Oz 12: Eric Stodge, Barney Bubbles and crew

Those stapled sheets of amusement, the magazine-cum-poster Oz 12, established new pastures for words to chew the cud, Oz 12 was a message where the medium not only foretold the future, Oz 12 was the fute.

Some credit the work to just Barney B. But the credits are otherwise and shew this as being a Barney communal enterprize. He and I worked on this issue together and commisioned other artists, we envisioned a crowd empowered by print to tell their tall tales to the world. We didn’t believe in ‘Art Direction’, a wrong concept in this context. We were putting into pracrice what we’d learned in all our adventures, didn’t really discuss it overmuch, jus’ did it.

Oz 12 was intended to grab the bag and run, doing what we’d been developing; a mob of  empowered artists amok in print and party, our idea of cap ‘F’ Fun, a grab-bag of multi-mediated tricks. We did that. The result is with us still, as Barney said about a graphic language, “It’s everywhere.” We believed TV had taught the populace to see visualy – like artists – and we talked that language.

Seeing him learn, watching the work after Oz 12, I saw Barney’s pencil sprout twigs, envelop the desks of senior creatives throughout the kingdom and take flight behind their backs, to teach the graphic globe how to design with flair and balls.

Barney, who significantly was second in the credits list at his own insistence, as usual going for amonymity, wanted first credit for me. He was self effacing to a fault, a magician who used any oportunity he could to rub out his misdirections. He frequently used his hand as a comvenient mask on his face, most obviously to hide his teeth,

Oz 12 was a co-operative venture. Creative blokes in a commune of souls was the name of our game. I was credited as ‘Eric Stodge,’ my own depreciating moniker, a reference to my wet-blanket ’sensible’ Officer Krupke act that I felt clouded Barney’s brilliance. This is, I think, the first of his infrequent credits as Bubbles, a moniker he earned at his light show.

I have written elsewhere about the crew, but do it again here for auld time’s sake: Onederland Productions was a Barney invention of the day, a vague reference to Playland at the Beach (a funfair to the Brits) that started life as a water-slide amusement park on Haight Street in the San Francisco of the 1910’s, and later moved to the beach. Also a nod to ‘Fairyland’ in Oakland – the original inspiration for Walt to design ‘Disneyland.’

Chris Higson, the artist who worked as a hired freelance for the ‘comic’ Eagle, anonymously drew and inked the famous Winston Churchill serial, but which is credited to another artist. It was Higson who introduced Barney to Steven Warwick and Pub Rocker Ian Dury (Fact?) when Barney was despondent, wandering the streets looking for an easy out in 1976 or so. (This was the walk that Barney used to power the famous Specials video.)

Stafford Cliff, the Conran Studio designer, was a pal of Barney’s who enlived our circle with impish Australian Rotring accuracy. John Dove, whom we met at Nova Magazine, later fulfilled his design-destiny with beaux Molly in the runnels of London’s fashion scene; Nanook Bunker, intricate illustrator of whimsy and goats, led a lively life, eventually swooning for a swine farmer in Eire.

Fred Fulcher was Barney’s rumpled dad, who improbably brought us beer on two occasions, once, when painting the A1GGz bus, and another time while busy pasting up Oz 12. A real gor’ blimey sort of fella, he was not blind to Barney’s spirit.

Gary and Carol were friends whom we met in the Indian ‘Front Room’ restaurant on North End Road, they provided a touch of wise California hip to the mix. (Gary recently sent me a memory of his meet with big Barney influence, the artist, Bruce Connor, which I will publish soon.) Paul Olsen, one of the Funky Brothers’ loose coalition of musical wiz-kids, drummed up a storm of lanky bemusement.

Dave Pether and Pete Brown were the remnants of the Barney’s adopted art school band, the Muleskinners, after would-be-one-day ex-Stones keyboarder, Mac McClagan left to form the Small Faces.

The wheel at the foot of the picture is the undercarriage of a TSR2 fighter bomber, a piece of aeronautical-engineering my dad done, the inclusion of which Barney memorably said should please him.

Boss penciller, Barney Bubbles, bumper bundle bonus of fun, poor but honest

Photograph courtesy of Rebecca and Mike’s Barney Bubbles Collection.

This ad, hand drawn by Barney with two Pentel pens, the bold one of which was old and squishy-tipped, was placed in Friends magazine, in June 1970, when the evil Ed Moulton effectively kicked Barney out of his home at 307 Portobello Road in the ‘Grove, and  the ”poor but honest boss penciller… lousy with smiles” was looking for a new pad – although his amour, Gianna, the mother of his son, Aten, remembers it slightly differently. In Will Birch’s book, ‘No Sleep Till Canvey Island’ Gianna said Barney left because he couldn’t afford it. Which amounts to the same thing I guess, since Barney was not only working for the rotter Moulton, but through some bookkeeping shenanigans he was not getting much of the money he eventually had to pay tax on, plus he was also supposed to be paying Moulton rent.

Gianna told Will Birch (whom I hope doesn’t mind I use a quote from his great book), “Barney was very sad to leave Portobello… He was heartbroken because it was his project, his studio, and he couldn’t afford to stay there any more. Everybody moved out when Barney left. A friend of ours, an American girl called Kathy Moon, had managed to get hold of a council flat in Octavia House, Ladbroke Grove and asked us to move in with her.”

Kathy Moon is searching her diaries for just the facts and says that,  yes, she thinks she did find the place.

I had thought that Nik Turner of Hawkwind had found the place through his Auntie, but I got the story wrong, he writes, “I’m afraid I don’t think I know about the origins of that council flat, I may have had a hand in it, but my recollections of that time are rather vague. I do know that  I, and I think W, moved in on the floor in a cupboard sometimes.

“It wasn’t my auntie, she lived in Swiss Cottage, was in the Royal Shakespeare Co, got me to procure lsd and amphetamines, and is now 95 and still rocking.

“I did however, arrange a country cottage with roses round the door, on Clovelly estate, through my then girl-friend, Carinthia ‘Stiltz’ Ska-West, daddy was a 5-star general in the war dept, Sir Michael, and the cottage was owned by Stiltz’s  mad aunt and her upper-class disfunctional family, Barney lived there with Gianna and Aten for a time, but I think they then very sadly split up.”

Wills adds: I met some English tourists earlier this year in SF sitting silently opposite me in the front of a number 7 bus and  guessed they were Brit teachers from Bradford because of their clothes and demeanor – and was right. They said they were neighbors of Barney in Clovelly for a while and that the village gossip was full of tales about their goings on.

Guessing where people are from is an odd skill I have, I recently asked three girls on another bus if they were from Cracow, Poland – they were astonished. I also met a homeless guy on Haight Street, and when he said he was from Scotland, I asked if  he was from Dundee, which he was. He also said the name of the Dundee fellow, sometime Barney assosiate and sea-fort guard, Colin Elder, was familiar to him.

Barney Bubbles and ‘Naz’ Nazar’s well-worn, Inner City Unit t-shirts

David Wills wrote: Hi Nazar, Why do you get so carried away in a frenzy of excitement when you spy a Bubble?  How have the products of Ditchwater Designs affected your mating habits? Tell all, avid arters are waiting. Short or long, no matter. Thanks,

‘Naz’ Nazar writes: Hi David. Great to hear from you. The simple answer to your question is YES! Coincidentally, I’d taken some snaps earlier this week with a view to sending them to you, and here they are.

These are two (well-worn) t-shirts produced for Inner City Unit in 1981.

First t-shirt features a Constructivist design by Barney,

with the band’s name in cyrillic font. The shirt was sold at the merch table at the band’s gigs. I remember raising concerns about the frivolous use of Constructivist motifs by some other designers in the early eighties. Barney’s take on the situation was simple. “We all rip off the same people Naz,” he said.

The second shirt was produced by Avatar Records to promote the release of the band’s “Maximum Effect” album.

The type is taken from Barney’s design for the album cover, where it was originally laid over a photograph of Nik Turner avoiding a swinging light bulb, taken by Brian Griffin. Nik asked me to produce a songbook for the album, and Barney kindly handed me a bunch of spare prints of the Maximum Effect type, without the band’s name over it, which I cut up and collaged into my own drawings (not shewn). Cheers, Nazar.

•••

We got a comment in Russian on this post, which my Polish friend Zeno was unable to translate with ease, anybody out there got any idea what it’s all about?

Пора переименовать блог, присвоив название связанное с доменами может хватит про них?

… international experts assure me that the message is somewhat dull, it’s an ad for a web site, duh.

Barney Bubbles asks why you go all gagga over his work?

Here we are collaborating the Barney way, painting the A1GGz bus in 1967 on (or in) Avonmore Road outside Leigh Court, with the prefabs in the background. Jacob is on the left, he did a good impression  of WW2 standing on the kitchen table. Roy Burge looms over Barney (still a Fulcher) who, not wanting to have his visage stolen by the camera gremlins, is facing away from the camera.  John Muggeridge standing next to the Austen Powers stand-in, Stafford Cliff,  were both Conran Studio men along with Barney at the time. The ‘Hello Nice Things’ lettering on the back of the bus is by Barney. The portrait of Roy as the mystic with snake is by me (David Wills, sometimes aka Sid Squeek).

•••

If you have a Barney related item I could use, please, do tell.

How has he influenced you to shirk convention?

When did you first realize he’d designed your fave rave album cover?

How do you do?

David

A story about red rubber, acid-proof safety-gloves hanging on hooks in a row

Damn, these are transcendentally chill.

This reminds me that, Fulcher, as Barney Bubbles then was, said the best thing about our visit to the Fulham gasworks in ‘63, was the rack of red rubber, acid-proof safety-gloves hanging on hooks in a row.

I think Fulcher/Barney’s recurring images of masks and  the use here of gloves (masks for hands), as I’ve writ elsewhere, comes from his visual amusement in ‘change.’ This was the word he chose to answer his teachers, John Kirby and Wentworth Shields’ exercise to choose a significant word and illustrate it graphically.

It also reminds me of his excitement in 1964 reading Puddin’ Head Wilson, Mark Twain’s book that plays with identity exchange, and how, based on the story, he asked sculptor David ‘Chas’ Chedgy to swap identities with him.

The grin in the glove with crooked teeth: In his twenties, Barney, like many then in Britain, had rotten, crooked and yellow teeth. His chum, Kate Moon, has said that Barney’s were a recurring problem, that when he had them fixed, at about the same time she cut his long hair, around 1975, they were transformative events in his life.

You can see evidence of this dentaphobic behavior in early pictures of Barney where he often has his hand over his mouth to hide his teeth. See us three workers posing to commemorate completing the first Music Video (which co-incidentally features a broken guitar), and deliberately facing away to hide while painting the A1GGz’s bus. Barney generally disliked getting his picture taken. Unless of course he was directing the shoot – see The Erections.

•••

About this sleeve: This record is not an album, but a seven inch single. The back, where the hammer and sickle is made from the parts of a demolished guitar, is Barney’s take on the flag of the USSR, whose early Agitprop graphics inspired him so. The dots on the labels spell out N for Nick and L for Lowe.

MASSIVE Barney Bubbles rare art scoop: clues to the mysteries

RandM writng: Here is the original cassette release for Elvis Costello’s ‘Get Happy’, designed by Barney Bubbles in 1980. the artwork is entirely different to the LP artwork which you showed in an earlier post.

Chilli Willi rabbit sticker embroidery pattern by Barney Bubbles

Reproduced with thanks courtesy of Rebecca and Mike (RandM), from their extensive collection.

RandM say:

Sticker for Chilli Willi by Barney Bubbles. This dates to circa 1972 when the band were with Revelation. Revelation were the label who released the Chilli Willi LP ‘Kings of the Robot Rhythm’, and the ‘Glastonbury Fayre’ triple LP set, both of which were also designed by Barney.

David Wills writes…

I’m really hazy on this – it’s all a dream, now, so I’m going to try to recall by writing. Many of the items have already been mentioned in various postings and repeated here. Facts may diverge from reality, but you’ll get the idea.

Middle of May, 1983 – I’d arrived in London from San Francisco and on my third day in town I was off to visit Barney. Sunny day, cherry trees in bloom, being a south Londoner I got lost walking up what I think was Cannonbury road to St Paul’s Road, unsure of the streets thereabouts in Islington, just over from bro’ Peter’s place in Camden Town. Oddly, brother Peter’s address is on similarly named, St. Pauls Crescent (It didn’t have an apostrophe in Paul’s back then) which in turn was similar to another of Barneys’s old addresses Paul Street, near Fleet Street. A diet of Paul’s.

An 1823 Georgian house in of row of similar houses, I walk up the six steps with a railing that had not been used for the scrap metal war effort by Lord Beaverbrooke. But the railing on the street to protect unwary walkers had been and was replaced with two pieces of bendy wire – a passer by might easily fall into the light well.

There was a big black Georgian door, with a heavy knocker, that may have been a hand holding a ball, there were two plasic white bell-pushes on the left, of which I had been instructed to ring the uppermost, Barney opened the door and we walked up the stairs to the kitchen, where I was introduced to a woman who shook hands.  Polite conversation, along the lines of “Hello” and we wander about the tidy, open plan, spacious house, such a difference to the studio in the old coal-haulers stables off Scrubbs Lane. We walk into a room with a sideboard on which there is a copy of Oz, I say, “I liked that issue, Pearce did that, you have anything to do with that then?” I sit on a couch.

Barney grins, “Yeah. I don’t tell too many people though. I like it to be secret.”

There’s an unfinished painting on an easel in one room (that may or may not have been the ‘Mary had a little lamb’ I’ve read about someplace). No, I think he had it back for repair or addition, and had been partially dismantled when I saw it.

Sitting on the couch he showed me the Koolhaus book, “Coney Island,” raved about it. Said it was a huge influence. Seems a bit second hand to me, I’m less than enthused, not realizing it’s the original for the style. Barney says it’s funny how two people so much alike could have such different views about something so central to his vision. He’s enjoying showing off his style.

Barney says let’s go downstairs, down two flights of stairs into a fairly cramped space, where we sit and talk. I have snippets in my head…

“I got called from Japan, they wanted me to work there.”

“Nah, couldn’t speak the language”

“I don’t expect you remember those wallpapers books you gave me?  I used them for a set of covers for Ian Dury.”

“I’m going to be famous one day.”

“One of the guys I work with, Chilli Willi, he’s real cool, I like to hang out with him, you’d like him, reminds me of you.”

Barney took off upstairs, left me there to look at his portfolio as he said, “I get to do all the things we ever dreamed about in the old days.”

While he was gone I swapped t-shirts, gave him the shirt off my back, my 7:7:77 t-shirt, screened in purple on black in wood letter, that I hand-set at Hercules press, commemorating the sequence of numerals in that date, in exchange for an ‘If it aint Stiff, it aint worth a fuck’ shirt – one of my favorite Barney designs because it is so blatant. When I first saw it in 78(?) it made me realize that Barney was the spirit of the times manifest.

(Just tried to find an image of that t-shirt on line but the only one I found had the FUCK Bowdlerized as !*#%.)

Gave him my 1982 Haight Ashbury poster of an architecturally collaged watercolor painting.

He wanders over to a thick walled windowsill shelf, uncovers  up a white cardboard box filled with photograph scraps from back in the day, and a silver Mylar mask, that he says he picked up after a concert by that hellfire fella, whatshisname, Arthur Brown, King of the Hellfire, says,”Here, these are for you, they’ll be really interested in these. This’s one of his actual masks.”

Talk of old times, how Moulton was a crook. I ask if he had anything to do with the Bert Crowther, and the Adam Fireplace gang connection, Barney goes, “Yeah, something like that.”

He tells me me about how when Moulton ditched him with a big tax bill for money he never received. He was wandering desolate on the streets in Wapping or some place, ready to jump in front of a truck. All seemed at an end. Then he met Chris Higson out of the blue, who invited him in for a pub drink and that’s how he met up with the pub-rock scene. Co-incidences and old friends, including our old friend Dai Davies. I may be imagining this, but I’m hearing Barney say that this wandering episode gave him the inspiration for one Music video he directed, the award winning Specials Ghost Town

I ask if he knows any work around I might do, he says,”Furniture design, it’s really easy. I draw it and  work with a guy who makes it.” He’d had his furniture work in Face magazine, which I’d seen it in the magazine rack by Camden Town station.

Since I no longer could smoke the godawful tasting hashish and tobacco mix I used to, Barney surprisingly, since neither of us were ever into it, offered me two lines of cocaine, which we sniffed up furtively with a rolled pound note like two kids behind a shed.

We talked of this and that, old memories. He said he was planning to go to Australia, I said I was there the year before. I mentioned an Aborigine I’d learned about from the 19th Century, Wyndradyne of the Wirajuri, who led a successful, for a while, skirmish against the settlers. Was clever enough for a while to arouse the sympathy of some liberal minded writers. We talked of killing stones. I said that just like always, all over the world, wherever you go, in Australia bad stuff happens. Wyndradyne  died. Left a curse.

It got late, I asked if I could stay the night on a couch or something, but he said it was against house rules, I imagine he could easily fill the place with dossers and had strict orders not to do so. But he said some business blokes, but cool, were coming by, whom I now realize included Jake Riviera (sp?), and they gave me a ride back to Camden Town.

As I was leaving Barney and I both go, “See you” – and that’s the last I saw of him.

Driving, Jake says, “You known Barney long then? He’s the best.”

Blimey – Barney Bubbles!

David Lowbridge who sent us these nicely imaged sumpturies says: The reverse of the inner sleeve (shown above) with three different shaped/sized ellipses is entitled: ‘BIG MAN’; ‘TALL MAN’; ‘EXTRA WIDE SHORT MAN’.

Long-time reader Steve Kirkendall writes:

Hi David, Hope all is well. As promised, here’s some words about why I’m a big fan of Mr B, with a little story about my fave Bubbles-werk.

Blimey – Barney Bubbles!

Barney Bubbles was a major influence on my work as I made the transition from illustrator to full blown designer in the early eighties. As we all know, he was incredibly versatile, moving from one style (and medium) to another, often employing styles that other designers would base an entire career upon, but which he would use to make a graphic statement, then move on.

My favourite Bubbles-werk would have to be his Elvis Costello packaging. And because I was such a huge EC fan, the music became the soundtrack to those wonderful graphic trips Mr B would take me on, as I stared at every detail of the sleeve design. And the press ads, posters and buttons for EC and the A’s carried the same level of invention and attention to detail. 

In the face of stiff (no pun intended) competition, my personal choice of top Bubbles graphism would have to be the the sleeve for ‘Get Happy’. It is the only piece of graphic design that made me stop dead in my tracks and utter ‘Bloody Hell!’ out loud. This was swiftly followed by a speedy purchase, then back home to listen to the album and more importantly, drool over the sleeve. The reason this piece of work stands tall above any other Bubbles output for me is that scuff mark on the front. (Although, my not-entirely-reliable memory seems to tell me that there was a larger, 12″ sized, scuff on the reverse too). 

Genius is an over used word, but if Barney Bubbles wasn’t a genius, who was?

•••

David Lowbridge says: Yes, there was 12″ scuffing on the reverse too — be interesting to hear any recollections of the reaction this got at the time, any returns for instance!? This is the record where Barney used VAT numbers for the credits:

Photography VAT 239 7568 14, Artwork VAT 245 4945 42

There were two different covers Barney Bubbles did

Talking about the Ian Dury song-book covers, Rebecca and Mike reveal an astonishing breakthrough in Barnology that, yes –  there were two different covers Barney Bubbles did! Two completely diff  flat-arts for the same song-book.

David Wills says: SInce I have nothing to top that. Hold, yet – are those the artist’s ink-and-pen tests on the right of cat and boot, or is it a wacky script? Aha! I pushed the magic buttons, enlarged the words – and they sprung out clear – “London-calling.” The grid reminds me of Barney’s yellow scarf with a red, 0.5 inch square grid on it, Rupert Bear style back in ‘63.

David Lowbridge: I’d not seen the one on the right before — are they from the same pressing of the book (which I assume) or different editions?

rebecca and mike: regarding the two versions of the Ian Dury Songbook: they are the same publisher, same year, same ISBN

David Wills: I’d guess the second song-book cover was by another hand with the guidance of Barney. Who was his assistant at the time?

