Barney Bubbles – Page 12

Reasons To Be Cheerful, part 2

Four Hawkwind badges and a Nik Turner badge based on designs by Barney Bubbles. From the Coulthart archives.

Readers who’ve been waiting for Reasons To Be Cheerful, Paul Gorman‘s landmark study of the life and work of artist and designer Barney Bubbles, may like to know that Paul was in touch today with the suggestion that some pages of the book be previewed here closer to the release date on November 7th. I’d be more than happy for that, of course, so thought I’d mention it now in order to whet the appetite. As mentioned earlier, the book is published by Adelita and its launch will be accompanied by an exhibition at London Print Studio opening on October 23rd. Watch, as the saying goes, this space.

Also this week, Yvonne at Nemeton picked { feuilleton } as one of her nominations for the I Love Your Blog award. While I’m going to sidestep the difficult choice of having to pass the award on (which would require nominating a new group of people) I can at least add Nemeton—described as “musings on philosophy, politics, mysticism, geeky stuff, literature, news and ideas”—to the blogroll. Thanks Yvonne!

Previously on { feuilleton }
• Arte y pico award
• Reasons To Be Cheerful: the Barney Bubbles revival
• Barney Bubbles: artist and designer

Reasons To Be Cheerful: the Barney Bubbles revival

My long and rambling post about the work of Barney Bubbles in January 2007 generated a considerable flurry of renewed interest in the great designer and ended by saying “We’re overdue a decent book-length examination of his work and his influence.” Just over a year later, here we are…. Paul Gorman was one of the contributors to the lengthy comments thread and I’m really pleased to see him take up the challenge to bring Barney’s work to a wider and, one hopes, new audience. Reasons To Be Cheerful (title borrowed from an Ian Dury song) is scheduled to be published by Adelita in November 2008.

left: Doremi Fasol Latido by Hawkwind (1972).
right: Ian Dury & the Blockheads logo design (late 70s).

“He was so good I couldn’t have really competed with him.”
Sir Peter Blake

Reasons To Be Cheerful is a celebration of the life and work of one of the greatest designers of recent times: Barney Bubbles.

Bubbles—real name Colin Fulcher—was a giant of graphic design whose prodigious output is revered by musicians, artists, fellow designers and music and pop culture fans.

Reasons To Be Cheerful is published November 2008 to coincide with the 25th anniversary of the artist’s death. Author Paul Gorman is also curating a companion exhibition with Sir Paul Smith.

Barney Bubbles’ body of work included early posters for the Rolling Stones, brand and product design for Sir Terence Conran, psychedelic art with poster maestro Stanley Mouse, layouts for underground magazines OZ and Friends and collaborations with many bands and performers, from counter-culture collective Hawkwind to new wave stars Elvis Costello, Ian Dury, Nick Lowe, Graham Parker, The Damned and Billy Bragg.

Bubbles links the colourful underground optimism of the 60s to the sardonic and manipulative art which accompanied punk’s explosion from 1976 onwards, and influenced a generation of design talent including Neville Brody, Malcolm Garrett and Peter Saville.

The lavishly illustrated Reasons To Be Cheerful will contain hundreds of images and many full-colour plates.

About the Author
Paul Gorman is a popular culture historian and author of The Look: Adventures in Rock & Pop Fashion, and the top ten bestselling Straight with Boy George.

• Paul Gorman’s The Look: Adventures in Rock and Pop Fashion

Previously on { feuilleton }
• Barney Bubbles: artist and designer

Two today

Numeral by Erté. Via Fabulon.

In which { feuilleton } celebrates its second birthday. As always, it’s a surprise seeing what catches the attention of readers or random browsers. The five most popular posts from the past year were as follows:

• The art of ejaculation. I saw Cary Kwok’s work mentioned in a gay magazine so followed it up on the web, whereupon it occurred to me that the male moment of climax was rarely depicted visually outside the world of porn. Hence a necessarily small list of all the examples I could think of which was then linked on a couple of popular sex-related sites.

• Two guys kissing. My ungenerous reaction in May to the death of Jerry Falwell, using a splendidly erotic photo by Jack Slomovits. It’s mainly the title which attracts people, I think, some of the most popular search phrases bringing people here are “two guys kissing” or “two gays kissing”. One can only hope that the searchers aren’t disappointed.

• The art of Takato Yamamoto. I’m surprised this has been so popular considering the artist isn’t very well-known. If I was a publisher I’d be arranging reprints of his books for Europe and the US.

