcolm McLaren, Martin Cole, Roberta Bayley, SEX, Sex & Drugs & Rock & Roll, Sophy Tilson, Vinyl Mogul, Will Birch

Ian Dury sent this letter to Roberta Bayley in May 1977.

As the late songsmith’s biographer Will Birch explains here, Dury was just a few months away from achieving nationwide fame.

Tags: Davey Payne, Denise Roudette, Humphrey Ocean, Ian Dury, Peter Blake, Roberta Bayley, Stiff Records, Vic Sweeney, Will Birch, Wreckless Eric