David Lowbridge: That grid is reminiscent of the Lives catalogue too (although it’s easier to see on the poster) which must’ve been done in the same year.

Great to see this, and your ‘London calling’ spot too.

David Wills: For our younger readers,, we should perhaps explain that use of the grid, as does Barney here, was not then quite a viz-cliche, a graphic tick used by every Tom, Sylvia and Brian in town. Barney did’t mind if somebody’d been there before him, but def he’d be the first to use it well.

Elvis Costello’s Magic Flashing Button, yellowed with age

David Wills says: If you move this Magic Flashing Button page around somewhat rapidly on the screen, you will see Barney showing off from the beyond, with a flashing sign of intelligence in the secret circuit that shews itself and the mouth that speaks, when the button is so moved.

Steve Kirkendall http://kirkendall.co.uk/?s=blog&month=2008-12 says: I got this button when I saw EC and the A’s for the 2nd time at the Ipswich Gaumont in November 1983. I fell in love with it immediately (I really loved the funny typography along the top) and was gob-smacked to find out recently that the design was to be the front of the ‘Punch the Clock’ album sleeve.

I was at the Norwich School of Art 1978-82 and I couldn’t help but notice how quietly brilliant Elvis Costello’s sleeves were. When I became a designer for the Norwich Arts Centre, Mr B was a HUGE influence because of those sleeves, even tho’ I didn’t know who the designer was. Unfortunately, I found out when I read Roy Carr’s BB obituary in The Face at the end of 1983. 

The reason I love Mr B’s work so much was ’cos unlike other cutting edge designers at the time, his work was delivered with this real lightness of touch, it was cheeky, smart, made clever nods to great art and it had a real rhythm and a harmony about it that the work of Brody, Saville and Garrett seemed to lack.

RandM say: feel free to use this pic too if you want. this was a US tour t-shirt. ‘photo courtesy of rebecca and mike’

Barney Bubbles? What a laugh.

And as imagination bodies forth

The forms of things unknown, the artist’s brush

Turns them to shapes and gives to airy nothing

 A local habitation and a name

       – Will Shakespeare messed with by Wills

 

“It’s bein’ so cheerful what keeps me goin”

– Saying of the character, Mona Lott, on the 1940’s BBC radio show ITMA, probably taken from the patter of the King of the Music Hall, comedian Dan Leno, aka Little Willie        

•••

Over here in the backwoods in San Francisco, I’ve been out of touch with my fellow Londoners from way back. Many have died. Meanwhile, one of them, my old pal Barney Bubbles, has become a blazing icon of graphic design, with his influence felt worldwide. A seminal show of his work in London in 2001 put together by my friends and fellow investigators, the graphic gang, known as Rebecca and Mike, and a book due out soon by the diligent Paul Gorman, help propel him to a wider audience than the in-crowd who have penetrated his clever anonymity, only to find that the man behind the vast range of his incredible work was totally unknown to them. I am excited at the vast interest in Barney and amused at the depth of ignorance about the facts of his existence that I know, I feel like an archaeological artifact. 

•••

World’s first music-video was made on film

Direct inspiration for Barney to make music videos: I remember the BBC in 1963 or 4, asking for viewer input (that was rare in itself) on how to present music on TV. They couldn’t think of anything presumably. As a result of that, and fully intending to get on the box, Fulcher decides to make a movie to show on television to promote his adopted band, the Muleskinners.

Walking down the corridor at Leigh, Court Barney and Roy pass my open door and Barney goes, “You on the bus with us? This is going to be historic, you coming? We’ll be the first to make a music video for TV. It’s a new concept. Let’s go, this is huge!”

There’s this photo, shown here reversed left to right, where the three of us would-be French movie technicians are stiffly posing in a time released exposure taken my me (in a Grove Hardy print), self consciously cool, in a portrait of, at left, director Fulcher, and his crew; I was ‘producer’ at top, and Twickenham graduate and RCA lecturer, Derek Wallbank, was editor of what was the worlds first music ‘video’– shot on super-eight film. 

At that time I still shared a flat with Twickenham graduates, class of 1960, illustrators Mick Jackson, and Chris Higson.  We shot one long scene in Higson’s room in our cramped flat on the top floor, above the pong of the fish shop, at a party we staged in Marylebone. You can see the window that the movie features, facing west to Marylebone High Street on the corner of Moxon.  

Rocker goes crazy in teen drama

The movie had a thin plot about a rocker who smashes his guitar because some bird (girl) ditched him. While we were making a scene at Dave Pether’s house in Hounslow, Colin went on about about how the black and white changes to color in the Wizard of Oz and we should do it in this movie. I said I thought it a good idea but that it had been done. To Colin that didn’t matter, it was just a source. The end of the movie was shot through lettering reading ‘The End,’ drawn by me on a steamy door, with a lace curtain, in a cafe down by the site of old Twickenham railway station, west of the road, next to the Station Hotel.

Barney was the wittiest and most talented of designers.

 •••

Here today…

Barney was the wittiest and most talented of designers. Beginning fifty years ago, we were the best of friends. From September of 1958, when we first met at art school and he was called Colin Fulcher; through the time when he changed his name to Barney Bubbles in 1967; to May of 1983 when I last saw him – before he killed himself that November.

I do know one reason for Barney changing his name was to protect his very suburban family, from what he reasoned was going to be a wild ride; he was careful to maintain their respectability and reputation in the face of his wild creativity and possible publicity.

Sid Squeek

Although I did occasionally sign my self ‘Eric Stodge’ or ‘Sid Squeek,’ I wasn’t really all that careful with my family reputation, and my ‘Wills’-named work may have had some negative effect on my aeronautical-engineer dad’s security clearance and his civil service career. Three months of the Oz trial on the front page of the Daily Mail would have been a problem for my dad at the Air Ministry. And the Lord Chamberlain’s office was after me, too.

So it’s gratifying, despite all the drama, to see how, after we left college, our jolly fun in the flat at A1 Leigh Court, in West Kensington, London, so long ago, has morphed into the stuff of the history of graphic entertainment. Our saga of droll adventures back then, with its multiple layers of intrigue, art and possibly stolen Adam fireplaces, has entered the consciousness of this age. 

 A1 GoodGuyz bus

The scene in the old Taxi garage on Avonmore Road at Lisgar Terrace, in West Kensington, London in June, 1967: In black ‘All Star’ sneakers, Colin Fulcher at left, is wielding a paint rag, cleaning the radiator grill; TV person, Malcom Muggerage’s nephew, John, paints an orange wing feather; dancer Mary Lexa, adjusts her fax; Twickenham art school grads class of ’63, Jaqueline and Roy ‘Bumps’ Burge discuss relationships; and standing in the shadows a Jamaican good time music DJ, Rudy (later to be famous as the subject of the song ‘Rudy’ by somebody or other in 1966 or so) as we work on painting  the A1 GoodGuyz bus.

Perpetual Adoration

Inspired by Wavy Gravy’s Hog Farm ‘Furthur’ bus, ours was an old Bradford ambulance with very swishy suspension. We painted it, over the summer of 1967 on the street and in the garage. I painted the Tom Mix and entwined snake on the back, and Fulcher painted the lettering “The Poor Sisters Of St. Francis of Assisi of Perptual Adoration,” (Barney chose the name, which, as it happens, is very similar to the name of one of the two convents, a Belgian sect and those Carmelite nuns who don’t talk, then on Ashbury Street in San Fancisco), in black and yellow Barney Bubble script with a fat orange shadow, all way round the rim of the roof.

Photo copyright 2008 David Wills.

 

 

First off, a quick history

Fulcher LivingUnits        

Modular house,1963, balsa wood and card model.

Made in Mr. Gould’s class during Fulcher’s, “I can do anything I want,” last year of school.

Photograph, from glass negative 4 x 5ins.

Copyright 2008 estate of Colin Fulcher/Barney Bubbles.

•••

First off, a quick history: beginning in 1958, Fulcher and I studied three dimensional construction, called ‘display,’ and graphics at Twickenham art school, on the outskirts of London, then we did creative stuff in the sixties: We went to Ireland with my brother Peter – where Fulcher got run over by a coach and two; shared an apartment and, with a crewe of creative passers-by, we were the A1GoodGuyz. Colin changed his name to Barney. I visited New York, he did San Francisco. We worked together for a bit, I tagged along on his light show, we designed a Thea Porter invite, a race car magazine for McClaren, Oz #12 magazine, and a Nova magazine. We went different paths in ‘69, and after I left London for San Francisco in 1973, I visited and always paid my respects. We’d catch up on our various doings, I went Australia, so did he. Every time I came back to London we’d chat, right up to my last visit in May 1983

(I visited London in 1974, ‘75′ ‘76 ‘77, 78 ‘83 and many times after ‘84)

The details of the Fulcher/Bubbles career are really quite a story. Sums up a lot about the time. Will Burch’s ‘…Canvey Island” book got it right when writing about outposts of hip, he mentions our old apartment at Leigh Court, on (or ‘in’ as some would have it) Avonmore Road, West Kensington, London, W14.

 

Check out that telephone! 

Colin Fulcher on the phone arranging supplies in ‘65.

Photograph Copyright 2008 David Wills

•••

Barney worked harder than anyone I’ve ever met. He lived thinking creatively; used laughter as a tool. We’d say, “Cheap and cheerful.” A maxim that helped guide us both at work.  He said everything he did referenced back to the Blues. The one word he chose to live by, in an exercise at school set by teacher, John Kirby, was “change.”

‘ITMA’ was a 1940’s war-time, BBC radio show, where Mona Lott gloomily said, “It’s bein’ so cheerful what keeps me goin’. ” That’s what my aunt Rene used to say too, in her ironmonger’s shop in Cwmfellinfach, Monmouth, South Wales – so those words, “It’s bein’ so cheerful…”  came along with the old wallpaper books she gave me, that I gave to Barney in 1969 – and that he later used for the Ian Drury covers.

Delta blues guitarist Blind Lemon Jefferson was a Fulcher favorite and he said it was a Blind Lemon guitar chord “fiddly,” as he called complicated chords, that Barney said he taught Jerry Garcia on a visit to San Francisco. But I never heard him play a song all way through. Barney had depth and many skills. But most of all, if you met him, he was very, mind-bendingly, funny – and usually to good purpose. He used laughter as a tool.

Trying to remember all this from way back is a challenge, others will remember far more than I do – if they’re still around that is. I do recognize as true what artist, and fellow Next Whole Earth Catalog designer, Kathleen O’Neill, pointed out, “You could make it all up.” But I’d like to emphasize that the quotes from Barney are actual, I can hear his voice like a recording. 

Because he changed his name, he is referred to as both Colin Fulcher and Barney Bubbles, according to the time frame. Here goes.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Eel Pie Island

 

Kursaal Flyers cover by Ba  ne  ubble

 

RandM writes in comments below…

here perhaps is a barney bubbles sleeve that Colonel (he was a Corporal) Wills would have liked. it’s for the Kursaal Flyers LP ‘Chocs Away.’ 

Corporal Wills

Barney in my dad’s leather helmet

Stodgy old dudes

My dad, Cecil S Wills 1905-76, is seen here as a Corporal in the Royal Air Force. He worked on the design of, and later named, the Horsa Glider, that each delivered 36 paratroops at a time, in fleets towed by Wellingtons, during the Normandy invasion. As a Civil Servant, representing His Majesty to the manufacturers, he later worked on the supersonic TSR2 that evolved into the Concorde.

When Osmund Caine, who replaced Coulston-Davis as head of the art school, and the new principal, Wolfenden, who was my dad’s teacher during his RAF Boys Service days at Martlesham Heath in the 1920’s, arrived at Twickenham College in 1958, they, in their Land of Hope and Glory British way, did not approve of the school honoree R&B connection of Cyril Davis; up till then we had booked music in the school theatre and cafeteria with Cyril’s bands that attracted outside influences in school, especially a Kew Gardens worker, Harry, and other undesirables around, as Osmund said, “our girls.” To discourage bad behavior, and the art school influence, Caine, boldly establishing his fiefdom, said the word was, get the music out of the school – and Harry too.*

In which Professor.Wentworth-Shields points out the benefits of dances outside the school.

Art teach, Mr. Shields said something about Eel Pie being more suitable when I discussed it with him. He lived opposite Foyles on Charing Cross Road (his home decor changed color with the neon outside) and knew, in a quiet way, a thing or two about a good time. School not liable either. So henceforth we mostly had our art school dances on an ‘eyot,’ an island of shifting shape, (that is one correct spelling, but there are alternatives), called Eel Pie Island. Which as a result is now famous as a birth place of British Rock and Roll. Back then, to get to the island for shows we took an Edwardian ‘Westminster’ rowboat ferry, that was later replaced with an elegant, but less romantic, bridge. 

Eel Pie Hotel

Eel Pie Island is named after its shape, an oval with pointy ends like an eel-pie. (I wonder, do they still sell gelatinous eel-pies in Brentford, out of a little hut by the canal bridge?) The old hotel we rented on the island had a bouncy, sprung floor, with a sway of 14 inches vertically in the center, on which 300-hundred art-students dancing in rhythm could severely test the old technology. The Eel Pie Hotel had many incarnations – built as a Victorian hotel with a ballroom dance floor, it was a bawdy house in the 1920’s, a rock palace in the sixties, and burned down 1971. Probably arson

Old Rocker’s Palaise de Dance

During a documentary drawing field trip with 3D course teacher, Mr Gould, I painted a watercolor view of some rickety sheds and a yard with a two-wheel, one-horse barrow, down by the Thames at the end of Church Street, opposite Eel Pie Island in old Twickenham town, that were threatened with demolition by the city. In May of 1958, I got a petition together, posted at the local art store, and collected a few hundred or so signatures to save the group of tumble down buildings surrounding my pictured grunge. Not all the houses were protected, but what would later be Pete Townshend’s beautiful Georgian was saved.

On the left, viewed from the Eel Pie Rowing Club (of which artist Chris Higson, was a member) is what would, one day, be Pete’s house for a while, behind some work related sheds which were later demolished. The passing pleasure-boat and its many lifebelts were headed back to berth after a hot day. The Albany pub to the right was another school bar, favored for its outdoor seating, with a beery view of the river and Eel Pie. Taken in about 1965.

Rambling asides

* Harry was later to achieve brief fame as ‘H,’ the nodder who croaked, OD’ing on the floor under the overhang in the Garden of Earthly Delights club in Covent Garden sometime in (Sept?) 67. He also played banjo in the private saloon at the school bar by Twickenham railway station back in ‘59. He gave a sweet rendering of  ”Yonder comes a lady all dressed in white, she gonna be my baby tonight.” a pean to cocaine, which was an indicator of the path ahead. I think he had connections to IT magazine. Barney knew him, “You see who died? H.” he said, “You’d remember him.” I’ve only recently realized who he was talking about.

Harry was a gardener at Kew Gardens who gave me the first puff of what a really awful bitter, acidic marijuanna leaf cigarette tastes like, sitting on a bench with student Caroline Thomas, (name?) outside a pub close to the Chertscy Bypass. 1961. The leaf was still grown in the herb gardens at that time and was where the so called ‘Mary Jane’ as he called it, had come from. It was probably leafy hemp more that weed, certainly no bud.

The Garden of Earthly Delights was the best club ever, it was just down the road from what would one day be my place, Willsdon Mansions, on Longacre that Pamella Poland wrote a song about. The Oz Police Ball for which I designed the poster was held The Garden of Earthly Delights site in 1971. That ball was the inspiration for the Hookers Balls I worked on in San Francisco.

 

On the left is what was to be Pete Townshend’s House for a while and The Albany Pub from Eeel Pie Island

Copyright 2008 David Wills

 

Muleskinners 1963/4

Muleskinners, Hounslow

Photograph by Colin Fulcher Copyright 2008 David Wills

Dave Pether, and McClaglan on right, Muleskinners

1963 in Hounslow public toilet with Paolozzi prints on wall

Art directed by Colin Fulcher

Photograph by Colin Fulcher Copyright 2008 David Wills

Colin Fulcher at School

 

Aten Skinner Says: 
September 4, 2008 at 8:04 am eHey David! What a great article – my girlfriend’s friend found the link and send it to us last night. I’ve been looking for info on Barney for YEARS, this is the most interesting stuff I’ve found because it’s his early life and that’s what I really wanted to know more about.                    

I should introduce myself as Barney’s son, Aten, born 1972 and promptly moved down to Devon with my mum and not really to see a lot of Barney from that point onwards. However throughout my life I wrote to him a lot and also visited him occasionally when the parents managed to sort it out between themselves.

I have a pitiful amount of photos of him so finding these ones (where he’s not entirely covered in hair) was a treat  I haven’t actually read the article yet but I’m so excited by just seeing it that I just wanted to mail you first and let you know that. If you have any more photos I’d love to see them as well.

I’ll be in touch again after I’ve read though this lot at lunch today 

davidwills Says: 
September 4, 2008 at 12:00 pm eWow!                    

It’s 4AM, I woke up and just had to see what I’d got in the way of mail!

Oh my godliness me, that’s fantastic, You make my effort so worth while!

Do you have any letters to share?

I guess in a way, it is you I’ve been writing for. It’ll make writing the rest of it that much easier, you

“Turn words to life and give to airy nothing
A smiling face and a name.”

to mangle Willi Shakespeare again.

Lots more to see and do. About 60 pictures. (Master calligrapher and type designer Edward Johnstone referred to all ‘paintings,’ as “pictures,” so i imitate him here. He designed the original for the type I’m using here in this letter to you, adapted by Gill [but not in my log]).

This makes me so excited I want to wake up my fifteen year old daughter and tell her. I won’t do that tho’, school calls.

Yowser in bundles!

Your Uncle Sid.

•••

Photograph Copyright David Wills 2008

No pictures of Fulcher at school, but here’s one four years after he left. Fulcher, center, fards-up for the Alexandra Palace all night gig, 1967, with Lorry, left, and Muggeridge, right.

 

Short-back-and-sides

John Gorham, meticulously researching his book, ‘Reasons to be Cheerful,’ asked me when I first met Fulcher. It would have been about 8:45 AM, before the half hour later than usual, first day, on Monday, 6th September 1958, in the art school tower of Twickenham College. Any description of Fulcher or Bubbles that tries to show his appearance, is going to have to change radically with years, but the basics were constant, at that time he was about 150 pounds, five foot seven, blue eyes, thin as can be, with a big nose, and goggle eyes and regulation short-back-and-sides brown hair, and wearing a blue jean, hand sewn artist’s smock. He was good at getting you laughing. He also had a righteous temper, with interesting ways to retaliate if provoked, so I found.

It was the first day of the new school year and we were milling around in the hubbub up in the tower, as the new 1st year students, including Fulcher, mixed with the students in the ‘display’ course, who knew the ropes. Some of us were former junior art-school students. I was a 2nd year senior, a year above Fulcher. I liked the, low-key (at that time) subversive – an aware proto-Barney in rumpled grey and the ridiculous blue serge smocks we all wore. Unlike others, ours were homemade by our mums, from a pattern provided by the school. Fulcher acted self-conscious in his smock, I said we were, “mocking our smocking.” He goes off on a riff on that, something like, “We’re shocking in our stockings.”

Later, at lunch I was munching on some forgettable school food, sitting down with the lads, sharp Chris Terry, dangerous Dave Palmer, and the great lettering artist, Bob Poole. Diane Hillier and Elaine ‘Spon’ Channing who married Eddy, hang out with Tink Taylor. There’s a long queue for the Wagon Wheels and a school lunch, when Fulcher comes up and asks “What’s the plan?” I say “Oh, that’s ok, just go the front and say ‘Wills said so.’ ”  He did, but got sent the back of the line. He could take a joke, was smart. We were friends.

Roots of Rock

Tech College turf wars: In my first year at the senior-art school, the 1920’s RCA trained stained-glass artist, Osmund Caine, arrived to a re-arranged school curriculum. From the way I heard it, it was the previous head, Coulston-Davis, and teachers John Kirby and Wentworth-Shields, who had engineered the separation of Printing and Graphic design and closed down millinery and the silversmithy as courses. They got Caine in to please the traditionalists. This was in the same year as Fulcher arrived. Us Graphic Design and Display students had little to do with Osmund, who hit big on the girls, and I avoided him. He taught illustration, was an honest, back-to-the-roots William Morris man – but he wasn’t hot on the Bauhaus aesthetic that us designers pined for.

