Paul Gorman

Barney Bubbles

At the Groovy Fayre signing and selling books, maps and Barney Bubbles jewellery next weekend

I’m really grateful to Lizzie Walker for inviting me to be part of her Gnostic Sonics presence at the Groovy Fayre being held next Saturday (November 14) at Stoke Newington’s Mildmay Club.

Lizzie is handling sales of my Granny Takes A Trip book and I’ll be signing and selling copies of The Life & Times of Malcolm McLaren and The Wild World of Barney Bubbles as well as my Herb Lester guides The Look of London and the maps of the lives and careers of David Bowie, The Clash and the Rolling Stones in the capital.

We’ll also be making available for the first time in public the limited edition jewellery pieces based on Barney Bubbles designs.

The Mildmay is at 33-34 Newington Green, London N16 9PR. Doors open at 9am for early birds who have paid £10 for entry; after 10am it’s free.

Drinks and food will be available throughout the day and a music quiz starts at 7pm with dancing from 9pm.

More details here.

Talking Barney Bubbles x Hipgnosis at Stroud’s Pop Up festival on March 26

I’m looking forward to appearing at Pop Up, the subcultures festival being held in the Gloucestershire town of Stroud next month.

I’ll be comparing and contrasting the work of Barney Bubbles with that of his rivals Hipgnosis in the 70s and 80s with Mark Blake, author of the new book about the British music design studio and Pop Up organiser and writer Ben Wardle.

//Front Cover, Peter Gabriel, Charisma Records, 1977. Design: Hipgnosis//

Continue reading Talking Barney Bubbles x Hipgnosis at Stroud’s Pop Up festival on March 26

Talking Barney Bubbles in the Los Angeles Review of Books

I’m featured in the Los Angeles Review of Books in conversation with the journalist and musician Elizabeth Nelson about the life and times of the late graphic designer Barney Bubbles.

Read the LARB piece here.

Nelson has also recorded a tribute to the late graphic artist with her band The Paranoid Style. The track was released yesterday and is available to stream/download via Bandcamp.

Here’s the song lyric video complete with customised Bubbles artworks:

The Wild World of Barney Bubbles, the third edition of my monograph, is published by Thames & Hudson this summer accompanied by specialist imprint Volume’s limited edition A Box of Bubbles. Order your’s here.

All my yesterdays: King’s Road pub The Roebuck and key Barney Bubbles designs recreated on our doorstep

//Outside my local “The Roebuck” in London SE1 yesterday//

//Barney Bubbles’ 1966 designs for Woodpecker and Strongbow ciders feature on the bus being used in filming//

This is freaky. Our local has been transformed into the King’s Road pub The Roebuck for the filming of Danny Boyle’s forthcoming FX series Pistol, based on guitarist Steve Jones’s memoir Lonely Boy.

The thing is I knew the Roebuck very well; it is in fact the place where I first met Malcolm McLaren, at the age of 15 in 1975. By happenstance I was drinking in the pub with an older brother the night McLaren recruited John Lydon  to the Sex Pistols.

//The Roebuck in the late 70s. Photo by Barry Beattie/ANL/Shutterstock (5823647a)//

At The Roebuck I came across such individuals as the gangster John Bindon and his well-born paramour Vicki Hodge and the male model David “Piggy” Worth. One night we spotted the infamous art dealer Robert “Groovy Bob” Fraser with some ne’er-do-wells. It was that sort of place.

//The Roebuck was a couple of minutes’ walk east of 430 King’s Road where the Mini driven by Vivienne Westwood, Steve Jones and others could often be seen. This recreation even includes balls of mohair wall in the back//

I returned there over the following years, particularly after I moved to neighbouring Kensington in 1977 – it was a 15-minute walk away. By that time Punk was shifting overground and the upstairs snooker room was the scene of much nefarious activity.

A wild twist is that pioneering 60s designs by the late graphic genius Barney Bubbles have been recreated as period adverts on a bus which is being used for filming.

The conjunction of two of the subjects of my books with a fondly remembered venue 20 yards from where I live is kind of wild.

DB Burkeman’s Art Sleeves: Album Covers By Artists avoids the usual suspects and contains many surprises

Among the many things the world doesn’t need now is another book of record covers, but DB Burkeman’s Art Sleeves, which is published today by Rizzoli, is something else entirely.

For once the publisher’s blurb is spot-on; this is “a tightly curated exploration” of record covers which challenge the distinctions between art and design, between object and product.

This means that there are many surprises in the book, and a minimum of the usual suspects.

Art Sleeves also contains a bonus in a series of artist spotlights and conversations featuring such exponents as Christian Marclay, INVADER, Ryan McGinley, Genieve Figgis  and Marilyn Minter.

And Barney Bubbles receives a mention as DB’s “personal design hero” in the introduction.

I recommend Art Sleeves highly. Order your copy here and follow Art Sleeves on Instagram here.