• Barney Bubbles: artist and designer. No surprise that this is still receiving attention seeing as it’s now linked on the Barney Bubbles Wikipedia page as well as a great many design blogs.

• Neville Brody and Fetish Records. In a similar vein, one of my earliest posts is still very popular as well, possibly because there isn’t a good selection of Brody’s early album art anywhere else.

And since I started making static archive pages for some categories (for my convenience as much as that of readers), the Gay artists archive has proved very popular even though it’s not been there for long. That’s either an indicator of the readership demographic or evidence that people are more curious than they often let on.

Thanks again for reading!

John x

Alex Steinweiss: creator of the album cover

Contrasts in Hi-Fi by Bob Sharples.

A Tribute to Alex Steinweiss
The Creator of the Album Cover

Robert Berman Gallery announces an exhibition of Alex Steinwiss. Original album covers, paintings, and collages by Steinweiss, and special tribute by selected artists. Co-curated by Kevin Reagan and Greg Escalante.

In 1939, a 23 year-old graphic designer revolutionized the music industry. No longer would records come in plain brown wrappers. As Art Director at Columbia Records, Steinweiss created the ‘album package.’ His idea was to create a visual to complement the musical. It was an instant success, and spawned an entire new field of illustration and design: Album Cover Art. Steinweiss was the king of the genre; his covers are still regarded as icons.In his four decade career, Steinweiss created album covers for musical luminaries such as Louis Armstrong, Duke Ellington, Igor Stravinsky and Benny Goodman.

The Miraculous Mandarin (circa 1977).

The Steinweiss exhibition will feature 50 of his original cover designs, plus 50 original ‘tribute’ works, created specifically for this show. Artists that are honoring Steinweiss in the show include: Clive Barker, Bill Barminski, Ron English, Mick Haggerty, Raymond Pettibon, Shag, and Glenn Wexler. The featured artists have created album covers for a wide range of musicians, including Black Flag, Dixie Chicks, Goo Goo Dolls, Supertramp, and Rob Zombie.

“Steinweiss is 90 years old this year; this tribute is long over-due. The art community is excited to have a chance to pay homage to Alex’s unprecedented contribution to album cover art,” says Kevin Reagan, three time GRAMMY winning Art Director.

“It’s amazing to discover this one man, this un-sung hero, who is responsible for inventing the album. Steinweiss should be a household name,” says Greg Escalante, curator of Juxtapoz, and co-founder of Copro-Nason Gallery.

“The opportunity to highlight ‘the art of music’ is exciting. You have the energy of two different genres, and their combination is explosive,” says gallery owner Robert Berman. “Just plain design didn’t mean a damn thing,” Steinweiss says. You had to know music. I had to find a way to bring out the beauty of the music and the story.” (dwell, 10/07)

Alex Steinweiss lives in Sarasota, Florida, where he continues to design and paint.

A Tribute to Alex Steinweiss
Gala Opening: January 19th
Show runs through February 12th, 2008

Robert Berman Gallery
Bergamot Station Arts Center
2525 Michigan Avenue, C2
Santa Monica, CA 90404

• Alex Steinweiss at the Art Director’s Club Hall of Fame
• For the Record: The Life and Work of Alex Steinweiss at Amazon
• Alex Steinweiss at Soundfountain

Elsewhere on { feuilleton }
• The album covers archive

Design as virus 2: album covers

Electric Funk by Jimmy McGriff (1969).

Okay, so the graphical similarity between Jimmy McGriff’s album sleeve and Nick Drake‘s, which appeared a year later, is probably coincidence but I couldn’t help noting it. Electric Funk was released on the Blue Note Records label which was highly regarded for its sleeve design so it wouldn’t be too surprising if someone at Island Records had seen it.

Bryter Later by Nick Drake (1970).

The album below by Japanese band Boris is a copy of Nick Drake’s, of course, a pastiche technique they’ve adopted for a couple of their other releases. The Japanese seem to be especially fond of this approach, Kawabata Makoto and Acid Mothers Temple (also below) having released many CDs which work playful riffs on western rock history.

Akuma No Uta by Boris (2003).

Hot Rats by Frank Zappa (1969); Hot Rattlesnakes by Kawabata Makoto and the Mothers of Invasion (2001).

Elsewhere on { feuilleton }
• The album covers archive

Previously on { feuilleton }
• Design as virus 1: Victorian borders