We studied the making of things, including a class in hand-sewn bookbinding to make sketchbooks, but a major skill, especially, was working with cardboard. Fulcher, who came to Twickenham when he was seventeen, from Isleworth Grammar, and I, both ‘display’ students, disparagingly referred to ourselves as ‘cardboarders’.

Mr ‘Ironspine’ Gould was our course teacher in three-dimensional design called ‘display’ and lived on Tranmere Road just up the road from Fulcher. He was in theyear below me, but we often shared clases. On Saturdays I’d cycle from Teddington over to Whitton, and Fulcher and I would ride in Gould’s car to his silversmithing class in Ealing, with a spinsterly Mrs. Thayer in class on the ftird floor overlooking the endless wen. I made a clasp for some ancient Pope’s medal; Colin made a ring for his mum. Mr. Gould gave Fulcher a ride to school everyday, was a big influence. So too were Mr. Mathews and, especially, Mary Caine, who taught him to whistle in space – where Kirby and Shields had taught a good hum.

Barrel of Laughs

In junior art I had learnt to use coal (natural) gas to braze the metal – for fun we’d fill a cardboard tube with gas, blow it out with a lighted match at the end – and watch a ball of flame barrel across the room. Mr Gould had been the metal and silversmith teacher then, and became our ‘display’ teacher when they closed the metal work classes.

One reason Twickenham felt superior was because our Rock and Roll music was better than the other schools. It may also have been established longer than others too – it had roots in a pair of old sisters’ long established private art school, and when I was first there, we still had their original, much derided, Victorian classic volumes of the Decorative Arts, now worth a few grand apiece, then used as collage material.

The school had a passing nod of acquaintance with the 18^th century author, Alexander Pope. ‘Pope’s Grotto,’ was a tunnel of stuccoed shells and bric-a-brac, beneath the road at Thames Eyot, that I’d cycle over on my way to and from school. I also rode past that inspiration for all Victorian Gothick-revival, Pope’s correspondent, the 4^th Earl of Oxford, Alexander Walpole’s  Strawberry Hill building.

It was Pope who coined the word ‘Serendipity’ in a letter to Walpole, a word used now for the coincidences that appear from astute awareness. Partly because Pope’s example of his own word is not very apt, we were given this it as an exercise for designers to riff on, by our graphics teachers, Wentworth Shields and John Kirby. Both were 1930’s RCA graduates, and were quite a lively pair with their genial tweed-suited, sarcastically tinged learning. The word ‘serendipity’ would be a recurring theme and a constant in our lives. It was from them that we learned the gentle arts of visual thinking; primed to be aware, to become designers of ideas.

The Peace Symbol is upside down

Incidental fact: Twickenham, the town, has graphic credibility – the classic peace symbol was designed in or on Richmond Road, Twickenham, in 1958 by an RCA graduate, the graphic designer Gerald Holtom, a student of calligrapher and type designer Edward Johnstone who designed the London Underground logo.

Holltom’s classic original is the design with the curved ’serifs’ where the lines join the circle. The symbol has multiple references: It is designed, nicely proportioned, as a ‘letter’ of an otherwise non-existant alphabet, in a ’sans-serif-with-serifs’ type. The design incorporates the semaphore letters ‘ND,’ for Nuclear Disarmament enclosed in a circle; and is based on Holtom’s gesture of despair with hands thrust down and out; it is also inadvertently similar to a Nordic rune for growth and an inverted Assyrian A. Commissioned for the Committee for Nuclear Disarmament (CND), and first used in the peace march to Aldermaston Nuclear research station from Westminster

The symbol was cleverly designed to be used either way up, giving us both: Downward negative despair with the roots of change, as its now; alternatively with an upward image of positive, hopeful growth; to be used when required – by turning the symbol topsy-turvey. We could use a bit of positive reinforcement for peace right now – it’s time to turn the peace sign 180 degrees.

 

1967, the fun begins

•••

Dough in the pile

1967 One weekend while I was away in Poole visiting aunt Rene, the retired Ironmonger, Colin changed his name to Barney. So Barney and the Conran crew staged a pastry dough fight for a movie, in the apartment, and it must have been fun, which excused everything, including the dough in the carpet, on the bathroom windows, in the tea-cups, and the beds.  It was at this time when Barney first smoked hashish (Red-Leb). When I came home, apart from the dough all over, there were maybe 28 spent, burnt-down matches on the kitchen table and I couldn’t guess what the were used for – only figured out later they were for lighting hashish in a pipe made from a toilet roll card tube, with a foil-formed bowl in a hole.

•••
This is the invite to the Color Party, Barney art directed the grid, I designed the grid’s measurements, Barney performed the drawings of the people with balloons, the top hat and rabbit, the blancmange, fizzy and tea cakes, the shoe, and the moon; I drew all the rest, the radio-active radio, Bash Street Kids, the dancers and piano by the rabbit, A1 the best – with Barney adding the concentric fine lines around it (shades of the Hakwind Barney/Higson drawings), Go-go, Desperate Dan to Burge’s flaming Morris car, I wrote most of it, and lettered the type, although it looks very much like Barney’s, similar, type indication mark-up script.

This use of Neu(sp?) Haas, or as you’d call it, Helvetica, is interesting because it is Barney’s first use of Haas on a job he designed. Previously he was a Venus-man from his days on Manette, but having worked on closing the letter-space on 72pt Haas at Town, he aquired an appreciation for it – even tho’ the magazine, staff and owner was abhorrent to him.

To see a bigger version of each section, click here:

section 1

section 2

section 3

section 4

 

1967. It was from the clean up party after this practice run that we strategized the next party. The resulting, epochal Color Party, called the ‘A1GoodGuyz sound good evening’ on the invite; was the kind of event that changed things, consciously part of a first flush of subversive commingling. We lined the entire apartment in plastic.

We invited a crew of art students from our old art school in Twickenham to build a set from Fulham market street rubbish and make a movie in our apartment. We turned the apartment into an extra mural class in creativity. I still have an invite, on an A1 broadsheet blueprint. (Our first use of A size paper, his employer on Manette Street had been instrumental in the change over to the new sizes.) I found the invite, tucked away in a folder somewhere, with Barney and my drawings and a cast of characters.

We had invited other art schools, too. Pearce Marchbank (not from Highgate College, he was from Hornsey) was there. There were sewing machines to make rags from rags. A sometime Fulcher lover, Mary Lexa, the limber-legged ‘Bohop’ dancer, from St Louis, Mississippi, and San Francisco who won the licorice pipe award for most colorful costume, could recite very quickly, “Anna Banana fe-fi-fo fofanna – Banana.” She is now living as a dance impresario in Denmark. Mark Bowman played “Green Onions” on a huge organ made from Fulham Market boxes and scraps. A tousle-haired guy I think of as Jacob, recreated the 2nd world war standing on the kitchen table. Messrs. Kirby and Shields, the teachers, arrived, and discretely left, smiling. Barney had his movie camera, and I took photographs; it was a scene from La Dolce Vita.

 

Three young neighbors from the pre-fabs on Avonmore Road, and students from Twickenham with Barney reading his exposure-meter for his super-eight movie camera at the Color Party.

Copyright 2008 David Wills

The night of the living-heads

There i am, a Friday, I just come back from work at DPB$Tuck Advertising in Marylebone (Tuck died in 1880, these guys had been around), to find Fulcher, Lorry and John Muggeridge applying face paint, and Burge (who disdained the make-up) all preparing for the Alexandra Palace allnighter, to meet up with the look-alike inspiration for Austen Powers, the now the prolific book-designer, Stafford Cliff. Ron Bowman, was the driver. It was to be an epic occasion. An all night, non-stopper. Total environment. And the first time Barney took acid. I took photographs of the preparations thinking for posterity, and here we are. 

I really don’t care to stay up late unless provoked, this tends to lend a bright daytime view of the world’s events, colors my life, I didn’t go. Barney was still a Fulcher then, for a while he became sort of plain ‘Barney’, he used the Bubbles tag on OZ12 in around November ‘67 after a few months of his regular Light Show at the Speakeasy.

There’s Barney, still half plastered (not me though, I was still innocent of acid use, I didn’t do the acid, Mr. DeBlanc, until much later in ‘70) at the table around noon on Sunday, sitting, very groggy. Barney mumbles off about his Alexandra palace experience. “… all-night. Was a blast,” hunches shoulder, leans elbows on table, with red-white and well-lubricated eyes, “y’know, could’a be better, Pink Floyd were great. Got kind of thin in morning, filled up later, great Occasion.”

(I’ll check in at Wiki later for mo facts)

It was around then I think, maybe a couple of weeks earlier, (so much for my memory, it was in 1965) that Barney and I went to a really cool concert, a 7PM (early!) and the second concert by the Pink Floyd, in the small wooden Ladbroke Groove All Saints church-hall, max. cap. 350, tops – with a thousand heads packed in. Advertised in some magazine, it was a time long ago – a time before Time Out. But there were a thousand Heads, non-straights all, (where straights were those not Heads.) All packed into a throbling-jizade (Spanish for ’steak’) of glory: lights flashing, bubbles burbling lazily, movies, nudes, and the perfectly cast apoplectic-cleric. He pulled the plug. Boos. Exit after a rockin’ eff you.

•••

I went for a walk in the lunch hour, sat on a bench by a bush, Regents park north of Marylebone High Road on a Friday, I had a joint of that foul mixture, the tobaccco-hashish 75/25 blend, which, as the assassins knew, obliviates danger. Lit it, and, having puffed, wandered back into the concrete. And, in classic tune-in, turn-over-a-new-leaf fashion, I quit the art department. Norman Berry gave me a sabbatical to go to New York for an appointment with big-bear Milton Glazer, who wrote me nice introductions all over town, I never went back. But I digress.

1968, We occupy the LSE: and 1969, Bubbles at Teenburger

•••

In, maybe, February of 68, Barney and I occupy the London (University) School of Economics (LSE).

•••

Dad playing mum

Lengthy aside: My dad took a London University engineering course for his BSc. at night school while in the Boys Service of the fledgling RAF, at armament research, Martlesham Heath in the early 20’s. So mum told me not to tell him we were occupying the LSE.

One project that my dad, CS Wills BSc, worked on in the 1930’s was spying on Goering’s gliders at an air-show in Nuremberg – and then co-designing,and working drawings to show to the builder. What later became in ‘41, on orders from Winston Churchill, the plans used for the Horsa glider, of D-Day fame and, unfortunately, A Bridge Too Far at Arnhem. The scary controlled, ‘Horsa stall’ used for flack evasion was influenced by dad’s aeronautical skills, the Horsa also used my dad’s ideas on the clever hook and hawser method to pick up our chaps, Chindit’s spies, by landing in small clearings, deep in the Burma jungle of occupied Chinese territory.

He also helped perfect their sighting methods, later used on the Mohene Dam Bouncing Betty Bomb used in The Dam Busters. That’s what the Fleet Air Arm, and Navy planes also, used to land on aircraft carriers up until computers. That was dad’s work based on compass orienting sight-mirrors. Used on Concorde. And, incidentally, the source for the renown BBC ‘Goon Show’ use of the old magician’s hoary line, “It’s all done with mirrors.”

My dad answered the phone, “Wills here!” He also came up with the name ‘Horsa’, as in Hengist and Horsa, those two-timing redheads from up-north; Pictish mercenaries hired by Kentish folk to defend against the Vikings. The plucky lads then took over Kent and ruled with an iron fist. The RAF chose Horsa because Churchill wanted all gliders to be named beginning with ‘H’ and Dad had worked on the design of two: The unbuilt Hengist had an auxiliary engine for powered take offs.

Dad told me he was in a Nissen hut in 1941, visiting up at Boscombe Down attending a meeting presenting the plans he had drawn back at Marrlte sham Heath in the ’30’s. (With his old compass set that I used for tech drawing). He piped up from the back when no-one in committee could come up with two ‘H’ names.

Churchill couln’t come to the meeeting, he had a stomach ache. Dad thought it might have been his wonky shoulder, Churchill had dislocated it every so often sleeping awkwardly, resulting from when he jumped off a bridge over Branksome Chine playing tag.

Dad had learned about Messrs. H. & Horsa from his “history teacher in the pinafore” at Clapham Grammar in 1916. End aside.

•••

Occupied France

Inside the cream and green walls with a tan stripe between at chest height, the LSE looks very much like the institutional walls of Twickenham, bigger and darker, but it feels familiar. Walking through the unguarded empty entrance on a Sunday, down a corridor, the air smelling of school lunch and dust, we furtively join a throng of people milling. We look at a chalk board on a seat at a T-junction, with a list of choices, and a go-right arrow pointing to the print shop. In between the two big rooms used to produce the posters and placards, decided on by the Text Commitee, are two big brown-wooden folding-screen dividers flung half-open.

We work during the day, leave at night for Leigh Court by bus. We clean screens for the print workshop, while the French Situationists, and the Maoists, who don’t agree with each other, argue the toss. Colin (just beginning ‘Barney’ now) and I are both skilled squeegee-bashers. While they go loud behind the now closed dividers (because of a strong sniff), we assiduously scrub, with the sweet noxious gas off the methylated spirits spiking our breath for an ugly hot-high; us hard working chaps deserve a break.

So I figure we can just grasp a clean screen and cut ourselves a stencil, unseen. I walk over and pull one we’ve just cleaned. I spend about 2 hours cutting the paper stencils of the ‘Black Mickey Mouse’, that I cut late at night – past nine o’clock! from Colin’s idea. An idea that he had already painted on the wrecked Vespa body for the Leukemia Show at Twickers. Later that year, in November, the Vespa was lost after the enormous jumble sale I arranged for the Boy Scouts at the ‘Mansions’ block-long attic on Hammersmith Road. “That was an important piece!”

Lessons in getting the job done

Next day as we are taping up our precious work, the paper-stencil I had hand-cut from Fulcher’s drawing. We carefully position the stencil on the screen, and place the L-shaped card-board registers for the paper on the board.

All of which I’d hidden under the table the night before. Barney leaves for a leak. I’m across the room, on clean-up, two desks tween me and the stencil. When suddenly, upruns some 27-year-old, 165 pounds, 5-foot ten, brown-eyed officer of righteousness, an officiously Frenchy-Marxist-Situationist, with oily-black flopped hair, a comic-book mustache, and a sneer, who rushes the screen. All leather jacket and attitude, he comes up, rips the daintily cut paper-stencil, mask, cover, retouching and all. All of it, off the stretched silk, he’s yelling, “You have no permission from the commitee to have zis screen!”

We leave. Barney is not pleased, fact is, he is very pizzed off. “Why didn’t you stop him?”

Me, “So what was I going to do, fight him?” Sitting in top front seats of the double decker going home, he doesn’t speak ’til we get to Ken High Street.

•••

He became Barney as a permanent thing in ‘68, partly as ref to ‘Barney’s Beanery’ in LA. during his ‘Frisco trip, and he added the ‘Bubbles’ a bit later as a riff on his light show at the Speakeasy.

Coming soon: Read later about Bruce Connor the sometime anonymous San Franciscan.

•••

Life in the ‘Grove

1969. Any description of life at Teenburger, Barney’s place at 307 Portobello is going to be fun.  

The building is on a rise in Portobello Road, as you walk north, up from under the bridges and the buried tributary of the Westbourne River sewer, it’s right there, fourth or fifth store on the left, unless they’ve built some more in the crater on the corner. There is a setback sidewalk, what the Brits call a pavement, with big square stone slabs, probably covering what were gardens at one time – good space for a stall on Saturdays during the street-market.

A line up of Teenburgers: with Barney in the middle, damp eyed on acid; with the Motherburger, Giana looking doubtful; that’s Rod 2nd from left; 3rd is Colin Elder from Dundee, a friend of my brother Peter (not here), who both guarded the Thames Fort that Barney designed a model of for Ed Moulton’s pirate radio station; Record John 2nd from right – he’s Simon Cowell’s brother, next to Giana Skinner; the girl sitting on the left was a poet whose boy friend, Crispin Thomas, had just left her for Spain, she was a roommate of mine on Basset Road, couple of blocks away for a while. my good friend David Herrera, The Mexican Painter, lived at Teenburger then too.

There are 4-foot wide, rectangular, bent iron grills over the basement vents. There’s trash in the street left over from last Sunday’s veggie-market. The buildings were, at that time, decrepit three-storey early Victorian row-houses built in that in badly-pointed London-course pattern of mustardy-grey brick, with lots of water-dissolved, white saltpeter exuded and dribbling down the damp bits, ready for making gunpowder, should anybody care to.

There’s a sagging, low-pitched roof, with a 2-foot false-front parapet trying to hide leaning chimneys. Maybe you could call ‘em Georgian on a sunny day, erected by some Lordly Westbourne slum-Lord around 1835, hoping to gentrify, back in the days of the stinking swamps, the fetid tanneries and the potteries’ kilns, with their comparatively pleasant, burned aroma of oak and coal. The kilns’ curious inverted wineglass-shapes were still to be seen in the ’70’s in someone’s back yard down the road. 

Many of the houses were never finished in this area; the good Lord went arse-up, estate unsold. Much of the unfinished stonework architectural detail is missing to this day. This description of an old workin’ class district, would not be complete wivaht mention of the burglar’s fence operations over in Shepherd’s Bush. ‘Course the Grove itself, y’r Honor, is renown for some of the best thievin’ daylight-men in all of the city, which was of obvious benefit to the lads in the ‘Bush. Nice arrangement that, right? (Read the Quincunx.)

Hawkwind, Warrior and Bike

So, where was I? Yerst. It would have been about this time that I saw, in the downstairs studio, the originals for the Hawkwind black and white Indian-Ink on card drawings. About 18 x 24 inches. They had a trace-paper cover and folded-card cover, all Sellotaped on the back in pro-presentation style.

Barney tells me he got Chris Higson to help with this shield and warrior art, you can see the result in the multi-dimensional, shiny-splendor of the circles on the shield, intertwined with swirls and reflections, in a virtuoso of counterpoint. And that Helmet! Those curves are very Higson. Compare this with the rather flat, angled motor-cycle that Barney drew. They both used cribs found by Barney for reference. I said, “Does he get credit?” Barney said Higson didn’t want his name used because of contracts with his agent; I forget the name now. “Saxon Artists” that’s it. Barney goes, “Anyway, I don’t either.”

For further discussion of  the tale of the credit, check the comments below.

Industrial squalor with style

So, anyway, to continue, in the building was the pandemonium of a frat-house slum on acid. There was an attempt at a spacious drawing-board studio on the ground floor to begin with. Then that moved upstairs, for a hippie record store, and later, a clothes ‘Booteek’ store on the ground floor. Bodies were shuffled around on the various floors, using sleeping bags, no beds.

There was a smallish wooden cartouche with ‘Teenburger’ in Bubbles script where the fire-insurance tag would have been, centered on the second floor brick front.

A curtained off space to hide the naked. Those who lived there will, I’m sure, soon write about the living arrangements (Carol, Cathy, Rod?) – too Byzantine, or Florentian maybe, for me to document.

Sometime, in June maybe, we were working, laying concrete under the basement gratings (see photograph above) – where if you looked up you could see people standing above, which was just as you’d imagine. We were setting up the alcoves beneath the set-back pavement, or sidewalk as I’d call it now, with a view to have sleeping cots there, instead of valuable art-space upstairs. ‘Course they didn’t on account of the rain dribbling through the grating, as I told poncy Rod, who said they’d put up “rain protection” ground sheets. He didn’t like that, and I was out of there for a while.

I ruined my first pair of Dr. Maarten’s (later to be renown as ‘Doc Marten’s) good boots, whilst laying concrete there.

•••

Basset Road

A month or so after they move in, on a Saturday, Barney very formally invites me over, from my place down a couple of blocks, on Basset Road. This was a second floor flat which I shared with that creative feline, the Hungarian, Diney Bercel, who worked as an architect in Florence after the floods, and the now renowned LA Museum antique-restorer, the gorgeous Rita George. Ah, it was heaven, until the jealousy of course.

