pic: courtesy of Rebecca and Mike* To see it up big, click on’t.
hi David. well, we plunged into the Barney Bubbles tombola and pulled out this item for you. hopefully your readers will enjoy seeing this.
okay… so… this is an advert Barney designed for Elvis Costello’s LP ‘This Years Model’ 1978. this is one of a series of adverts that Barney designed for the LP, all were on different themes. this one (as you can see) is themed ‘Drugs’. the pic is big enough for you folks to be able to read the labels and have a go at decoding it; we can argue between ourselves in the comments department over who is who and what means what, and warm Siberia up a bit.
of immediate interest to Hawkwind readers might be that Nik Turner and Lemmy both make an appearance in this Elvis Costello advert (that’s Nik in the top middle picture, and Lemmy is name-checked under the top right picture).
David W writes: Down in the comments dungeon it is explained that the top right picture is of Little Tony, not Hawkwind’s Lemmy although that is what the caption implies.
I would expect that this was designed as a center spread with no split, and got shoved elsewhere by Jarvis in production, I don’t think Barney would have designed an everything-centred layout if he had known it was going to be split. Factis, if I recall aright, it was a bit unusual for the Ol’boy to center anything if he could help it. So prove me wrong. I remember having some circles with type in them, I asked “Flush left or centred?” and he answered quick as a spark, “Flush left!” with the implied “Of course, you idiot.”
*Who may, in due course, resend another shot of this ad, perhaps with a sheet of glass on top for extra flatness, with the full-frontal of Nik showing in the across-the-back split at the fold so that our Nik T fans can admire his charm.
Outraged Barnophiles gibe: there’s a lot of centred barney texts, like there’s a lot of ranged left (or right) texts.
there’s also a lot of barney design that is willfully designed to not fit the format…
DW: And so it is that wise things are said that refute my mumblings and wise me up – especially when used with the word ‘wilfully’ to describe The B. Wilfull is of the essence.
RM: glass?
DW: Ok, no glass then, how ’bout showing all the ink that is currently hid by overlapping pages?
RM: words split by a fold?
boy, you is gettin old and cranky
DW: Got that right. I called myself ‘Eric Stodge’ for a reason.
RM: but, we are still friends okay! LOL! 🙂
R and M, and 1 other are discussing. 
R and M 9:59 pm on March 5, 2011 Permalink |
In the still that shows Barney Bubbles looking towards the camera, there is a masked figure next to him. This exact same mask can be seen in one of your photos from the Sounds Good Evening held at Leigh Court in 1967. Here is the direct link to the pic https://davidwills.wordpress.com/2009/12/04/rowdy-times-at-leigh-court-high-the-sounds-good-evening/
Crispin & Jennie Thomas 3:28 pm on June 25, 2011 Permalink |
David ..I reckon this film must have been a long on-going project of Barney’s…Jennie and i hitched to Matala Greece and Istanbul, via Paris ( i guess 67) and ended up making ( I guess a Super-8 ?) version of Alice In Wonderland with Jwennie paying an Alice type figure..in the gardeen of a house in Boulogne Billancourt /Paris..where Barney was staying….and here we are stil together x from Stroud .Werer you there too?
davidwills 10:50 pm on March 5, 2011 Permalink |
Yup, sure is, it’s the fromer labour PM, Mr Wilson, the taxman of Beatles fame.
davidwills 12:24 am on March 6, 2011 Permalink |
At one pont in the tea party there a guy wearing a pointed hat that came from a street find on the North End Road, including someone’s complete Jordanian I.D. The top hats were from the old Peterborough Road days of Chris Higson and Mick Jackson when the hats were often worn to Trad-Jaz events.
This reminds me so much of an Andy Warhol movie. From what I read of Edie Sedgewick’s adventures at the Factory in Manhattan I can see how much we owed to Andy Warhol in our various adventures. I was at the opening party of the new Factory, I think in August 67. Went with Brice Marden’s swoon, Helen Harrington the muse, I took off with Sandy Daley, said she was the daughter of the the late Mayor Daley and sibling of #2, a videographer of an intelligent (she thought I was smart) red crew-cut beauty in jeans. She filmed the piercing of Mapplethorpe’s nipple at the Factory about that time. Over coffee in a grease-bar she invited me back to the Chelsea Hotel, I said “Why?” in that anoying inner idiot voice i know so well. She looked like I came in from the moon, “Whadda y’ think?.”
Reading Ciao Manhattan it’s easy to imagine what awaited. But Helen’s sage advice not to get hooked-up with the Factory crowd too much kicked in and I slouched off, early as usual, leaving the party, back to the pin factory on Grand Street. Thereby avoiding a disolute life of depravity, speed and an early death.
Yes, the Warhol crowd were represented in 1967 at Leigh Court by Helen, who loved our set-up and compared it favorably with Andy’s doings, but without the death thing. She gave smart advice that has followed me through life, “An artist is one who does art, that which is done by an artist is art.” She also said that Brice had said that once you had worked in ad agency you could no longer be an artist. I expect he said that thinking of Andy W who had toiled in the art department at JWT or similar, I figured it didn’t apply to me ‘cos I’d only worked at DPB&T long enough to act as a catalyst on the boss and send him to New York..
R and M 8:41 am on March 6, 2011 Permalink |
In Will Birch’s book ‘No Sleep Till Canvey Island’ this film gets a mention. Here’s a quote from it:
“‘Colin Fulcher was into fantasy’, says Stafford Cliff, another former colleague at Conran. ‘He made a film in Kensington Gardens, where everyone had to dress up as characters from Alice In Wonderland. He was drawn towards the pop scene and underground publications such as Oz, in which he desperately wanted to be involved’.”
LiveUnsigned 10:51 am on March 10, 2011 Permalink |
Great to hear Bear Driver involved in something like this. A very creative band: http://www.liveunsigned.com/Bear_Driver/
davidwills 9:28 pm on March 10, 2011 Permalink |
… er, isn’t that comment from Bear Driver, about Bear Driver?
‘Tis so, very creative. I think perhaps they are not getting their money’s worth from LiveUnsigned.com
R and M 8:50 am on March 11, 2011 Permalink |
David, whilst we’re loosely on the theme of creative projects based on literary works, do you have any recollections of the Hobbit you and Barney Bubbles made, around 1968?
davidwills 8:54 pm on March 11, 2011 Permalink |
Hi there good people one and both, no I can’t say as how I do, having little, nay no, memory of the occasion. Are you sure I was there?