The Barney Bubbles revival continues with news of Space Ritual 09, a concert dedicated to BB by ex-Hawkwind members at the Roundhouse, London on March 8th. The headline band is a new version of Hawklords, notably sans Dave Brock who controls the Hawkwind name and hasn’t been too happy recently with Nik Turner’s revisionist activities. Quarrels aside it’s good to see them honouring Barney’s memory and the Roundhouse is the place to do it, being the venue where Hawkwind played a very stoned set in 1972 as part of the Greasy Truckers concert.
All of which had me searching in vain for a double-page ad from the NME for Hawkwind’s Urban Guerilla single; you can see the ad in a smaller vertical version on the original Barney Bubbles post. I was hoping to find the full thing and scan it for display here but it seems to have gone astray for the time being. As it was the search turned up these photocopies of some later Bubbles Hawkwind ads created for the band’s UK tour of winter 1973/74. A pair of typically meticulous ink and Letratone renderings and also another example of what you might call Barney’s interactive design since these instruct the reader to glue the masks to card, colour them in then cut them out and wear them to the gig. David Wills has featured some other examples along these lines, including this cut-out doll birthday card. Did anyone ever try wearing these masks? And if so, is there photo evidence?
Previously on { feuilleton }
• The Sonic Assassins
• Reasons To Be Cheerful, part 2
• Barney Bubbles: artist and designer
Also by Barney Bubbles there’s “The Very Amazing Cut Out ‘n’ Colour Me In Chilli Willi Bow Tie” lyric sheet from the “Kings of the Robot Rhythm” album which also cries out for some interaction. This record was released in 1972 — not sure if any advertising for the album contained similar ploys — anyone else?
The descriptions of which colours to use on the bow tie (and surrounding illustration of a cowgirl in front of a spectacular sunset) are fantastic: Colour me purple rage, Colour me highway grey, Colour me squashed plum, etc…
The lyric sheet is printed on the wove paper with Glastonbury watermark that Deepinder Cheema mentions elsewhere on this site.
The advertising for ‘Kings of…’ that we have seen plays around the theme of the front sleeve, not the inner sleeve, but it is possible that more lurks out there than we have come across.
The masks shown by John in the post are great. They too can be found as a double-page spread in the music press (slightly different wording to the ones above). Notice how one mask is male, and one mask is female. That always struck us as a particularly nice touch.
Well, I’d say ‘bollocks’ to Mr. Dave Brock. Almost 70, he still wants to ‘implacably control the Hawkwind ship’?
Praise to Mr. Nik Turner, who promotes a revival of an important group and also to the graphic work of Barney Bubbles.
That’s it!
I’ve posted a video for ‘Orgone Accumulator’ on youtube at: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KhWArBhPWu0