Space Doubt

The following story is totally false, I must have dreamed it after Paul Gorham first shewed me a picture of the Stonehenge painting.

Paul Olsen who painted the view of Stonehenge in the story, says it was never at 307 Portobello. Like I said, way early on in this venture, I wouldn’t trust my memory in any court case about all this.

Dream:

Barney wants me to look at a painting he’s done for Funky Paul, with input from some of his campy roomies, in particular, the American draft-protester, Rod, who had the ‘idea’ to put mirrors in the purple sci-fi Stonehenge Barney’d been working on, one of a series. I was called in to adjudicate, because of my Stonehenge field-cred. I said I thought the mirrors were kinda flaky. Barney says that’s the downside of commune-work and sighs. But I liked the Stones as being remarkably accurate. Great colour, a night on the plains, where the telegraph poles are singing their lonely song, if you put your ear to them, just like Leadbelly spoke about. When he finished it, Barney was going to send it to Funky Paul In LA, which he did at great expense, so Paul could bring it back over with him when he returned. Which didn’t make sense, but then this was… End dream.

•••

Back in reality as it was

Then all that crew got turfed-out at the instigation of Ted Moulton doing a Rackman, tryin’ to up the income on the property, at Barney’s expense. The merry band was breaking up. Moulton, rented it to the former ex-Rolling Stone magazine London-edition crew, for their new pursuit, Friends. Then, when he went down Carey Street,  (bankrupt) they, Frendz with a z, sometimes paid the bank. Barney moves uptown to the railway-line council-house and commuted six blocks to work at Friends where he formed some of the best graphic work ever seen on newsprint.

•••

Barney’s Barn

•••

I visit the Stables

1970. Walking over the coal smoke-grimed railway bridge, past the creaky shop on stilts by the bridge, that sold motor cycle accessories, including decals for all the old makes, from Brough Superiors, to Norton and BSA Golden Flash, I find the entrance to the Bubbles hideaway off to the right. It is an old coal-yard stables where, from memory, Scrubs Lane crosses the railway-line, with a gently sloping curved ramp for the horses to ascend to road height from the loading area in the sunken, half an oval shaped area, where Barney has a studio. Arranged in a curved row, the old stables and coal bunkers face out onto a yard about twenty five feet long.

At the time I was a bit in terror at what I thought were his living conditions here, babe and all, not realizing it was just his studio. Barney asks me if I’d like to work with him on projects, I look around a see straw blowing in the next room. We agree to meet up later. He asks me if I’d like to work together again, I say yeah, but on individual jobs, but not in tandem, that just leads to problems.

This visit to his stable studio is the stuff of bad dreams; also the stuff of legend: damp, open to the wind, and now demolished I see on Google. But one can still see the floor plans. Barney’s studio was in the south-west corner. It maybe be built-on by now.

Family life

They lived up that way after Moulton kicked ‘em out of Teenburger on Portobello, Kate Moon and Barney lived in a council house down the road from the studio, sometimes with Giana and son, Arten Skinner, whom he often called ‘Pogston’, and nick-named, I think, for an Evelyn Waugh character, maybe in Alfred J Prufrock?

Kathy Moon reminded me of the set up in  the council-house recently, I visited once, a big central room on the second floor with three rooms off it, with cushions on the carpet, a record player and not much else, a pram maybe. There was a Canadian living there too, Kathy will fill in the details I expect. I can’t remember ever seeing Arten.  I speak from 25 years experience as a father when I say that our mode of life at this time was not conducive to good parenting. Aten didn’t get to see much of his dad.

Barney’s son (hi, Aten) certainly had an effect on me though – my daughter Ann’s mother, community organizer and gallery maven Carol Zakaluk, and I birthed the adorable Ann in 1982, ten years after Aten was born. I was definitely influenced in supporting this endevour by the long reach of Barney as a parent in the need to gain points in our ongoing game of catch-up. 

Artist Ann

***

Hey-making time, “Y’all join in, now.”

Q. How did Barney do those cool double-bubbles at the Speakeasy?

A. Barney mixed water based paints (sometimes) and colored inks with die-coloured, oily glycerine between two 2 1/4″ slides and taped them all round with (black) electicians tape and left them in the projector to overheat. He also included cutouts and shapes floating in the slides. Like flat, projected lava-lamps, the hot, oily glycerine with a very low temperature boiling point, bubbled up, expanded, the water-based ink was displaced, and the whole shebang was beamed to the stage. Two projectors or more were bettter of course, this allowed for changes between slides and more events. Two slides could be superimposed in the same projector if you jammed them in with no holder. We used an overhead projector for graphics.

Then the water would boil, time to cool it – or the steam cracked glass would make a great visual. The sides of the slides leaked, and the resulting oily, inky, brightly-coloured projectors overheated and were a total wreck after a while. Barney’s fingers would be stained for days.

One day Jimmi Hendrix, looking bigger than I thought, he had a very large face, was leaning back in the audience up front, so I walked up, leaned over and yelled, “Hey, you want a light show?” He shook his head and that is all he said. We joked that he should have said, “I am a light show.” But he didn’t.

Anybody remember the name of the band Barney gigged his light show for?

I remembered – it was The Gun.

When Barney was in San Francisco he did work a bit at the Avalon but was disappointed in the techniques they used, for instance they wouldn’t let him put any floaters, cut outs and found objects, in the slides, because they were too concerned about the effects of leaking slides in the projector, something Barney had resigned himself too long ago. For floaters , one has to make the slides have depth, and the added dimension combined with the necessary liquid within is a leaky project. He said the San Francisco guys were “stuck in time.” Wouldn’t experiment.

The Story So Far

 

Barney Bubbles? What a laugh.

First off, a quick history

Barney was the wittiest and most talented of designers.

Colin Fulcher at School

Eel Pie Island

Muleskinners 1963/4

1967, the fun begins

The night of the living-heads

1968, We occupy the LSE: and 1969, Bubbles at Teenburger

 

The Moon in Whitton

Kathy Moon: Barney was always always always late. It was quite precise, actually. 45 minutes give or take a few-hundred seconds. so predictable that I could actually arrive 40 minutes late on purpose and never miss him. I don’t recall ever being aggravated about it. it was just easy to adapt to. There would always be a story.

I remember great evenings visiting friends who lived miles away on the other side of London. None of us had cars, so we would have the fabulous walks talking laughing through the deserted streets, back to Notting Hill.

…and the yellow cardigan. Almost always worn with the bib overalls. The uniform of art. It was a great color yellow and never had paint or anything on it. Always looked pretty pristine, I recall.

One trip to Twickenham. Staying with Barney’s parents. I think we had to sleep separately. I’m hoping that I have some writing about it in my journals because I know he gave a great description of what i was to expect when we arrived. His parents were england. Somewhere though, under the propriety, was the stuff that made Barney. During our stay, there were only teensy glimpses of that stuff.

 

 

“A liddle dab’ll do ya.”

Fulcher is an anglicized French Norman name, from ‘Fulchere.’ Barney’s dad, Fred, was Jewish, a tool-die maker, the man who made the tools for the tools. Specializing in cameras during the war. He worked on  the cameras used on the Mohene Dam Busters raid (my dad had worked on  the sights, and Mr Dow the teacher at Twickenham worked on the cardboard model used for practicing bombing  tactics, they all never met as far as I know.) His advice on painting, was the sensible, “A liddle dab’ll do ya.” He brought us beers when we were painting the bus. Barney used a Minolta 35mm on his suggestion.

Fred was smallish, balding, fast-eyed cockney bloke with a waistcoat and beer, who called me “a bit of a ponce.” Colin’s mum, in her apron and curlers, with big blue eyes and a dangerous nose, liked me well enough; she brought us tea and biscuits as we listened to Barney’s cream and brown plastic record player dropping Elvis Presley, and Big Bopper singles onto the turntable with a plop in the back bedroom with a view of the abandoned pig farm out back. But I think his big sister, Jill, did not approve of her young brother’s odd friends and influences. I hope she gets to now enjoy my reminiscences, my appologies if any thing is remiss.

 

The Gang’s all in Town

Photograph by David Wills Copyright 2008

1967. The Oz 12 cover that wasn’t. Funky Paul top center, Francoise top right. John Muggeridge centre left, Pete Brown on the right, that’s mysterious Cassandra Wedd in the darkness, plus the Michelin Man (found by Chris Higson), and Donald Duck.

Barney’s Teeny-tiny ’small-pearl’ writing style

Kate Moon says: I was always fascinated by Barney’s tiny writing. I loved watching him write. He seemed so into it and intentional, idiosyncratic, methodical, precise and meditational, perhaps.

 

Using our minds to create miracles

I’m not quite sure why (well I am, its hilarious) but I’d like to include this as an off center description of the power and glory of Barney Bubbles art. It’s about that other Barney (the purple one) but I feel it says truths about our lad that I wouldn’t have thought of without the good Dr. Chambers of North Carolina.

Using our minds to create miracles

“Barney is much more than just a fun creature of kids’ imaginations. He is a politically correct teacher of everything on the liberal left’s agenda, from New Age evolution to radical ecology. To many children, Barney has become a guru of sorts. He constantly teaches transcendental thought and mystical ideas. Nothing comes through Barney’s teachings more clearly than the New Age idea of using our minds to create miracles. No one should deny that positive or negative thinking can tremendously affect our lives. But such powers are clearly physical and end with the normal experiences we enjoy. God alone is supernatural.”

From: “Barney, `The Purple Messiah,’” by Dr. Joseph R. Chambers, a “sermon booklet” published by Paw Creek Ministries, in Charlotte, North Carolina. This excerpt was printed in the March 1994 issue of Harper’s.

Dodgy-doings in Hackney

The lowdown on the up-and-up?

Sometime in 1967 Barney had told me about a party he’d been to in the East-end, at a family of dustmen in Hackney in London’s East-End. He had been invited by the girls ‘Denise’ and ‘Carol’ (I’m unsure of their names) formerly at the Carnival shop on Hammersmith Road where we’d got supplies for the ‘Sounds good’ event. I was supposed to have gone to the party but didn’t. They were having another knees-up the following year and I went because Barney insisted it would be worthwhile.

When we went to his party in Hackney, Ed Moulton was standing there, a ready-made caricature of the man in the Liverpool deck-chair postcards, standing at the foot of a wide stairway. He was in his 50’s, with balding, black hair; a thin-mustached scrap-metal merchant wearing a loud blue suit and cravat, about 5’ 8”, dark eyes, round face, 180 pounds, leaning importantly against the newel post. Standing on the first step for height, he was welcoming guests. He looked like a man who’d be at the seaside in his roll-upped trousers. When I asked Ed if he was the son of a rag ‘n bone man, he said “Yers, and proud of it. Now I’m in waste-disposal.” I chatted briefly with the blonde at a desk by the side door, who I think may have been ‘Denise’ from the Carnival shop, and left quietly, thinking to contact her later. Never did, and so wrote myself out of that great adventure…

A Dodgy Lad

I thought Ed Moulton a dodgy piece o’ work, which he was, but Barney said he had a wild side, that Ed was crazy cool. “I don’t know if he’s dropped acid or not, but he sure acts like he does.” … and another time, in 1978, when he was detailing his History, Barney goes, “He said I could do anything – anything! I want to.”

•••

Psst! Wanna buy an Adam Fireplace?

Bert Crowther was related to the Aleistair Crowley family, his Syon Lodge in Isleworth, a commercial garden-furniture sales display, was in the open air, a crazy disarray of aged sculpture and bric-a-brac of uncertain provenance. Barney went once or twice on documentary drawing outings there on Thursdays with Mr. Mathews, one of his favorite teachers at Twickenham. The spooky place was at a crossroads, a good place to bury a wart, close by where Barney had gone to grammar school  (where selection was by IQ at eleven years) 

Isleworth is also the site of a private school that, improbably, Vincent Van Gogh in a brief stay in England, had taught drawing to young women in 1887. They say his spirit wanders yet, painting in the ghostly orchard across the way.

Dead men can’t sue

I think there may have been some connection in about 1962 between Bert Crowther, the sculpture salesman, and our Ed Moulton in some dodgy trade in Adam fireplaces. I asked Barney in ‘83 if Ed was involved with him as a ‘fence’ he said, “Yeah, something like that.” (If any body can verify that I’d be grateful) 

In one memorable conversation in late ’68, but of which I have only a vague pictured memory, Barney asks me in the kitchen if I’d want to work with Ed? I’d forgotten about him by then and didn’t know what he was on about. I go, “Who?” so he says, “Well, he’s kind of not the sort of person you’d… you might find him a bit… your dad wouldn’t approve, would you want to work for someone like that?” So I said “No.” And I didn’t.

•••

Pirate Radio in the Teeth of London

Just before Barney left Leigh Court in early 1969, and was all pretty much packed, Barney takes me back into his room at the end of the corridor. “Top secret” he said, “don’t tell anybody” and there, over towards a blanket half draped across the window as a curtain, no light bulb working, in front of the torn out fireplace, there was an exact paper and cardboard model of one of what, at sea, was once a set of seven Maunsell Sea-forts, built to protecct shipping from Nazi bombers in the Thames estuary, off Southend-on-Sea. They were the original designs from which sea-going oil-rigs are modelled. Barney had decorated his mock-up with Marvel and other comic super-characters – Spiderman especially. About 24 inches high his Maunsell Sea-fort was a strong, glorious sight. This was the result of our trip to the bash in Hackney, and was Ed Moulton’s grandiose idea to create a pirate radio station outpost right in the teeth of London.

•••

Anonymous Heroes

•••

Playing the part of Barney

Fulcher became Barney Bubbles as a permanent thing between ‘67 and  ’68. The name was first used in the credits for Oz 12 which I wrote down after I asked him, “Hey, what do you wanna be called?” It happened organically; slowly over the months as ‘Fulcher’ became a ‘Barney.’ During his San Francisco adventure the name was emphasized partly as ref to ‘Barney’s Beanery’ an LA roadside food-shack notable for it’s sign refusing custom to gays. The Bubbles was a riff on his light show.  

In San Francisco artist, Bruce Connor’s obituary, by Kenneth Baker in the Chronicle, I read that Connor famously said, “On the 12-step program of Artists Anonymous, the first is never acknowledging any of your work, after never signing it… ”

Who?

Connor also made a movie of clips from found old newsreels and flicks with a music backing that some say was grandmother of all music videos. In 1991, it was selected for the Library of Congress, by the National Film Registry. There are definite direct connections between the Connor ethic and the Bubbles show.

I can recall the always plugged-in Fulcher mentioning him and the 1958 movie. The movie would be a natch for him to enthuse over – found object, industrial, and collaged. Barney did see the Connor movie in 1966, he made sure I watched it too, “It’s very important.” he said. He called my mum to tell me. I saw it on TV at my parents house in Teddington, while he watched it in Whitton – there was no TV at our A1Good Guyz HQ, at Leigh Court.

From the NY Times, “A key figure in the San Francisco Beat scene in the late 1950s, Mr. Conner first became known for his assemblages made from women’s nylon stockings, parts of furniture, broken dolls, fur, costume jewelry, paint, photographs and candles. These works, created between 1957 and 1964, had the aggressive appearance of avant-garde sculpture but at the same time seemed old and musty, like broken-down junk found in a forgotten attic or props for a scary Hitchcock-like movie. They were a vehement rejection of the optimistic, consumerist spirit of mainstream American society.

The Grandfather Of All Music Videos

In the late 1950s, Mr. Conner also began an influential parallel career as an experimental filmmaker. Under the influence of his friend and fellow filmmaker Stan Brakhage, he created collages of found and new footage.”

Like I say, a big influence. Fulcher did meet Bruce Connor in 1968 in San Francisco, but he had an awful time, he said Connor’s wife kept him talking for hours in this dismal junk ridden apartment. Barney said you shouldn’t get too close to your heroes.

•••

Pog By Barney for his son Aten

Copyright Aten Skinner 2008

Win a prize if you can put it in order.

Rebecca and Mike won the holiday cruise.

Please go to the comments department to see their decoding of the correct order for the pages

Two Barney letters

Here are two letters from Barney, written to me (DavidWills) the first in 1978, and the one with the doggie, 1973. (I received these, corrected, dates from Paul Gorman, and thank him very much)

Fulcher designs for drawings in the Book of Egg Cookery

These drawings are from the front of the Book of Egg cookery, 1969. The art was  designed by Barney, while I (David Wills) drew the finished art, and was art director.

See next posting for dramatic views of the artgang Rebecca and Mike’s magnificent array of art in their now world famous Barney Bubble’s Imperial Collection of His Works Show of 2001, from which this art is but a fraction, and it is with great thanks to their untramelled benificence that we reproduce them here.

In which Barney and Wills paint the witch Nikki, photographed by Phil Franks – and it’s his copyright, goddam it!

Copyright © Phil Franks 2008. All Rights Reserved.

1970, The photograph on the right is by  the esteemed photographer of well lit curves, Phil Franks, and is shewn here as reproduced, reversed left to right, in the magazine Curious. Barney and I (David Wills) are painting Nikki, with Barney on the left of the witch. We are both right handed. The lady swallowing fire is included here for your delight.  Art on Nikki was designed by Barney, I  was designer and art editor of the magazine. Reproduced courtesy of the Artgang Rebecca and Mike’s BB Collection.

Fulcher(e) the Bowman

In rummaging about for Fulcher family history I came accross a reference to ‘Fulchere the Bowman’ in the Doomsday Book, which is amusing because Barney (born a Fulcher) designed the Bowman cider label.

Because of that reference I’m also unsure that ‘Fulchere’, as I described earlier, is a particularly French Jewish name (although Barney was a semite) I would guess it had to be Norman French. Any name mavens out there?

Names, they can easily reveal a history, my own name of Wills was chosen by my  paternal grandmother, Miss Getrude Wood, a single-mother who changed her name to Mrs. Wills, in 1905. My dad’s dad was Emil Simon a jew from Lyon who caught a train to Auschwitz.

Rebecca and Mike’s Great Barney Bubbles Exhibition of AD2001

Photographs by Rebecca and Mike Copyright 2008

Malevich and more

Never heard of him

One of Barney’s fully conscious life works was examining the cool ways of the artists he liked and making them his own in tribute. He was amplifying his art history classes, learning to ‘Paint’ his way. He learned in depth about Kasimir Malevich, of whom he said, “…we never heard of him at Twickenham.” He also really liked the idea of the Russian’s Agitprop fold out stages on trucks and traveling theater. As Kathy Moon says, “He didn’t judge, he looked to see what’s there.”

(This paragraph was edited by me [Wills] in response to the comment of Rebecca and Mike below, who wisely shewed me the error of my ways. They also laughingly pointed out that it is ‘”cheating” to correct the text after it’s been published, they say I should have corrected my words and put them in the Siberia of the comments department. I think it best to correct where folks are going to read it in context. Imagine this as a book with the joy of live writing.)

•••

From Yogi Bear…

Fulcher watched ITV, the Hanna Barbara cartoons especially, he followed the TV ads; and he liked that bright, flat, Western cowboy-artist in the ‘Boys Annual’ books, and then there was the deeper side to his interests…

One of our teachers was the sculptor Dow, bearded in the manner of his mentor, lean type designer Eric Gill, or an even a better likeness, Ezra Pound. Dow helped introduce us to Ginsberg’s Howl, to Burroughs and ultimately the idea of an alternative reality. You can see Dow’s version of Eric Gill’s deco angular style above what are, or were, the Jaguar showrooms in Piccadilly close by the Green Park tube station. Up in our aerie in the tower, in Mr. Dow’s class in cardboard construction, Dow told us about making the model for the planning of the WW2 Möhne ‘Dam Busters’ raid (see the movie) at the National Physical Laboratory in Teddington, cutting contour relief levels in mounting board with a scalpel. He intones, “One cut has to do it. Your knife must be sharp.”

… to Howl

Mr Dow often talked of life in a way us suburbanites had only read about. One day, a Thursday, back from documentary drawing at the Victoria and Albert Museum by bus, Colin and I are talking Burroughs and the Beats; we’d both read Ginsberg’s Howl. 

