Barney Bubbles: Reasons To Be Cheerful (July 1942 - Nov 1983 aka Colin Fulcher)

Reasons

to be

Cheerful

Reasons to be Cheerful (Adelita) by Paul Gorman is being released next month in the UK. It celebrates the short life of graphic artist Barney Bubbles who helped design the covers and imagery of many Hawkwind albums including Space Ritual and the definitive In Search of Space. Bubbles also designed graphics that Hawkwind used in their concerts. But Bubbles worked with many other British acts, and the title of Gorman’s book relates to the iconic Ian Drury and the Blockheads single of the same name.

It seems Bubbles made the transition from Hawkwind’s brand of SF Heavy Metal to the raw pulse of the emerging British Punk rock scene, reports The Sunday Times:

Soon Bubbles was designing record covers for Hawkwind, an explosion of ideas that pushed their freeform space-rock into a new dimension. The 1971 classic X in Search of Space, which unfolded into the shape of a cruciform hawk, was an elaborate triumph of sci-fi nouveau. “It was in the days of LSD, and I think Barney used to take the odd acid tab when he was doing the sleeves," laughs the Hawkwind co-founder Dave Brock. “You can probably see the results of that in his artwork, like Space Ritual.” Indeed, with its sleeve panels of cosmic embryos, nipple planets and sonic waves, Space Ritual combined Bubbles’s ideas on philosophy, theatre and art. Still he refused to sign his work, though his reputation was growing apace.

By the mid-1970s, Bubbles made the transition from hippie to punk, reshaping [New Musical Express] NME’s logo and landing a job as in-house designer at Stiff Records.

His graphics gave the fledgling label a sharp, smart new identity. He created sleeves for Nick Lowe, the Damned, Ian Dury, Elvis Costello and more — many of which cleverly subverted art movements such as dada and constructivism. It was a fiercely intelligent streak he carried through to F-Beat, Radar and Go! Discs. “His sleeve work was sensational,” asserts the Stiff photographer Brian Griffin. “And his work rate was phenomenal.

I never saw Barney sleep, ever. Hit Me with Your Rhythm Stick is one of the great art pieces of the 20th century. It’s mind-blowing. I think it’s up there with a Picasso painting.”

You can see some of Bubbles’ work from Word Magazine here. However, like many creative people, Barney Bubbles was a troubled soul who tragically ended his life, here reported by Mark Paytrees at the Hawkwind fan site Starfarer:

Barney was struggling. The regular outlets for his work were drying up. He was underpaid for the work he was still doing, and a love affair crumbled around him. "I used to do this magazine with him called Y," recalls Brian Griffin. "And one day we had this argument about the rude words in the text. It was the only argument we ever had. I went round to see him and patch it up, and he'd lacerated his face with a razorblade." Nik Turner also witnessed a more desperate Barney around this time.

"I got a call from his girlfriend, who said, 'Come round and help us, Barney's threatening everyone with a knife.' I did and he said, 'Look, I'll kill you too.' Then he threw the knife on the ground. He was having a nervous breakdown. Soon afterwords, he committed himself to a hospital. "But Barney never recovered. "He phoned me up on the morning he committed suicide," Griffin remembers. "He said, 'I really feel terrible.'

I recall him being worried about his VAT. I said, 'Don't worry, after I've finished shooting this Echo & The Bunnymen video I'll come straight over.' I finished early, mid-afternoon, and I phoned up. But it was too late.

His sister came to the phone and said,

'Barney's killed himself.'"

Read Barney Bubbles' New Book on Hawkwind by Peter Seville

There is a book about Barney Bubbles - mine and it is published this week.

With 55,000 words and 600 images, reasons To be Cheerful: The Life & Work Of barney Bubbles has contributions from admirers and the significant collaborators of his working life as well as an essay by peter Seville, a foreword by Malcolm Garrett and an introduction by Billy Bragg.

To buy a copy visit: http://barneybubbles.com and click on the cover.

There you will find a complete description of the conception and realisation of all his major work, including Armed Forces, which is visually represented in full.

Couple of points: Armed Forced was released in 1979 and the major musical association of the early 70s was with Hawk wind not Headwind.

Best

PG

Barney Bubbles most famous design is probably the brilliant "Blockhead" logo

Q: How many graphic designers does it take to change a light bulb?
A: Does it have to be a light bulb?

A real thigh-slapper huh? What the punchline is (attempting to) make fun of is how designers are taught (or should be) to question assumptions when presented with a problem. These days they call this "thinking outside the box" but I won't because I don't want to be the sort of person who says things like thinking outside the box. Like, does a record sleeve have to be a cardboard square that opens at the side? Why can't it be round? In a tin banister? Die-cut like a floppy disk?

The original UK sleeve of Elvis Costello's 1978 album "Armed Forces" takes similar liberties with the traditional sleeve format. On the front (above) is a rather naff painting of elephants (which I've always assumed was some conceptual joke about the military) with the amateur, crack-handed quality of art you'd find at a jumble sale. But flip it over and things get a bit more interesting. The album doesn't open at the side but has four brightly-decorated, interlocking flaps..



... that open out like an Origami puzzle...


...into a riot of Jackson Pollock-, Kandinsky-, Pop Art-, and Mondrian-inspired graphics.


Remove the inner sleeve and you get the image that was on the front of the American version of the album (they added "(What's So Funny 'Bout) Peace, Love & Understanding?" to the deregulating too, which sound-wise doesn't fit in with the rest of the album at all.)


This is the work of a designer called Barney Bubbles who is a cult figure among other designers but is barely known outside the field. Unlike contemporaries and followers like Peter Servile, Neville Brody, and Vaughan Oliver there has never been a book published or a museum exhibition of his work. Barney was publicity shy, never gave interviews and was rather nonchalant about credits (his name doesn't appear anywhere on the "Armed Forces" sleeve) reasoning that it was just packaging and there's no designer credit on a box of soap powder. He was closely associated with happy rockers Headwind before making the transition to a more punk/new wave aesthetic working for Stiff Records in the late 70s where he produced an amazing body of work marked by a wit and conceptual brilliance that have kept them fresh today. He designed all Costello's sleeves up to the "Imperial Bedroom" album and other notable work included The Damnedest "Music For Pleasure" and Ian Diary's "Hit Me With Your Rhythm Stick," but his most famous design is probably the brilliant "Blockhead" logo.

"Armed Forces" is probably his Sistine Chapel though, an inspired example of what a great designer can do when given the opportunity to stretch his wings. Costello's previous album "This Years Model" was a big hit so I imagine Barney was told to make a splash with the sleeve of the next one. Above all, it looks like he's having fun, piling on the visual puns and references in a way that matches the intricate, dense wordplay of Costello's lyrics.