Always first with hip, Fulcher had lent me his copy. He’s sitting on a stool, by the window behind a bench, first back from doc drawing at the V and A, by bus, late afternoon. I had thought there was a scene of a hanging and ejaculation in Howl, but I’m wrong, must be Burroughs somewhere (It’s in Burrough’s  Naked Lunch). Fulcher was inspired by that, is all “Ultimate!” Later, Dow, is chanelling Ezra Pound, who wrote, “I have always thought the suicide should bump off at least one swine before taking off to parts unknown.” Rambling on in conversation, Dow goes, “… and I’m gonna end it when I’m sixty.” Colin says to me afterwards, “I’m going to end it when I’m forty. We should have done it all done by then… Who wants to be old?” I often wonder if Dow, like Barney, followed through on his suggestion.

 

Fulcher fills his quiver

TV Stories… Dr.Who?

Mr Mortimer was a new, handsome young photographer, was the best of teachers, often helping the vivacious June Woodhams hands-on in the darkroom. He had style and panache, not least of which was because he was working at the BBC. After I left in 61, he designed the credits for Dr Who, which premiered in 1963. Fulcher in his last year called to say, “You should see this.” So that’s how I came to see the original paper cut out story-board, which blew us away with its sharp simplicity of scissor-cut grey and black rectangles on white, or white on black. When seen in motion on the screen it jokingly moves with astonishingly sly, grim humor for an abstract rectangle.

We studied TV storyboards and dark room technique with him. He was way cool, practical and had definite buzz, more direct than the introverted musings of Kirby and Shields, but without the depth of perception that those two old buzzards inspired. 

“Greetings to you on this eve of May Day Marchings”

“I like your mag…” is a reference to Music Works, a manual for musicians that Dianne Sward Rapaport and I published in 1976 for the emerginging indie culture. Dianne later wrote a book based on the magazine, called Making and Selling Your Own Record.

“We’re in tune with the modern times”

For all those who would like a Fulchurian bon-mot to help direct their energies, I have received a blessing to quote an e-mail from Kate Moon, who has approved, in writing, the necessary permission for me to repeat that Barney often used to say, “We’re in tune with the modern times.”

Kate also remembered, as do I, that Barney had perfected the Groucho Marx two step: moving forward while crouched, with exagerately raised knees, as though trying to run quietly.

Combining word and deed gives a vivid recreation of Barney’s act for all those who may be inclined to emulate a master joker.

Barney and Jerry: International talks

Barney told me in 1976 when I asked him about meeting Jerry in San Francisco, that he exchanged guitar chord ‘fiddlies’ with Garcia in 1968. “Yeah, I learned some, and he taught me a couple.”  They went “up in the Sierra” on a hike together and talked like an “old friend, one of us.” Barney said they got stoned and “agreed to take over the world, share it between us like the Spanish and the Portuguese.” 

Rebecca and Mike’s Visual Surprise

Artgang, Rebecca and Mike, the well regarded Barney Historians, forward, for our viewing pleasure, this stiff visual from their extensive hoard, which is but a prelude to their forthcoming publication – an inside look that promises to blow the lid of the lid off.

I think that is Tony, the Vagabond Poet, on the swing (I’m told it’s not, sure looks like him though, so you could pretend it is, see comments), his lumbering walk with caftan and stick was an irregular visitor to San Francisco. Tony told me he knew Barney, then died last year, never having told me more. On a damp, foggy San Francisco night, his presence is often sensed on the corner of Haight and Ashbury still. 

That’s Lorry Sartorio Xed out in the T-shirt, in what may be an actual photograph taken by Colin Fulcher himself in 1964  (thanks for the date Randm), the pix was never used ‘cos the Muleskinners disbanded. (Odd coincidence, what with Barney and Gina Skinner’s son being Aten Skinner… and the Muleskinners.)

My brother Peter recently told me he last saw Lorry in London in about 1990, she looked a bit thin.

I’ve been thinking that if the Lorry photograph was taken in the same shoot as the others (Art CSI: wrinkled sheet detail the same!), as RandM tell me so, then credit could well be by me. I know I shot some of that shoot. I recall B mentioned it favorably once. When he won the award did it credit the photographer? Barney was certainly the art-director. Lorry obviously didn’t want her face used and Barney accommodated her wishes.

radar records images

That indefatigable pair of scamps, Reb’n'mike strike yet again with this awesome letterhead from their extensive cache, the mother-lode of Barney lore. The images look like stolen Leni R, aryan propaganda repurposed to some better use. Barney and I exchanged work at intervals and he sent me a parcel of items sometime between 1978 and 1982 (?) and this was included.

In addition, amongst the enclosures, there was the Devo 12 inch album, ‘Q. Are we not men’ with a completely different graphic than the golf ball cover, it had repetitive images in a grid on it. More than that I’m loth to try a recall, kinda A. Warhol, and I rather think it may have been a Barney design, I doubt if he would have sent it otherwise. Anybody know what I’m talking about?

Randm say that I gave away, as I did to a visitor, the only copy of the Stiff Devo album cover prototype.

Four quid for Faire fare is fair

Rebecca and Mike say that this ad design is by Barney, I’m sure it is designed by him. The order form is amusing (to me) for the way the form is spelt out as “My name is… and I live at” a style that B got off me, as opposed to the usual, inconsistent usage of ‘Your name…send me’ used in most forms of the time, he used it elsewhere too. We were both into making order forms work well from our days back in the order form biz.

But the drawing is not all his. It looks to me as though there are different hands at work here. The Heath Robinson inspired dottiness with birds on the left could be Barney, but I find the shadows and highlights on the nubile lady to be a bit cheap for his skills. One guess is that one of the band fancied hisself as an artist (it does happen) and Barney incorporated the art as a favour. But that thought is probably a wrongo too, as the drawing is based on obviously related (and secret) art sent by Reb n Mike. Those mushrooms could certainly be Barney’s though, we both shared a liking for the nipple-headed ’shrooms often found growing plentifully on suburban lawns, they have a pink spore print, but don’t take my word for it, the wrong ones can be a problem. 

Where is Barney when we need him to define his work? He should have stayed with ’schrooms and acid, that wine’s a killer, boy.

HULLO SWEET MISSY MOONSHINE

Kate Moon writes:

found another letter from barney. 

the words are:  HULLO SWEET MISSY MOONSHINE. Just saw the new Alan Aldridge book and hated it! You’re very right about it. Anyway, I don’t have anything to say to you except kisses and hugs and hope you like this cheer up picture for you. Quality and not quantity this time. Love to the other folks in your home and have a quick shavasana on me.

(heart) & peace Barney B. ps: dad has got foto stuff for you. I’ll phone during the week and see ya weekend. Love.

Kate is this 1977?

Kate says 1971 

No. Kate didn’t say that, my mistake, Kate said 1973, which ties in nicely with Reb ‘n Mike’s observation about the type on  ”Marjory Razorblade.”

The Aldridge book of 1973 was his ’The Butterfly Ball and the Grasshopper Feast’  book.

In Blissful Company

Cover of Quintessence ‘In Blissful Company’

This is one of the adverts Barney designed for the Quintessence LP ‘In Blissful Company’. He also designed the LP itself (together with John Muggeridge). 1969 was the year. John Muggeridge is in one of the photos you posted earlier (if our memory serves us well.) – RandM

Thanks for that Rebecca and Mike, John M is in the group shot for the cover of Oz 12 and in the photograph of us painting the Good Guyz Bus.

Pamela Poland goes back in time

Heart Throb

DW: I recently wrote to my heart throb, the former Columbia Records’ singer, Pamela Poland.

Salutations Mistress Pamela

I wonder could I nudge a memory or few out of you about Barney? Anything is good – what he wore, looked like, said, did – anything. The readers are quite fanatic about his person, not having experienced him live and feel they would have a better handle on his cleverness if only they could have met him. Have a go, I’m sure you have something, and your clever way with words would be so ducky.

Just to remind you, Barney and I met  you in 1967 on your way to find your dog Canina and Italy. It was at our LA friends, Gary and Carol Russoff’s flat, whom we had met a few months before in the ‘Front Room’ Indian restaurant on North End Road and we used to visit for entertainment, hashish, and tv.  

Pamela: Oh wow!!!!!

DW: Then I seem to recall we then met you randomly in Holland Park walkin’ the dawg. Barney and I were quite a funny act in those days and we amused you.

Pamela: That you did.

DW: Then in one day in ‘72 Barney phoned and told me you were at the studio with Gus Dudgeon… I was the Squeek for a few days. We got on well and you enticed me to Mill Valley, California, where we had an adventure.

Loose Passions

Pamela: You know, you did ask me this in the first letter some days ago, and this aging brain is not coming up with anything specific. I kind of remember what he looked like, but mostly I remember this very colorful, artistically FREE individual – highly creative, very original, but the *biggest* impression being this “free” quality – not held back by social constraints, formulas or pre-disposition. I really appreciated that about him. Remember how I used to do these long vocal jams in live performance? I used to have a similar kind of fearlessness as a singer, and I think Barney, you and I recognized each other as kindred spirits in that regard. We let our creative passions loose on the world without fear of criticism, because we knew we came here to *express* ourselves. And in your and Barney‘s case, that expression was also done with whimsy and delightfully good cheer.

If there‘s anything from the above you find useful, take of it what you will, Mr. Wills. If not, I‘m afraid I cannot serve your purpose because of too many years and fried brain cells gone “under the bridge. lovingly, p

DW: Just as I thought, you came up with the most apt insight, I’ve been trying to think what I forgot – and you ‘membered it, spot on. Barney had transcended his Tranmere Road, Whitton upbringing for sure. Thank you Pamela.

Roadhawks promo sticker

Mark Manning wrote: I just found your older reply to me back on gate keeper John’s blog -  I was MR D Rider then (old Hawklords never sleep) and was sussing the Paolozzi influence and you confirmed with some good stories -  did you ever meet EP (Paolozzi)?

DW: Not me.

MM: – did BB meet him?

DW: Yes, probably, as I mention elsewhere, when I visited Barney in May 1983 he proudly shewed me a folder of Paolozzi’s work someone had lent him. Although, as he said after his awful experience with meeting the sometimes anonymous collage movie maker Connor in San Francisco, “Don’t get too close to your heroes.”

MM: I was in an excited state at your great site – and quite emotional after seeing that BBs son found your site – fantastic well done – what a great thing to happen for you – dad – and son – fantastic – the stuff of life magic and all that.

… do you recognise this design attached from circa 74-  Roadhawks promo sticker ? Looks like the toothbrush came out for this stencil. Pretty sure it’s by BB but it may be by the chap who did the ‘other’ version ..dunno ?

DW: Sure, I’d say it could easily be a Barney B. It was probably printed litho, using artwork from a print, probably sprayed with a can of Japlac judging by the way the spray hits the bald spot in the middle. Too difficult to use a toothbrush on all that detail ! He’d have cut a stencil from his favored thin Bristol card, with the counters for the wing detail and clever face with the implied eye, lightly glued in position. Although I suppose it could have been an original stencil print, but not if they printed a lot, what with those face and wing counters having to be positioned. Life was different before ‘puter art…

Reminds me of the rubber stamp that the Moody Blues used when they first hit the scene, stamped ‘em as graffiti all over West London. Barney liked that, was disappointed when he found out they weren’t a Blues band.

I probably saw this art, since I used the same typeface, effed-up Braggadocio, when I cut the card stencils for the Street Lightnin’ Gang World Teleport, free world travel option.

Inner City Unit illustrations by Barney Bubbles

Rebecca and Mike: Here are some Inner City Unit illustrations by Barney Bubbles that were published in Cheesecake #4 (1981). Cheesecake was a zine published by Nazar Ali Khan, Inner City Unit bass player and friend of Barney’s. Check the toothbrushes in 1, maybe these are the type Barney used for his artwork? And the ‘DER’ in 3 will be familiar to those with an interest in the extended Damned discography. These pics are from Rebecca and Mike and Nazar’

Vroooom! Motor Racing with Graham Hill

These drawings are credited Colin Fulcher, but who by then was regularly called Barney.

David Lowbridge writes:

An uncited quote on Wikipedia has Graham Hill saying: “I’m an artist, the track is my canvas, and the car is my brush.” 

Thought you might like to see some spreads from an issue of Motor Racing that you and Barney did. I reckon (though I’m no expert) that this was the second issue that the two of you did — I know for sure that this isn’t the relaunch issue of the new design, that must’ve been May ‘68. 

The letters section (entitled “Write off”) is hilarious, both from the readers comments and the editors responses, and there’s much praise for the new look, here’s my favourite comment: 

“My oh my, MOTOR RACING how you have changed ! You are now a witty, lively, swinging, sizzling, fascinating prototype beauty. And boy, thanks for the fastgirl pull-out.” 

( – I wrote that – DW)

Design credits read thus — 

Art editor: Michael Rogers 

Design consultants: David Wills, Colin Fulcher (who was busy changing his name to Barny B. – DW)

Hope these brings pics bring you some joy, use whatever you see fit, or not at all as the case may be. 

Over and out, David. 

Funky Paul Olsen trips down Memory Lane

David Wills to Funky Paul Olsen: I’m often reminded of why you left England the first time (in 1967); it was when you were charged for a paper bag in Safeway that you thought should be free. Funny that. I’m collecting up ol’ memories –  with Giana and Aten Skinner, Kate Moon, Judi Cowper, Pat Synge, Bob Wagner, Phil Franks, and you, recounting it all makes a vivid picture.

Paul Olsen: I moved into 307 on December 21, 1969 and lived in the first floor front room, over the “shop” front, and moved out in May of 1970. I had my huge Monopoly painting on the wall in my room, plus lots of my Fillmore and Avalon posters.

DW: And Barney was stoned on LSD a good part of the time… 

PO: – aint that the truth,

DW: Got anything to add to the Barney memories

Old Candy wrappers

PO: Not much….Barney stayed with me part of the time he was in SF…. 1069 Church street… between 20th and 21st… that’s where he came and stayed with me. I don’t know where else he stayed. I remember him being so overwhelmed at being in San Francisco where it was all happening, and that he took LSD one day and wandered down to the park nearby where I lived where they were having a fair, and he came back with some old candy wrappers exclaiming how beautiful they were… he was flying.

Wills: These were some of his choices.

“Flying saucers,” candy buttons, Appleheads, Atomic Fireballs, Bazooka Gum (10-pack), Boston baked beans, Bottlecaps, bubblegum cigar, bubblegum cigarettes, candy cigarettes, candy lipstick, candy necklace, Charms Pop, Cherryheads, Chuckles, gold mine gum, Good N Plenty, Bit-O-Honey, Grapeheads, hot dog bubblegum, Jawbreakers, Tootsie Pops, Jujubes, JujyFruits, Lemonheads, Clark Bar, Milk Duds, Necco Wafers, Nik-L-Nip wax bottles, Pez, Dum Dum suckers, Fun Dip (also calked Lik-M-Aid), Pixy Stix, pumpkin seeds, Red Hots, Razzles, Ring Pop, Slo-Poke, Smarties, Pay Day bar, Sugar Babies, Sugar Daddy sucker, Sweetarts, Tootsie Roll, Twizzler licorice and wax lips.

Olsen:: Huge Kebab sitdown

Then he wrote to me either later in ‘68 or early ‘69 saying he was working on getting this building (307) and would I like to come and live there with him… he reserved the biggest room for me, and I moved over December 21, 1969. I wanted to move to England after having been there with you two. We all used to go up to a Greek café in Golborne road and have a fabulous huge kebab sitdown meal for 6 shillings… it would be the only meal of the day and really filled you up.

By the way, one of my best friends over here… David Bailie, who I met in 1970, lives in Rugby Mansions, just around the corner from Avonmore Road in Bishop Kings road! He was the pirate with the parrot on his shoulder (“Cotton”) in all the Pirates of the Caribbean” movies…it certainly set him up for his retirement!

House full of friends

One of the guys who lived in 307 had a second-hand record stall in Kensington Market (I loved that place) and we used to go up there and visit with him during the day…but I can’t remember much else of what did together other than have the occasional jam. Quiver were rehearsing in the freezing, dank, dirty and small basement. Barney took the box room on the first landing and insisted it was what he wanted….just big enough for a single bed…he just liked having a house full of friends…and it was fun. But I moved in a girl fairly straight away and we started looking for a flat which we finally found in Barnes, and we lived there for 4 years and she lived there for another 3 and now lives in Sheen, so I was getting busy with my new life in my new country, and not too involved with Barney those first 5 months.

And when we moved out in May of ‘70, I pretty much lost touch with Barney…. I may have seen him once or twice after that.

Ringoes “Sure Rod.”

Did you read or see where Ringo announced (he lives nearby…you should see his palace!) a few weeks ago that he wasn’t going to sing any more autographs? Well, at Kenney’s party, Rod Stewart walked over to Ringo’s table and said, “Ringo, can I have your autograph please?”

Pat Synge sets the scene

Hi Pat (Synge): Having read your comment in the Barneylog I see that you mention you were living in/on Portobello when 307 was humming.  I asked Reb ‘n Mike gave to give me your code, so I presumptuously ask if you have any first hand Barney recollections or comment on his work and his wonders in the deep thereof. Help us recall the old dude in all ll his quirky wonder. 

I expect Barney’s memory needs a bit more there there before we forget.

Hi David: I was just out of art school (18) and had a photo darkroom in the basement at 307 for a time (must have been in ’69). I lived just the other side of the bridge in a room above an Indian shop where all the other rooms were lived in/used by prostitutes. They were very kind to the young hippy in their midst. I was a budding photographer but, in reality, was mainly printing Eric Hayes’ work. I took some photos of Quintessence for Barney (they used to practice in the other half of the basement which was far from ideal) which he credited to Pat Mescal for some reason.

Barney was always much in demand and under pressure to not only produce art work but to give of himself. Everybody wanted part of him.  I remember feeling that his generosity was being taken advantage of but that may have just been an impression. Certainly the house upstairs was a confusion and procession of people crashing, using the phone freely and generally making themselves at home. Great atmosphere in general but sometimes I felt that Barney was being overrun and that all he really wanted was his studio and good company.

 I couldn’t handle it all and left London (’70?)  (Phil Franks took over the ‘White Light’ darkroom) and went to live in N. Wales with Giana (and Hazelberry – the tripped out red setter). She returned to London and Barney (’71?) before they moved to west country just after Aten was born. I remember driving them there in my old Kombi. Barney and I remained friends throughout though it was complicated somewhat by the triangular relationship and the chemically induced confusion of the times. I was very saddened (but not really surprised) when I learnt of Barney’s suicide.

 I left UK and went off ocean sailing in the early seventies but did catch up with Barney when I visited London in 75 (?) when he confided interesting details about his ‘work’ in Ireland.  I now live in Tasmania and that period in my life seems so distant.

 I came across some letters from him not so long ago (that had been in my parents’ house for decades and were sent to me when the house was sold) and was surprised to learn that he had wanted me to be Aten’s godfather (I must have known but, like so many things back then, it didn’t register). This led me to do some searching and made contact with Aten through Facebook and then through him contacted Giana. Next time I’m in the UK (?) I look forward to catching up with them.

Admiration, respect, love, an element of sadness and sometimes frustration are the sentiments that come to me when thinking of him. He was one of the best and touched and inspired many of us in so many ways.

 Regards, Pat Synge

 

 

Clover cover: mechanical drawing of a leaf

Reb and Mike: If you were to un-explode and un-cutaway the object depicted, you would end up with a four-leaf clover. (And the toothbrush clearly got put to work on this artwork too!)

Nazar: Barney was full of ideas. I think he was interested in the indeterminacy of matter and in the role of the observer in the perception of an object. He once grabbed a book called “Anatomy of the Motor Car” off his shelf and showed me a drawing of a V12 engine. “Look at this, Naz, it could be a city!” Soon after he died, I found a second hand copy of the same book and still keep it on my bookshelf

Here’s a scan of the engine drawing that Barney showed me. It’s a 3-litre Matra V12 engine.

While this is a technical illustration, the drawing does have a West Coast vibe to it! However, in the ongoing “Barney – West Coast or Not” debate, I would put myself on the “Not” side. 

DW: Explain.

Nazar: “West Coast” is usually mentioned by the ex-Hawkwind crowd when there’s an early seventies revivalist project in the offing and they need artwork (not Nik Turner, I hasten to add). I can think of, maybe, two pieces by Barney for HW that might have some West Coast styling, but otherwise remain unconvinced…

DW: Barney woulda’ disliked being tabbed as anything as limiting as ‘West Coast.’ West End maybe, I would think you could call him very cockney hip. School of Dan Leno.

New Anatomy

Nazar: As promised, here are some pictures of the New Anatomy artwork, which was done by me but carries the echo of Barney.

The images are of the front and back of the album sleeve, a detail from the front, and the t-shirt (which was actually designed first).

The front cover has the phrase “Concrete Hides” layered over the artwork. The rear cover says “Seek” at the centre and has a face collaged into the molecule.

Thanks for your interest. As mentioned, I would be happy to contribute more to your site and will gather my thoughts. My own site, currently being overhauled, lives over here -

http://www.scipop.com

By the way, I saw the Snow White painting over at Barney’s place in St Pauls’s Road.

Cheers, Nazar

Purkinje Patterns: Great Flickering Fingers – it’s the Dreamachine!

Cut-ups and the Dreamachine

Here’s something for the Hawkwind crowd – how Barney amused himself. Gysin was the guy who taught Burroughs to do cut-ups. Here Gysin describes the lowdown heads-up on one Barney the Entertainer’s (p)arty tricks. You probably all know that Barney got his cut-up text ideas for that Hawkwind booklet off Bill Burroughs, who in turn worked with and was influenced by poet Brion Gysin. But did you know that one of Barney entertainments used Gysin’s discovery of the Dreamachine? read all about it here.

Strange News: Key to Hallucinations Found

By Jen Palmares Meadows, Scientific Blogging

Almost fifty years ago, the beat poet Brion Gysin (1916 – 1986), described a visual hallucination that he experienced while riding a bus:

…Had a transcendental storm of colour visions today in the bus going to Marseille. We ran through a long avenue of trees and I closed my eyes against the setting sun. An overwhelming flood of intensely bright patterns in supernatural colours exploded behind my eyelids: a multidimensional kaleidoscope whirling out through space. I was swept out of time. I was in a world of infinite number. The vision stopped abruptly as we left the trees. Was that a vision? What happened to me? (Brion Gysin, 21 December 1958)

Gysin, a writer and performance artist, though known for his discovery of the cut-up technique, which inspired writers like William S. Burroughs, was also the co-inventor (along with scientist Ian Sommerville) of the Dreamachine, a stroboscopic flicker device designed to be viewed with the eyes closed and produces visual stimuli.

At the end of his documentation, Gysin asks, “Was that a vision? What happened to me?”

PURKINJE PATTERNS

According to Dominic ffytche of the Institute of Psychiatry in London, and author of ‘The Hodology of Hallucinations,’ a study recently published in an issue of Cortex, “Fifty years on we are able to answer Gysin’s question.” Gysin’s hallucinations were quite similar to what Jan Purkinje (1787-1869), the father of contemporary neuroscience, experienced as a child.

“I stand in the bright sunlight with closed eyes and face the sun. Then I move my outstretched, somewhat separated, fingers up and down in front of the eyes, so that they are alternately illuminated and shaded. In addition to the uniform yellow-red that one expects with closed eyes, there appear beautiful regular figures that are initially difficult to define but slowly become clearer. When we continue to move the fingers, the figure becomes more complex and fills the whole visual field. (Purkinje, 1819)

When Purkinje moved his fingers, he simulated an effect similar to that of Gysin’s Dreamachine.

http://www.livescience.com/strangenews/081123-hallucinations.html

And check this, out.

http://pendu.wordpress.com/2008/03/28/william-s-burroughs-brion-gysin-the-cut-ups/#comment-13

Thanksgiving at the A1GGZ 1968

A Serigraph by Judi Cowper while at Art School in London in 1968 of her husband Billy – a good friend of Barney. Judy stayed at Leigh Court with the A1GGZ, says Judi, “Since we were at odds with the political status quo at the time, I figured a new flag was in order.”

My First Thanksgiving Turkey, by Judi Cowper

Bill and I went to London the end of summer 1968.

We arrived at Southampton and made our way to London with Richard. We went to a recommended B&B (probably because it was so cheap) and we dutifully inspected the room. It was quite large, had 3 beds, and the toilet was right next door. We paid the agreed upon price and went out to inspect the neighborhood. We found a Wimpey Burger and had burgers. We slid into a booth and unwrapped our burgers. Bill had hair slightly below his ears, and Richard had a lovely head of hair, but not overly long… nevertheless, everyone in the place was staring at us. It was 1968 and there was lots of long hair in London… finally we realized they were staring because everyone else in the restaurant was eating their burgers with a knife and fork.  Bill stood up and announced, “We invented em and we’ll eat ‘em as we like.” He sat down and we proceeded to ‘tuck in’ to our burgers.

The nonmoving bed

That night we returned to the B&B and fell into our first nonmoving bed. We had been on the ship for 10 days and still had not gotten our land legs back. In the middle of the night Richard got up and let out a shriek. We turned on the lights,  and Richard was standing on the carpet that was an inch deep with water and the walls were actually running with water…burbling over the moldy growths… we eventually all got to sleep, after Richard took a full roll with assorted lenses so we would have the event captured forever!

The next morning we set out to find new lodgings. I am not sure just where we went or who sent us there, but we wound up at an office and were given an address… we have a devil of a time finding the place… no GPS or map quest… and it was a road that was only a couple of blocks long.

We eventually found  1A Leigh Court . It was up some stairs, we knocked on the door… it was opened by this grinning guy who grabbed my suitcase and ushered us down a long hall.  Thus began my association with Bubbles and Squeak.

Empathy strikes

I know, I still haven’t  gotten to the Thanksgiving dinner. Barney Bubbles AKA Colin Fulcher was our greeter. He and Bill had an immediate affinity for each other.   Bill could be difficult, he has a huge past of abuse and rejection, he was an ugly drunk, but he had a marshmallow heart and Barney caught that part.

Barney Bubbles, a one of a kind. He was so full of enthusiasm, love for his fellow man/woman, and a bright and shiny attitude about life. I met his demons later. He set us up in the living room (sitting room) which we shared with Rob, an American draft-dodger, and later on Rachel and Richard… she made jewelry and I have no clue what he did, I can’t even remember what he looked like. Rachel was very soft looking and they came and left in a short time. Rod was in the far corner, my memory of him was reclining and spouting  anti-military statements. He and Bill agreed on that, as Bill went to jail instead of going to the draft.

Living arangements

Peter and some others occupied a bedroom in the middle of the hall. I seem to remember a bunk bed set up of some sort. The first room, just inside the door was the studio and I think Barney slept there.

(No that was my room, but I think I may have been in out’a town, could be wrong –DW)

Now that I think about it, I am not sure just where David’s bed was.  The bathroom came next and then the kitchen, with the sitting room at the end of the hall.

I think there was no fridge because we kept the milk outside the windowsill. The British guys were way more interested in clothes than food, and drank a lot of tea with milk, but weren’t  big on food.

On to the Feast.

The English weren’t much on turkeys, so I had to special order one from Safeway. I had gotten a job at some modeling agency near Marble Arch…they hired me because my dress was short enough, (thank you Daphne for the purple and green dress, you made it and you are 6 inches shorter than I thus the length) and so I had a paycheck coming in. I worked at a department store in Guildford giving out Jules Duval Cyprus Sherry… I decanted and brought home all varieties.

Black-currant jelly on the turkey

So, Safeway gets in the turkey. I had never cooked one before by myself, but I was determined that I should share our customs. I don’t actually remember all the side dishes, but I did use black currant jelly instead of cranberries, and I still prefer it. I did mashed potatoes, stuffing, gravy and turkey. I don’t remember dessert, I hope it was pumpkin pie, but I doubt I found pumpkin in the grocery store. I don’t remember all the guests, I think Gary and Carol, the American couple, as well as Peter and David Wills, Barney Bubbles, Rod the Draftdodger, and Bill and I. There may have been others, I don’t remember the actually eating part, just all the preparations. I don’t think there were even that many plates, it was a guy pad before I arrived, and I didn’t feel like I should intrude on the system. I do remember that people talked about the meal long after the event, which really pleased me. Many years later Barney brought it up as a fond memory.

West–Ken Story

Wills: I think there was a problem around the washing-up after the meal. I think this eventually led up to Barney leaving A1 Leigh Court.

The office where Judi and Bill found us was the Arts Lab switchboard. I left our A1 address there as a crash pad, “Visitors from San Francisco welcome” much to Barney’s surprise, then he got into it. He happily told me that Judy and Bill were arriving. I was down in Poole when they arrived. Judi tells me my brother Peter was living there at the time.

If David Medala(Sp?) is reading, it’d be fun to have his eyes up on Barney.

 

Bob Wagner: He has pictures!

bob wagner Says: 

Hi
looking through your site …..
I was at Twickenham at the same time (in the same year as Lorry)
some things strike me ….
the other person in the picture with Lorry and Barney is Jim Martin. he is also in the OZ cover pic …. also in that picture bottom right is Stephen Goy (same year Twickenham)..
Also I am still very good friends with Roy Burge (an original A1 good guy!)
I think that I also have colour pics of the van and a scooter painted by the boys …. contact me if you want to know more …..

Wills: Wow, the Mickey Mouse scooter! anybody got a copy of any of Fulcher/Barney’s movies including the school Cowboy flick? Any contacts with others of the Twickenham diaspora?

Brian Griffin’s photographs for Copyright 1978

 

David Lowbridge: How’s tricks? First things first: Ask Brian Griffin if it’s ok to use his photographs.

Brian Griffin: Please use them, for anything to promote Barney’s work is fine by me. I remember so much but some of it is so difficult. 

David Lowbridge:  Second thing second: attached are some pics of the Copyright 1978 book, hope they’re of use? The image of the two men looking at the three sheets of paper was taken in 1975 and is entitled “At the end of Jensen Motors”. Brian talks about this photograph over at John Coulthart’s place, here’s what he said: 

“One day Car Magazine presented three drawings to the executives of Jensen, suggesting if they adopted these ideas, Jensen could be saved. The executives showed little interest.” 

Third thirdly: I’ve also attached a couple of pics of the Johnny Moped single, “Little Queenie”, as the back cover features a similar image to one in Copyright 1978 (I’ve photographed them next to each other so you can make a direct comparison). Note the square purple frame over the image on the single. 

Just show what you fancy to your avid viewers! 

“Insolence Across The Nation” vamped Barney

Nazar Ali Khan writes:

We Dream Deep Dreams Of The Mystery

Nik Turner had shown Barney some of my graphics and suggested that I come down to meet him at Phoenix Studios in London, sometime in 1981. Barney’s Imperial Pompadours album “Ersatz” was being recorded at Phoenix. Trev Thoms and Dino Ferrari from Inner City Unit were there, along with Jamie Roberts, who was engineering the session. Barney had asked Trev to play the riff to “I Want To Come Back From The World Of LSD” backwards. We all went for lunch at a local cafe.

“Ersatz” was released in 1982. Along with its cut and paste rock’n’roll covers, the album also featured “Insolence Across The Nation”, Barney’s soundscape about Ludwig II of Bavaria, Wagner, and Hitler, which takes up the entire second side of the record (and that was the short version). Barney had produced the “We Dream Deep Dreams Of The Mystery” illustration to accompany “Insolence”. It was published in issue 5 of my ‘zine Cheesecake in 1981.

The “D” in “dream” was created by the crescent of the new moon viewed through a window. Ludwig was the Moon King.

A second Pompadours project was planned.

A simple cardboard model.

This was to be Jake’s house, commissioned by Jake Riviera for a site in London’s docklands. The model showed a jet plane that had crashed fully into a large concrete block. The jet was to be based on the McDonnell Douglas Phantom. Barney said that he liked the idea of a plane called the Phantom.

Wings and tail fin protruded through the concrete. A rippled roof represented the impact of the collision on the concrete and Barney’s ongoing interest in the malleability of matter. The “fuselage” of the plane would be hung through the length of the house. Services would be located here. “You can do the technical drawings Naz,” said Barney.

One afternoon at architectural school, I had taken one of my presentation drawings off the drawing board and over to his house. Barney looked at it. Hmm…have this bit in grey and have a white line here.

I had eschewed the usual lighter fluid, film, and razor blades of architectural drafting and was using white card for my presentations. At Barney’s, I would also see white card, fine pencil lines and Rotring pens.

“When I draw, I go into a state of grace,” he told me.

Barney’s views on architecture were, as always, readily available. Barney said that he didn’t like the International Style and preferred vernacular architecture. He also said that he liked the Baroque as much as he liked Modernism. On his bookshelf were two books that I also had, Rem Koolhaas’s Delirious New York and the big Thames and Hudson volume on El Lissitzky (although he thought that Lissitzky “was a hack”).

The windows to the bedroom in Jake’s house would be blackened out. Letters were to be cut out of the black. The headlights of passing cars would project these letters onto the bedroom walls as a concrete poem.

The second Pompadours project was to be a film featuring Jake’s house. This was the “Celtic Project”.

“When I say Celtic, I mean like a red flag on the coast,” said Barney.

The main protagonist of the film was to be the pilot of the crashed plane, cast as an archetypal Arthurian figure. The wings and tail fin of the plane protruding through the concrete block were, of course, the sword in the stone.

There were no drawings in the end. Jake’s house was shelved due to finances.

 A Proune by El Lissitzky

El Lisitzky’s ‘Beat the Whites with the Red Wedge,’ see comments below by Naz and RandM

Barney playing guitar pictured by Funky Paul deep inside 307 Portobello Road

Funky Paul reports from deep in Ladbroke Grove, March 1970, at 307 Portobello, with Barney on guitar at left. What chord is Barney fingering on what Paul thinks is an L5? Paul’s painting of the Monopoly board on the wall.

Barney laughing at right at 307 with John Rewind, 1970. Rewind is playing the guitar named, “American Pickle,” a 335 that Funky Paul painted for him at Funky Features in the Haight Ashbury (on Central where the Church of  John Coltrane would later be) just before he left for England to arrive on December 21, 1969.

David Lowbridge kindly sent word of this hidden hoard of Paul Olsen photographs, thanks to both of you.

Mucha Blonde in B.Bubbles heist

RandM: great play we saw yesterday.

http://www.thecourtyard.org.uk/whatson/36/hit-me-the-life-rhymes-of-ian-dury

obviously bb and dury have a BIG link (although not referred to in the play)

Wills to RandM: What needs writing is Barney’s highly developed graphic larceny, his magic way of ’stealing’ from sources that made them entirely his.

RandM: When you write a post about Barney’s larceny, (see above) you may use this image as the header if you like (if you find it interesting and a suitable example). On the left is ‘The Blonde’ by Alphonse Mucha 1897. On the right is the cover of a Hawkwind tour programme by Barney Bubbles 1974. It’s interesting how so many details (big and small) carry across both. We also think Barney’s winter colour palette on his version is very well chosen. Best wishes, Rebecca and Mike

Wills: I writ a post that got lost, unsaved, in electroland on Barney influences from on stage. Brecht, Ionesco. You can imagine. Barney’s time in Ladbroke Grove in the thick of the ol’ Cockney grifter, snitch and fence operations wasn’t wasted (see previous post deep in the ‘Grove).

So, here for you to ogle, RandM produce from their tucker-bag of charms another wizbang viz with this gender bending transformation from the blonde wiles of Mme. Habsburg Strasse, Vienna, 1897; to the Hawkman of Portobello London, 1974, nicked fair and square.

The colors are probably chosen from that Victorian book of decoration printed in something like 36 colors litho from Mr A. Senefelder’s limestone, that Twickenham Art school declared obsolete, and was appropriated by the nimble fingers of Filcher Fulcher.

An obvious blatant Barney borrowing, angle for angle, is the viscous Nazi eagle on another Hawkwind cover. Which, now that I look more at it, isn’t as good an example of a crib as I had thought, just close, (so I took the nasty thing off the post) but I bet there’s an even more obvious obvious stylized version somewhere that Herr Bubbles appropriated. Plus while we’re at it, RandM kindly alert me to the fact that the version I had posted is a bastardized Barney – so here for your education is the original with searchlights shown first, and the fake version next to it.

Barney signed this album cover, so RandM tell me, ‘Grove Lane’ in the lower right. In Barney’s words ”I’m calling myself Grove Lane (after a street where my friend lives)” – quoted from a letter he famously wrote to Tony Hyde – co-designer of Hawkwind’s ‘Astounding Sound; Amazing Music Album.’  See the whole shebang at: 

http://www.aural-innovations.com/robertcalvert/hawkwind/barneyast.htm 

Seem to do a recall that a teacher (maybe Mathews?) at Twickers gave the green light for students in Fulcher’s year to blatantly crib. Maybe Bob Wagner will verify. It was a newly acceptable dodge, acknowledging in a new way the traditional hand-me-down skills of ‘derivation’  in a very traditional school, and was noticeable in some of the students work that year. Bob Priest (sometime art ed on Esquire and who worked with me at Spectator Publications) was, I think, another of that year’s talented crop that included rocker ‘Mac’ McClagan. Hows about some of the old memories kids? .

The exotic Hawklords tour programme and Rem Koolhaas’ Delirious New York

Photograph by the grace of Chris Gabrin

The following conversation was conducted in the Van Dieman’s Land of the comments dept. below, but is so central and interesting to the whole shebang of Barney’s work I thought to include it as an item. Enjoy. Nazar can be found here: Nazar Ali Khan

 

Nazar Ali Khan: The 1978 Hawklords tour programme makes interesting reading if you’ve read Delirious New York by Rem Koolhaas (published in 1978). The text, which still has HW fans scratching their heads, has been posted here -

http://www.starfarer.net/hawklords_programme.html

David WIlls: You can read Rem Koolhaas at http://www.scribd.com/doc/202962/Delirious-New-York

Here’s the intro from the Hawklords tour programme: 

“Strong in Hygienic Industry
Founded in 1953, by a dream concurrent with space flight to the moon, Pan Transcendental Industries, together with macroscale investment from the state and corporate capital, found it possible to embark on a wholesale megastructural rehabilitation of the globe. A dream which soon became an enlightened reality and one from which the majority of the world’s population benefit today.”

And here a quote from ‘Delirious’ in which Koolhaas is describing aspects of Coney Island:

“SPHERE
The sphere appears throughout Western architectural history, generally coinciding with revolutionary movements. To the European Enlightenment it was a simulacrum of the world, a secular counterpart of the world, a secular counterpart of the cathedral; typically, it was a monument and, in its entirety, hollow.
It is the American genius of Samuel Friede, inventor of the Globe Tower, to exploit the Platonic solid in a series of pragmatic steps. For him the globe, ruthlessly divided into floors, is simply a source of unlimited square footage. The larger it is, the more immense these interior planes; since the Globe itself will need only a single, negligible point of contact with the earth, the smallest possible site will support the largest reclaimable territory. As revealed to investors, the tower’s blueprints show a gigantic steel planet that has crashed onto a replica of the Eiffel Tower, the whole ‘designed to be 700 feet high, the largest building in the world with enormous elevators carrying visitors to the different floors.’ ”

Personally I can’t see much stylish correlation between the two, I chose this quote because of the reference to the Globe Tower. I’m fairly sure that the Hawklord text was a Burroughs type ‘cut up’ generated text, and the Koolhaas text a rational exploration of architectural principles, but I do know that Barney was excited by Dutch (I think it was) architectural ideas. The globe on a spike reminds me of Barney’s idea for a block of concrete pierced by a Phantom jet described elsewhere in these posts.

Maybe Naz could explain why he thinks there’s a connection?

Nazar: Barney certainly had a copy of Delirious New York, as I’ve mentioned elsewhere, and was enthusiastic about the book and its ideas. Delirious New York was introduced to me by my tutor when I was a second year student at college, almost as a last resort, as my interests in Constructivism and Suprematism were considered deeply unfashionable at the time! Koolhaas is one of the most famous architects in the world now. A former screenwriter, his theory of ‘Manhattanism”, drew together Coney Island, the Rockefeller Centre, Dali, the Constructivist idea of the social condenser, and the formal 3D abstractions of the Suprematists. In the appendix to the book, there are theoretical projects based on this theory.

Some ideas from the book are woven into the Hawklords story. For example, Koolhaas’s proposition that the elevator enabled the stacking of horizontal planes that incubated their own ideological programme is reflected in the “elevator principle” of the Hawklords text. There are similarities in the text too -

Rem Koolhaas: “At these moments the purpose of the Captive Globe, suspended at the center of the City, becomes apparent: all these institutes together form an enormous incubator of the World itself; they are breeding on the Globe.”

Hawklords: “Projects developing under ideal and identical conditions have the right to expand indefinitely toward heaven. Together these institutes form an enormous incubator of the World itself. They are breeding on the Globe.”

rebecca and mike: 
beautifully put nazar. you’re talking about deep content here; not just the froth on the top of a cappuccino. some people just hone in on the bondage pics and think that’s the lot when it comes to the hawklords booklet, so it’s great to read you turning this stuff over.

Wills: Looks like I chose the right quote, ‘Sphere’ from ‘Delirious.’ I can see there there certainly is a word-for-word connection. I was in Rem’s library in Seattle a couple of months ago, a very ‘cool house’ as they say up there. As you come down an elevator there’s a hole ‘broken’ in the wall where you can see all the internal wiring and insulation stuffing.

Hmm. I think I may have seen ‘Delirious’ at Barney’s studio, does it have pictures of Coney Island with drawings on top, 8 x 10 newsprint with squared-up half tones in space?

Maybe Hawklords was a cut-up of ‘Delirious’ with ad ons?

Particle physics and quantum mechanics art for Barney to crib from

Coming at ya Barney! Here are some particle physics and quantum mechanics art for Barney to crib from in his Skilled Burglar mode.

Above are two items I stole from a book of photographs recently published that features creative science pictures, i’ll find out the name of the book soon and this will become a review.

Nazar comment from a while back: I did the artwork for New Anatomy, which was ICU’s post-Barney album. All the artwork, including ads and t-shirts, was based on conversations that I’d had with Barney about his interests in particle physics and quantum mechanics.

•••

To add to this post in the spirit of it all, I give a heads-up on AlphaInventions who have brought so many viewereaders to this noble sight. Ladies and gints I give you a random (Hi RandM) inheritor of Barney’s popularization of the William Burroughs cut-up aesthetic. 

A bit of a find here – Stiff compliments slip and an old newspaper cutting

From Deepinder: A bit of a find here – I posted up my Stiff compliments slip on flickr, and having alerting M&R to this – they stumbled on the inner sleeve of the Astounding sounds LP by Hawkwind, and looking closely they noticed this…  please compare the enclosed!

Dr.Z and Swain’s borderline round the bend

David Lowbridge supplies this reproduction that shows the split.

I think all the covers should be reproduced full sized.

The photographs below of the Dr.Z album cover are taken from the site of Collectable records at

http://www.collectable-records.ru/groups2/dr_z/soul.htm

Wills: When I originally posted the cover as shown at the top, incorrectly I guessed it as a Hawkwind  album, about which RandM, corrected me as follows.

RandM: David: That is not a Hawkwind album as you have written. ‘Dr Z’ is the name of the band, and the name of the LP is ‘Three Parts to My Soul’. Interestingly, the name of the LP is only revealed when you open the front flaps: the phrase ‘Spiritus Manus et Umbra’ which you can see before opening the flaps is what those ‘3 parts of the soul’ actually are.

The pic shown is a slightly ‘patched-up’ version of the original (ie the split down the middle has been photoshopped out. [DW says : I have subsequently replaced that image with one that does show the split]) And incidentally, even the Japanese CD issue (which is often used as a cheap way to picture the original LP) has a difference to the original LP if you look closely enough. If you want to see the real thing and all it’s aspects, best to take a look here. http://www.collectable-records.ru/groups2/dr_z/soul.htm

You’ll find more borders to marvel at!

Corrected Wills post: Peering more closely at the above rather titchy sized repro of the Dr Z  album cover (not Hawkwind as I originally credited), I discern that the decoration on the borders of DR Z are, most def, taken from a Swain’s type catalogs from about 1895 (or one of Swains predecessors). It was 4 inches thick with a black cover and gold embossed logo.

On Dr.Z the convoluted Victoriana borders, the corner-pieces, or ’round-the-bends,’ on the front cover are based on an early rustic, stick-gothick interlacing from about 1845. The borders on the inside are from the same source, but later. Swains never threw anything away, were in business for a very long time, and so had a complete history of their victorian type and wingdings. Using the book was an excuse for a good ol’ winter knees-up, the wazygoosey in celebration of the time in October when the candles were first lit in the comp-room, the theme of one party way back in 1962 on Peterborough Road in Parson’s Green.

I originally got the book in ‘63, off a school chum and roomie, Chris Higson, he said, “Keep it, you’re the designer.”  It had a slip of paper 4×3 ins. inside the front cover announcing the conversion of type sizes from ‘Small Pearl’ and the Pica system, to the new Point system. Based on a measurement of close to, but not exactly, one 72nd of an inch, it was a measurement pretty much totally unrelated to anything rational. In turn, I gave the Swains book to Barney in 1969, in the ongoing spirit of interstudio borrowings.

Swains specialized in borders and had pages and pages of the various dangly bits, swashes, rules, interlaced gargoyles and assorted Victoriana that could, if you’re really stoned, and squint, lovingly recreate the drama, in all its primitive flux, of Donkey Kong (As RandM jokingly mention in comments. I say more than likely Donkey K borrowed from Disney.)

Post Type: Anybody into this who hasn’t been there should get on over to John C’s place very fast, see amazing art of the staggeringly cool:

http://www.johncoulthart.com/feuilleton/2008/12/03/reasons-to-be-cheerful-part-3-a-barney-bubbles-exclusive/

 

Hi David, Here is something for your blog if you wish to use it. Best, rANDm: Whilst in recent conversation with John Coulthart, we were reminded of an anecdote that Justin de Blank once shared with us, which is another key in the unlocking of Barney’s graphic larceny. Barney gave a drawing to Justin de Blank (circa1968) which was based on Goya’s pair of paintings ‘La Maja Desnuda’ (The Nude Maja) and ‘La Maja Vestida’ (The Clothed Maja), both painted around 1800. Justin recalled to us that Barney’s attitude was pretty much ‘why do 2 separate paintings: I can do it all in 1 picture’. Hence in Barney’s drawing the lady is half nude and half clothed! Perhaps this resonates some memories out of your own grey matter?

Wills: What immediately comes to mind is that, contradicting Lewlew’s report, below, some say Goya may have imagined the nude version. In this scenario Goya painted the Maja clothed first, wearing bosom support, then ‘unclothed’ her but with no adjustment for gravity. He then simply replaced the Desnuda with the Vestida, thus satisfying the prurient Inquisition. 

Or, if it was from life, her position is changed – her form is that of the Maja lying flat on her back looking up, with her feet slightly raised, not torso raised on pillows as here – Goya has rotated the image to raise her head by 38.5 degrees anti-clockwise (or widdershins as a contemporary British witch may have said).

CSI/Art Division. Forgive me – this is the sort of thing some artists’ enjoy…

No! Aha! I see it all now. This is an arial view looking down from up a six foot ladder, forget the cushions, black them out, you’re looking down from directly above, at the Maja on her back, feet slightly raised. Goya, sitting on a ladder with a drawing board and a imperial-sized paper, would have drawn Ms Maja on two sheets of paper, since she was long and the paper not, and joined them, the figure is a collage of two drawings – the legs seem to be smaller and further away than the head and arms. Keen students may try ‘Shopping it around, enlarge the legs x 126%. If the model is on her back, the head and arms are in an easy, relaxed, head back, resting on the palms pose, but, when sitting up as it appears here, it is very stylish, but looks rather awkward to perform for long. The cushions have been artfully rearranged to suit Goya’s desired effect. Verdict: From life , with art. Innocent.

•••

Barney B at Twickenham art school: I recall that while graduate Chris Higson wrote his thesis on Piccaso’s Guernica, (see the Picasso in a box on Bubbles ‘Gracious ‘ cover – coming soon to blog near you), Michael Jackson studied Goya’s Maja. It may have been his thesis where I got the idea that the figure is two drawings, drawn from above. (Hi Mick Jackson.) Fulcher would have seen both thesis in ‘59 and had a long memory.

Barney’s drawing would be a reminder to his mentor, Justin de B., of just what was possible when working with the Barney Brand.

I crib from lewlew on Goya at the following site

http://lewlew.wordpress.com/2006/03/13/lets-yak-about-art-francisco-goya/

Lewlew: The painting that did land Goya in front of the Spanish Inquisition was The Nude Maja. He was commanded to report who comissioned the painting; if he did reveal who did, the information wasn’t ever made public. Goya did paint another depiction of the same woman, dubbed The Clothed Maja, because of pressure from Spanish society. He refused to paint clothing directly over The Nude Maja. According to the Wikipedia article on The Nude Maja, it’s supposedly the first painting in Western art to include pubic hair. In 1930, two sets of stamps of The Nude Maja were produced in Spain, but the US barred the risque stamps and sent back all mail with the offending images.

Boss Stiff Devo cover plus Boff Prof in Bubbles’ book Barney

Hi folks. Not sure of the details on this Devo cover, I know it is  Griffin and Barney’s work, but beyond that I’ll rely on the legions of Barney Irregulars to fill me in. 

I was directed to the source of these great works by AlphaInventions who told me of a French speaking person, Vivon, whose address is: 

http://vivonzeureux.blogspot.com/2008/12/devo-be-stiff.html,

Vivon had accessed  the sights above, so I lifted them from the page with fearless bravado and wished Vivon merci.

In other matters … 

Rick Poynor succinctly writes about the Fulcher, known as Barney B, and his ways at: http//designobserver.com

Here is an excerpt from his review of Reasons to be Cheerful.

Rick Poynor: “Bubbles badly needed a monograph and now, finally, he has one, Paul Gorman’s Reasons to be Cheerful: The Life and Work of Barney Bubbles. Gorman has pulled off a feat no one else has managed and I wish I liked the book more. Bitten by the Bubbles bug as a teenage music fan, he is a journalist and music writer, with an interest in fashion, and he published an excellent oral history about the music press.

 Unfortunately, he doesn’t know enough about the history, culture and practice of graphic design to analyze the visual aspects of Bubbles’ work with any precision or nuance, or to locate him with authoritative detail on the maps of British and international graphic design. The book continually asserts BB’s brilliance without explaining it convincingly. Gorman has structured his text as a chronological narrative heavily based on what Bubbles’ friends such as David Wills and Brian Griffin, and admirers such as Garrett and the singer Billy Bragg, have told him. He threads brief, prosaic descriptions of individual pieces into the biographical story, with no attempt anywhere at deeper thematic or contextual analysis — Bubbles’ interest in concrete poetry, for instance, is noted in passing but not explored. The haphazard placement of images in Reasons to be Cheerful, far from where they are mentioned, is a pain: the book is not well designed. My guess, having spoken to Gorman during his research, is that he sees all this as a strength, a way of connecting with a broader (less demanding, less design-aware) readership. But Bubbles is first of all a graphic designer and it is on an understanding of his designs, rather than on the affection of his fans, that his reputation must rest.”

A note on anonymity

Wills: Another item in the long list of reasons BB worked with pseudonyms: Our old chum from Conran, the fair Alison (as in the song), had a great-granpa who was Dan Leno, King of the Music-Hall (UK Vaudeville). Alison confirmed that one of Leno’s stage personae really was his alter-ego ‘Little Willie.’ This is the subject of much Music Hall history gossip on the boards – was he or wasn’t he? Well, Leno’s great granddaughter told me that yes, definitely, Little Willie was Dan Leno. I think that Barney would be like Little Willie, the funny little twit that could get away with the wildest innuendo using his wanky patter and disarming ways because – he didn’t really exist. Since Barney was a no slouch at anything he undertook, in deciding to be subversively incognito he was a wiz. 

Oz 12: Existence is unhappiness

David Wills says: Oz 12, the Tax-dodge special, a multi-media bonanza poster. Co-operatively designed by Barney Bubbles and myself (credited as ‘Sid Smudge’ or something – Eric Stodge.) in 1967. Barney or Muggeridge (?) drew the ruled rapidogrph art. Barney and I Cow-gummed collage. Faces come from a history of the cinema and a Picture Post (?) history of technology, both from the fifties. This sheet is is a dart board – one throws a projectile (or uses a blow pipe with a needle in a fletched cork perhaps) at Donald Duck, then reads off the appropriate codes and learns ones fate. (I invented the game and wrote the instructions amongst other things.)  With post cards by various artists including Chris Higson (lower left, top row, far left). The wheels on left are the landing gear of the TSR2 bomber that my dad worked on, Barney put them in, said, “Here’s something for your dad.”. As others have pointed out the poster is influenced by Paolozzi. But my original drawing, spotted by Barney,  was similar to a Paul Klee, watercolour of a figure in a skirt, which, in turn could be a familiar of a portrait of St. James(?) in the Book of Kells. Also has references to Zen Buddhist art. That’s Twickenham student Dave Palmer up top, later of JWT in Birmingham, grinning at the world. He knew the Great Train Robber, Mr Biggs. Palmer later commissioned me to design an ocean going pod-boat, based on a water-spider made of moulded plastic with eight out-rigger floats, for ICI plastics. It sank.  Image courtesy of Rick Poynor

Quotes from Rick Poynor’s masterful summation of  the Bubbles’ genius: succinct words about the Fulcher, known as Barney B, and his ways at: http//designobserver.com

Rick Poynor: “The intricately reflexive nature of his work made Bubbles a true original in his day. No previous Britishdesigner had produced mass-market graphic communications this playful, personal, freighted with allusion, or tricksy. Bubbles was a postmodernist before this new category of graphic design had been identified and defined, and he is as significant an innovator as his American contemporary April Greiman. His designs refer to art history (Mucha, Lissitzky, Van Doesburg, Kandinsky, Picabia, Mondrian, Pollock); to popular culture and kitsch (the wallpaper on Ian Dury’s Do It Yourself, the shagpile rug on the Attractions’ Mad About the Wrong Boy); to graphic processes and the nature of the printed medium (the color bars on Elvis Costello’s This Year’s Model, the scuff marks on Get Happy!!); and — never letting us forget his “anonymous” authorship — to the designer himself. Two of these oblique self-portraits, showing Bubbles’ large nose, are well known (Costello’s Armed Forces and Dr Feelgood’s Fast Women & Slow Horses), but there are other graphic faces placed where you wouldn’t expect to find them, such as the image on the copyright page of the “Lives” exhibition catalogue (1979) designed for the Arts Council, and the monumental (block)head in Brian Griffin’s book Power: British Management in Focus (1981), which could be intended as cheeky substitutes for Bubbles’ inevitably absent design credit. When The Face asked to photograph him, he made them a picture out of fragments instead.

 

Barney Bubbles by Barney Bubbles, 1981                      

Poynor: ”Attempts to hoist Bubbles out of graphic design and claim he was an artist all along do him a disservice by downplaying his achievement as a designer, and denigrate design by implying that anything this good must belong in another category. In reality, Bubbles’ work, like Greiman’s or Saville’s, revealed what can sometimes be possible within applied visual communication, in spite of all the constraints, when a gifted graphic designer finds imaginative client collaborators willing to allow some space to experiment. Compare his work with many classic late 1960s and pre-New Wave 1970s record covers: usually they are composed of a single commanding image with the artist’s name and title. Bubbles’ sleeves are graphic constructions, offering multiple points of interest, dispersing the viewer’s attention. He showed that the visual language of design — type, symbol, pattern, shape, often reassembled in unfamiliar configurations — could be a powerful, exciting and subtle medium for involving a popular audience. Although conditions often conspire against such freedoms now, he is a leading figure within the evolution of intelligently reflexive design. Known but unknown. It’s about time the slower moving design history books caught up with him.”

•••

INNER CITY UNIT: not to be sniffed at and Ian Dury: What a waste

RandM say:  It would be a massive shame for people to miss what this is about.

John Coulthart writes: Hey, you found one of the rare unsigned copies of Pass Out! (Sorry Nik.) I think Trevor Hughes got Nik Turner to sign nearly everything ICU ever did, often seemed that way.

Anyway, great band, they even played my wretched home town of Blackpool once, to the delight of locals and the disgust of bouncers at the Norbreck Castle Nite Spot (sic) who declared them the worst act ever to appear there. Given that the usual fare was crappy NWOBHM acts (Samson, for example), the competition was fierce. I used to have a recording of that gig but it’s long since vanished.

I don’t think I ever deciphered the curious Kanji-style characters on the back of the Pass Out sleeve. Anyone have a clue?

Wills: That alphabet is from an American book of Chicago sign writers’ 193o’s advertising faces I gave Barney. Lost deep in the comments below, RandM state categorically,  that it reads ‘Poppa Mm Mao Mao,’ and is all in caps.

At the Eye logs, http://blog.eyemagazine.com/?p=126 there are postings concerning the wonderfully obscure texts associated with His Master’s works, words tucked into convenient crannies here and about, in this instance, the words in the square around the Dury, Block Head logo,  “Don’t fuck about or else”.  In this instance, the words would have probably, and obviously, been used to complete the square – they fit the gap at the end of the official legalese.

Words used as ‘design filler’ – hey, you  often see it happen in caption writing to fill a given space. Barney would have been familiar with the phrase, and popped it in the space, or Dury offered it as a fit. Being a typographer, one intuitively gets get very good at knowing word counts and spaces. These things are co-operative in nature. Barney and Dury would have discussed it, maybe Barney would be going, ” ‘Ere, I got a space to fill, you gotny wurdz, twenty characters?” or to that effect.

The co-op approach is important, and integral with the way his Bubbles worked.

The tactical cut-up approach, applied here, is inspired by Burroughs’ poet friend, Brion, as has been said elswhere somewhere out there in this Barnython of  Blogoville, 

 

The new sobriety: Art and politics in the Weimar Period

RandM: As Nazar stated in his comment in the ’sniffing’ thread: ”The photo of ICU [the band members] on the back of Pass Out is based on the cover of John Willett’s book “The New Sobriety – Art and Politics in the Weimar Period 1917-33″, which features a photograph of Die Trommler (The Drummers), a German agitprop performance group.”

The back of Pass Out is shown in the cocaine info-graphic (the last post). It is the top right image and you can see (quite small) the picture that nazar is referring to.

Wills: Barney recommended this book to me as a primer on graphic Weimar. Thanks to Thames and Hudson for providing the illustration, and a great book it is too.

Inner City Unit: Poppa Mm Mao Mao decoded

The secret text decoded by RandM for Nazar: POPPA MM MOA MOA. The alphabet was taken from another type book I gave Barney, a primer of American show-card caps from the Chicago school of sign writers in the early thirties.

Thea Porter’s anti-evil eye charm will bring you luck

Barney and I worked co-operatively on this  invitation. When the only remaining original was recently lost in the mail, it was cleverly rescued by RandM from an indecipherable scan I had done earlier. (The silver stock reflected the scanner light and overwhelmed the image.)

Update.

Of interest to curators world wide: Amazingly the somewhat  bent card was returned to sender today, through the international co-operation of the postal authorities, after having been stolen in an incident in Birmingham I expect, and returned as  ”undeliverable” (I also suspect the fact I left the street number off the address was the real reason).

Subsequently Thea was transported back to RandM who received it in fine fettle, taped to a hunk of wood to prevent further damage. They photographed it with skilled lighting to eliminate the crinkles. Revised picture shewn.

Greek Street fun

The invite was designed for my friend Thea Porter who had a store in Soho on Greek Street that was a fascinating mix of fashion and eastern bizarre,. We were paid in kind, a stuffed embroidery elephant and a rooster amongst the trove. The cut-out Hand of Fatima was an image taken from a good luck charm often attached to Egyptian taxis for a safe ride. It was photographed by a process house. (Ha, showing the old gray (grey) hair there, of course no one under 90 knows what a process house is these days. It was a place that shot photographs of flat art and the like on an enormous stand camera, like a very ancient plate camera, but vertical, if you get my meaning, if not, tough.) The silver stock and cut-out was Barney’s (expensive) idea, he also suggested breaking the word Caravanserai in the address, because my presentation rough shewing the ragged right would have been different. I wrote the copy, found the hand. Barney didn’t like the indent for the missing day in the date.

From Thea’s obit in The Independent, “IN THE fleeting period when British fashion became a fine art, Thea Porter had her moment. From the mid-Sixties to the early Seventies, before London designers knew the meaning of the word “commercialism”, Porter reigned supreme. Her exquisite Oriental dresses, kaftans and harem trousers, often overlaid with ethnic embroidery, applique and sequins – invariably made from iridescent silks sourced from remote souks – were not merely fashion fixes, but food for the soul.”

Brother Peter Paper Dolly: with the merest hint of danger

This is a birthday card for my brother Peter,  drawn by Barney in 1966. Prizes will be awarded to those whose entries best present the finished cut-out figure  photographed in a natural setting.

This enlarges when you click on it, all the better for cutting it out. (Ms Sheri at WordPress told me how to arrange this wowser of technology.)

Here are three of the entries by RandM who say: Here are our 6 entries for the paper peter doll competition. As you can see we supersized him somewhat…  rules are there to be broken right? and yes, these are all for real, no photoshop trickery.

Inspector Burge Investigates the Image

Poster by David Wills and Barney Fulcher

From the collection of Andrew Bayowski with gratitude.

Photographs (C) David Wills 1966

1967 Photograph of David Wills by Colin “Barsnstable” Fulcher. 

Copyright 2009 Aten Skinner. 

Leigh Court, West Ken.  1967. Marvel at the composition and see note appended below.

A1 Goodguyz

When Barney, or Colin Fulcher as he was then, Burge and I moved into Leigh Court in 1964,  Fulcher had already worked on a couple of posters for the Muleskinners. Fulcher and I worked well together, and, feeling mutually compatible in the spirit of the times, agreed to share jobs, which we did for while (65 on and off through early 69). We worked as a loose  cooperative, knowing we had an understanding, with similar ideals and amusements.

Fulcher’s adopted band, the Muleskinners, had broken up by June of ‘64. The Image was a concept band, meaning that, since we didn’t exactly have a band now, we invented the idea of one; with the job being to materialize the band and complete the Image. I’d been reading about optical after-images, and I expect Barney had too. Corporate Image was/is Madison Av talk for the ‘House-style’ of us typography and graphic-biz blokes. The tools of the Hidden Persuaders of which we were both somewhat cognizant. 

Working on a page of roughs, I drew Burge as a Townshend figure whirling his arm leaving a trail of pictures that Fulcher liked. I took photographs of us room-mates standing on Conran Tote Boxes in my room with one source, insufficient lighting. Colin Letrasetted my words, although I’m pretty sure I wrote “… for half a mo” not ‘minute’ perhaps that wasn’t exact enough.

He also asked, as we were working on it, if we should put comic book whoosh lines coming from his wild swinging arm, behind the trail of pictures. But I, in dull mode, said it would complicate matters. Now I see what he was thinking of, how that would have added the Barney touch – it would have been cool.

With the idea being that the roughs were the creative notes of a larger art project, I kept them, along with much else  of that time, in a portfolio I left behind at Leigh Court in 69. 

Goya’s influence on Rock and Rolling

The scale of the large figure of Inspector Burge (called Roy here on the titchy pic) but often known as ‘Bump’ because of his abilities to rend wood with one blow, is referenced in my mind to the looming figure of that atributed Goya, ‘The monster eating his own’ (or similar name).

The star as the after-image to stare at was obvious to us both. It was one of those sticky school-book stars from a stationer’s.

Of the small pictures at the top, I put the border in a clumsy thick and lumpy way on the picture of ‘Woll,’ unlike the sophisticated fine ‘02 Rapidograph of his-nibs in the rest of the ‘Band.’

Colin, as he then was still, said as how he looked like “One of the Animals” with four legs, that that’s what he was doing in his pic. The pegs on the guitar were overexposed and disappeared in the contrasty print, so were drawn in and elongated by me, and they look like it too. Colin said, “… it’s OK, looks cool. It’ll make a new fashion for long pegs.” You might note that there is only one guitar between all us guys.

Snaps by Fulcher Photo

That portrait of me as a young punk in 1967 by Fulcher is one of the few actual pix snapped by him still extant, other than his Lorry pic of the for Muleskinners 2nd  poster. He destroyed all the photographs he took at school on his Minolta 35mm.

It was the last shot on the roll. Which was appropriately serendipitious for Colin, the Master of Serendip, for, coming at the end of the roll of film and improperly removed from the camera – prior to winding in the ‘lead,’ it was exposed to daylight – seen as a flare on the left that made a Photogram of the fluff on  the film cassette light-baffle. (There will be a test.)

The snap shews my new, protest crew-cut for a trip to New York. Not wanting to be one of the crowd, my hair was clear-cut in answer to all the length in evidence on the heads of heads of heads around. That’s my Perkinje-pattern related, Opticon-like device, a lamp-shade purchased at Habitat, top right. Fulcher assumed that was why I had bought it, and I think he may have advised Habitat to buy it in the first place. Not until he pointed it out did I see the connection.

Inspector Burge Investigates the Missing Post-Card: The amazing answer revealed!

Click the smaller pictures to enlarge

From Doug Smith:

Dear David, Thank you for your email, it is such a pleasure to hear from one of Barney’s oldest friends, have read a lot about you in ‘Reasons To Be Cheerful’

I had a nice phone call from Léonie Scott-Matthews who runs the Pentameter Theatre group in Hampstead. She read me an entry from her diary, after she had met Barney with regard to his set designs for a play written by Robert Calvert that she presented at the theatre.

With regard to the Inspector Burge Investigates cards that Barney gave me, I of course do not own the copyright and in fact on the reverse sides of the cards it says ‘A HABITAT POSTCARD PRODUCED IN ONEDERLAND’ , however ‘Habitat © 1967′ is not printed on the cards or the cover. (as I remembered – DW)

What was ‘Onederland’?

A Barney original construct, based on the Oakland CA pre-Disney Fairyland – DW

… I have scanned and attached a copy of the other side of one of the cards.

Habitat is now owned by Inka Holdings the parent company of Ikea, I would imagine you would have to approach them for copyright clearance.

Hey. If any body at Ikea would like to re-print why not contact me? We could do ‘em in colour –  DW

Let me know about scanning the cards.

Regards, Douglas

Doug Smith Associates

“War is terrorism with a bigger budget”

***

1. Doug Smith wins the prize (an all expenses paid  week for up to six congregants in Honduras in the ÉlanSuite at the Monserrat Hotel in San Paulo) for the missing card. Can you spot it? Prize to the first entrant to send a color rendering of Insp. Burge investigates. Stay within the lines, use fill, in ’shop.

Doug says: “David, Attached are 6 jpegs…  with 1 card and cover, had to do it like this as my scanner is a small one! I hope this works for you and that the resolution is high enough. All the best, Doug”

Mystery card key to some of the shebang

The Inspector Burge Investigates Letraset title and the flush left, flush right type on either side and ‘paste-up’ was Barney’s work. The postercards were invented and drawn  by me for Habitat in 67, I got the job through Barney when he was working at Conran, I suggested the idea of postcard poster, and he presented it.

I also drew a set of  large (12 inch) stickers of a flower using a lot of second hand Midsummer Nights Dream imagery by Heath Robinson. I arranged this directly with Habitat. I don’t think the comptroller in Barney liked that. Apparently I sent the pencil rough off to Lorry, when she wasn’t well, or maybe it was her birthday or both  at a time when Barney was in a snit.

Svelte, Lorry would only ever eat a little dry bread and lots of tea. I wonder if that’s still true?

The Burge drawings are mostly referenced from a combination of a World History Illustrated, published by Odhams(?) from ‘52, or the like.…

(Major irrelevant aside: The publisher, Odhams, was near what was [is now?] the NME music-mag building on Longacre. They had a special type system good for headlines and tables. A compositors room there appears in a British film I saw around ‘75, and for whom I advised on locations. End aside.)

… and a History of the Movies I borrowed from the public library at Charing Cross that specializes in Film History. That’s Edward G Robinson or Sidney Greenstreet? – no it’s Peter Lorre in there; dancer Fred Astaire with whom I don’t recall, maybe Lauren Bacall? I wish it were Gish, but maybe was  Gert, oh yeah, must be Ginger Rodgers. Marleine Dietricht  in Berlin; Barney as a gangster praying with a maid filched from some movie scene.

Burge as Aleistair (sp?) Crowley lording it over all he surveys in the center. An early example of an eye of Horus  associated with Barney’s work. I also used it at the club Shady Grove in the centre of the palm tree growing on the back of the turtle. A relative was used for Margo StJames’ private-eye logo. The texts are by Barney for the most part, based on my notes with the drawings. See also my portrait of George Harrison in Let It Rock.

The postercards are a Tarot deck reading and quite closely follows the sense as I saw it that day of a traditional pack, and are set out in as a particular, fortunately-dealt hand. The cards were interpreted through random viz-match. No, I don’t remember the reading. We were both heavily into the Tarot, the I Ching, and the like at the time. We decided in a murmured welter of cryptic one-liners that all our work was imagery from a giant new Tarot deck, in all media, with multiple allusions and with this set as key to the idea.

I see now when I click the second time the pictures enlarge and I can read the instructions for play written by Barney and note the wording, “… suitable for all age groups between Four and Forty” which is another reference to the age at which he thought life was over, hipwise, and when he unwisely said (but not at this time) he intended to kill himself.

An arc of  ideas

The Thea Porter card, the Image poster, Egg Cookery wizard, the OZ 12 existence figure, who knows, maybe my Motor Racing chappie and Barney’s toggery illustrations (but nothing I think in that December 67 Nova), and this set of Inspector Burge Investigates, are all part of an arc of visual ideas by Barney and me (Obama can, me can). I think Barney and I in later years continued to play off the concept with variations, always looking for the ultimate image. Cheap and cheerful with depth. “Like a Giles cartoon.” said Barney. There being more there than the fluff on top. He was working with Scale and Depth and Change on many levels.

I gave my finished drawings to Barney and he whipped ‘em into shape as the finished layout on the poster. Maybe Muggeridge worked with him on that.

I’ll try to get a decent shot of the entire deck up big if someone’s got the missing one, (Thank you Doug). They were intended to be sold with crayons to color them in. So, colour within the lines and have fun. Sombre colours work well on some. Howabut it John Coulthart? The usual Prizes of a Night on the Town and World Free Transport will be awarded to those who successfully engineer Photoshopped renderings that please me.

The first time I saw one of the cards in use was in ‘67 on the desk of an art director in New York At Mary Wells, which was cool.

Tea and Scones

If i give the impression that working with Barney was all tea and scones, not.

I see many skinny legged guys on Haight street these days, the late 0hs, walking fast in pea-coats, looking exactly like Fulcher (Barney) in ‘64, who memorably said. “Thin is in, is what everyone says.” By everyone, I think he meant Ginny Clive-Smith, for whom he held a torch, her word was gospel then, and he recorded the song, ‘Blue Suede Shoes’ or similar, for her in the long gone, low-fi recording booth on Waterloo Station.

My concussed unreliability, lazy insolence, bad temper and scuzzy ways in the face of Barney’s meticulous intensity and industrial train-load acid consumption, inevitably led to the Barney freeze-out, to which I was eventually introduced in all its furious intensity, around the end of ‘68.

His on and off sniping began a while before  the horrors of Nova, or the occupation of the LSE, I’d say his first jab hit at a Fulham bus stop, preparing for the Sounds good evening, in mid ‘67. “That’s not how we speak.” he said, criticizing the non-hip, soppy way I spoke to  Sandra Garnel, the engaging bent-wire artist; escalated around the Oz 12 cover debacle; and took full flight subsequent the Thanksgiving dinner aftermath in November. Probably lasted three months, until his call for help with, “How can I spray for a Gallois like effect, but not smoke, without a spray gun?” sometime in early 69.

An unhealthy self-flagellation over misperceived self-shortcomings, insecurity squared – what they used to call an ‘inferiority complex,’ enabled Barney to unmercifully crucify his enemy of the minute. He probably rationalized his murderous methods towards others as no worse than any he felt towards himself. He had developed the process over the years (ask Burge), and he could cut one dead most effectively with a variety of deep, well honed stiletto jabs to the back.

This was before the human potential movement and we still communicated in archaic Whittonese, not lending itself to ardent discussion of social nuance, since it was mostly hip, mumbled irrelevances and obscure alusions which was fine in times of understanding, but when things got tough, uhoh. Unfinished sentences don’t make it.

If I seem confident in my analysis of the dynamics, it is of course also a self  portrait.

Vendetta

Now I’m reminded of it, I expect that, yes, the fact I used the picture of Barney and me painting Nikki by Phil Franks in my tacky Curious magazine of  March of 1971, may have annoyed some of the more ardent amongst Barney’s coterie, and so would have annoyed in turn, Fulcher, but he never said anything to me about it of course – that would have been uncool. I think a body (Stan the Man?) at Ink magazine may have mentioned to me, “Barney’s steaming mad.” I rember I half-smiled, pay-back. I later asked Barney about it, did he mind?, he said, “Nah, I didn’t – but some did.”

Of course Barney got over it, as I told the regal Ink-maiden, the lioness Cassandra, he probably eventually took it in good fun. I know I checked with Phil Franks and the model Nikki, got a release form and all, before it was published and I know I  told Barney I would use the pix in Curious when he asked if I’d like to do it. Curious provided work for all manner of folk: models, illustrators  (Bell, Andy Dudszinski, Peter Till) archivists, writers (Jane Kingsland) – so it had some redeeming qualities and was a really cool place to work, I learned a lot there.

In the ongoing ‘game’ of tit-for-tat, both good and bad played out over the millennia between us, Barney would have known that according to our charter you don’t cross me and expect no return.

At that level of banter I think Barney excelled, he could give a good as he could take, but he was most sensitive to criticism of his work.

Devo long-neck nose bleed

RandM send this real beaut for the weblog: 

SPIEL Picture credit: Design Barney Bubbles, Photography Chris Gabrin, Picture courtesy of Rebecca and Mike.

Masks of Change

RandM Says: Previously this blog mentioned Barney and masks. John Coulthart recently pulled out a couple of interesting ones on his blog http://www.johncoulthart.com/feuilleton/2009/02/11/hawk-things/ and so we thought maybe you’d like some too to make your (and everyone else’s) eyes bleed Itchy & Scratchy style! This picture shows a set of adverts Barney created for Devo’s single Jocko Homo / Mongoloid (Dev 1) released in 1978. These masks were applied directly onto freakishly long-necked mannequins usually used to display wigs. Barney worked with photographer Chris Gabrin on this. (However, Barney didn’t do the actual single sleeve itself.)

Pwoom Itook, King of the baKuba 

David Wills: Talking of masks, I’m reminded that my interest as a teenager and later in West African masks has a Barney connect. I particularly liked the Kuba royal family series: The king, an ancestor figure, is called, Pwoom Itook, after whom I named  Chris Terry (he had the flat upstairs at Leigh Court with Atkins) with his nom-de-art, ‘Took’ , named after (or ‘for’ as they say here) the king with the elephants trunk on his head curving down over his nose, although I doubt that Chris Terry ever knew that. Fulcher didn’t get a Monica off an African, but my caricature of him, which I see around, redrawn by others, was derived from a classic Dogon helmet mask.

The Pit-Rivers Museum

My interest in masks was bred at the Pit Rivers Museum out in the wilds near Farnham, Dorset, England, that my Grandfather Townley used to take us to (from 1947 through ‘58) in his immaculate 1928, Willys Overland Whippet. I later worked, part time in the ’80’s, buying African masks from Nigerian traders and selling retail in San Francisco. Those masks are with me often…

Rebecca and Mike say: unless there’s 2 different ones, or unless they moved, the pit rivers is in oxford, not dorset! have been there too!

Trips down Memory Lane

David Wills says: When my grandad’s chum, the old man Lord Pit-Rivers, divorced, he sold his collection all orf in ‘62 and half of it ended up in Oxford at the Ashmolean (it should be called the Tradescant Museum, but I’ll let that pass) and the other went to the Met in NY. Pretty near the entire Metropolitan Museum African collection, including all the Benin bronzes and that iconic little ivory mask too (I think this example of the Kings ivory ‘passport’ miniature is not the one I saw but similar),  all came from the Lord Pit Rivers mansion, just down from the old mill outside Wimborne Minster.

The road leading up to it was as narrow as the Whippet. It was the first place I drove a car, the old Chicago gangster auto with eyebrows, Toading it in the back lanes of ration-book England. The lane was an old Wimborne Boundary road I would guess, sunken in between two huge embankments for a mile and a half, so that before one attempted to drive along it, you had to make sure no one was coming by clambering up the bank, avoiding the stinging-nettles and scouting for approaching vehicular traffic in the distance.

Obscure Rock and Rolling fact #67

The site of the Pit Rivers Museum is not far from Amen Corner, after which the band was named. (Nowhere is not far from anywhere in England.) Oddly there are a couple of bands named for obscure Dorset cross-roads, can’t recall the others. The cross-roads there have cute discs atop the sign-posts with the name of the intersection, to be found miles out of the way in the countryside, deep in der Cranbourne Chase [ancient Kingly deer-hunt land, hi Deepinder].

Hell with the Fire Out

(Beware of incorrect facts – all this is from memory) Old Man Pit-Rivers named hisself after the native Americans, The Pit-River Indians, now called the Modoc, or the Achumawi, in Northern Cal/Oregon. There’s a great book, “Hell with the Fire Out” about the last successful stand of ‘Capt. Jack’ and the Indians there. ‘Rivers was an officer with the Brit Army and a collector amateur anthropologist, he bought not looted, had a huge collection of Americanoes. The Pit River Indians were, he supposed, on the border between the Plains and the Coastal Indians,  which he thought significant. (It wasn’t particularly – his theories of native dispersion were incorrect I think. See Schoolcraft of the West) The museum was bar-none the best museum of any I have ever been to in the world.

Heathen Possibilities

It was my first real job offer there, re-labeling the exhibits in dip-pen and Indian ink on folded cartridge ‘tents,’ but my dad discouraged me ‘cos of the heathen possibilities. The labels were loaded with information, stories attached to each –      

including the baKuba royal-family masks. This example of a Kuba mask on the left is of the Queen, who was both the wife and the sister of the King Pwoom Itook, she was sworn to secrecy and wore a band of beads down over her nose and mouth.

The other mask is similar in idea to the Dogon helmet-mask that I based Barney’s caricature on (but this mask  is not the Dogon I saw). Both the Kuba King and Queen and the Dogon are now in the Met in NY. But I don’t think the fellow in charge at Pit Rivers when I was last there, the ol’ boy’s son, whom I spoke to, knew much about the masks.

The baKuba Dance

I was told by a traveling mask salesmen from Gabon and read in a monograph at Lawrence Hultberg’s store, the Artery, amongst other sources, including my imagination, that the Kuba royal masks were a new ‘cult’ that sprang up in the early 20th century.

They were made at the same time as the development of the Western European art, particularly by Picasso, Braque and Matisse, who were inspired by Africa. This family  of Kuba masks seem to be of a different inspiration than other, more ‘traditional’ masks – such as those Boule classic faces that Matisse liked. These Kuba masks were associated with a new dance craze and I suspect a grass-roots political movement, somewhere in West Africa, that spread around and became very popular in other places. (Ok this is vague, but you get the idea.)

The baKuba masks of 1908 have a definite designy look, as though painted by Picasso ten years later. You get the feeling there was a two way interchange of artistic concept, a Paulian synchronicity as Barney would say, between Africa and Europe at that time.

Any time I was at the Pit-Rivers Museum I only once saw another visitor except my family, and that figure in white may have been a ghost. Very Spooky.  Shrunken heads from Borneo. All there. No other museum comes close.  

I remember seeing, in the Oxford Pit Rivers Ashmolean stash, a history of eating utensils, with detail of the French introduction of forks in the 16th century to avoid knightly knife fights at the table.