I recently played a compendium of Vaudeville tunes and heard for the first time a song with a catchy hook called, “Barney Google with those great big googly eyes” which Barney Bubbles may have been familiar with, he certainly had the googly eyes to match. (Possibly this song was an antecedent of the search engine Google’s name too.) He never mentioned that song – but I know he was a fan of ‘Barney Rubble’ from the Flintstones (he would have been ‘Flintstoned’ no doubt) and their phrase “Yabbadabadoo !” which he frequently used.
.. And here ladies and gints, is the song itself, which seems to imply carnal love of a horse, nabbed from the Wikki entry for ‘Barney Google’, who was the eponymous character from the strip cartoon out of Chicago begun in 1911:
Top: Illustration by Barney Bubbles (one of a series) Bottom: Magazine logo by Barney Bubbles.
Unveiled above are a couple crackin’ lightning designs by Barney Bubbles, the top one is from a series of illustrations, and the other a magazine logo, both dating from around the mid-1970s. ‘Tis true Barney was a real force of nature, so the adept use of lightning bolts is not unsurprising. More words to be added to this lighting post very soon ’bout me and my times with Barney, and ’bout nature and tempestuousness.
Yah. Barney didn’t like working with Let it Rock. And Let-it-Rock didn’t like me… Let it Rock was in next building but one to where I lived (in) on Long Acre, Willsdon Mansions, I did a couple of pictures for ’em and they tried to steal my art, so I left for America and San Francisco. My art was stolen by some writer who had ’em screwed to the wall in the corridor on Long Acre. I walked in the front door and got the George Harrison art unscrewed from the wall when I did some graphics for ’em.
But the painting of Pete Towshend in the pin-ball alley on Charing Cross Road with Meha Baba I couldn’t unscrew. I had to dash when I heard footsteps and scarpa back down to the elevator shaft, which I knew in detail from the days when it was Odhams Press.
(I had recomended the typesetters there for use as a bizarre film set to a lady friend of my roomate Graham Norton, who was scouting situations for a movie company, also included was the Curious garret on Wardour Street, and the entrance my dad’s office at the Air Ministry Office).
Back to the tale, down I went an old brown back corridor, out a back door, climb up the fire scape iron ladder onto the roof, across the new tar coating on the Welsh slate tiles, to the lead sheet intercourse, up over the brick parapet, my art held under my arm – and I get back into my place at Willsdon Mansions through the window above the potato merchants.
(Hear the song by Pamela Poland, “Remembering all the days we spent in [or is it ‘at’?] Willsdon Manor.”)
Just came across these in the ol’ box o’ trix. This is the 1967 invitation to the ‘Sounds good evening’ (my words) a multi-dimensional extra-mural feast for all, including students from Twickenham art-school that Barney Burge and I concocted. The letterhead was designed by Barney and printed at Terrence Conran’s expense. This is a very rare, maybe the only(?) instance of a ‘Colin Fulcher’ credit.
And here I reproduce the crib that Barney used for the Blockhead’s logo (197?). It is from, if I recall correctly, a rad book publishing house of the 30’s. Barney’s inspired version below..
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Photograph by David Wills Copyright! 2010 Barney the film director in action (1967) with his trusty super eight film movie camera on which he shot the world’s first made for TV music ‘video.’ He is looking through the view finder of my twin lens Yashica.
Warning: Use of the Perkingean pattern assembly rotating giro (mentioned previously in this series of posts) can cause epileptic seizures and may result in irreparable harm if practiced in unsafe conditions such as a cliff edge
Over at http://www.livescience.com/strangenews/081123-hallucinations.html you may see on this site excellent science gossip, it’s a place of transcendent know-it-alls – and where you may find wise words about the Perkinge effect. For instance, Patrizia Broghammer and Hermes Trismegistus both wrote on the subject. Thanks to them both and their host Live Science, for allowing me, in another dimension, the permission to quote you in full:
Patrizia Broghammer says: “I think I have a simpler explanation of hallucinations.
I do not agree that they are “located in the world around us, not in the mind’s eye”.
It is exactly the opposite.
Assuming that we do not see the world, but we see the world reflected by our eyes (in fact just consider how much sharper a vision is with glasses and how different reality can look seen under the lenses of a microscope) hallucinations are nothing else than a distorted transmission of what our eyes see or our ears hear or what our nose smells.
If you send to the brain stimulus in a different way or if you distort the way stimulus are sent, you have hallucinations.
You look at the same thing, but the conditions and the transmission of what you see is different.
The same can happen without hallucinations, just with the brain conditioned by what we read or know.
How much different a music sounds to our ears when we know it, or a painting looks when we actually are explained about it.”
And HermesTrismegistus wrote:
“ … The idea that hallucinations are manifestations of extra-dimensional perception isn’t all that new, and one I agree with to a large extent. Leary based a large portion of his research on a very similar premise. Perception is an odd thing. What’s labeled “real” and “hallucination” is largely subject to what the majority perceives. There is no absolute way to define reality simply because those definitions of perception are themselves a product of individual perception. Who’s to say those defining what is real and what isn’t aren’t hallucinating? Delusions, when labeled “reality” by the majority, become so because people perceive them as such.”
it was very nice to see the A1 Good Guyz letterpaper make an appearance here… there are just a few other times you see a ‘Colin Fulcher’ credit in print, and those few times are usually in relation to his Conran work, but yes, certainly much rarer than his later ‘Barney Bubbles’ credit (which wasn’t exactly plentiful either!).
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
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
The reverse of the inner sleeve shown above (middle image) is also great with three different shaped/sized ellipses entitled: ‘BIG MAN’; ‘TALL MAN’; ‘EXTRA WIDE SHORT MAN’.
strangely enough, in the book ‘Reasons to be Cheerful’ the outer sleeve of the Get Happy LP is shown, but the fake ringwear on the back has been photoshopped out! (it’s been removed). there’s probably a funny story in that somewhere 🙂
Crikey… not spotted that!
Strange really as, in my humble opinion, the scuffing on the back looks slightly ‘mannered’ (you could equally say ‘deliberate’) in comparison to the front — the way the scuffing breaks around the E of ‘ELVIS’ for instance. Small detail, and maybe I’m missing something, but…
it’s interesting to note what happens in the advert Barney did for this LP. the design incorporates a pic of the front cover, but it is shown without ringwear. this is a nice touch as it helps make the fake ringwear more believable when you come across actual copies.
a similar thing happens with the press packshot for Elvis Costello’s ‘This Years Model’ (another sleeve Barney designed); most of the time a properly cropped version of the sleeve gets used (as opposed to the mis-cropped version with printer registration marks appearing on the front – as per the actual sleeve design).
Very interesting to hear. Is that deliberate with ‘This Years Model’, the corrected packshot I mean? Always thought it might have been ineptitude/ignorance on the part of whoever is re-releasing it.
I wonder if the cassette tape release (if there was one) of ‘Get Happy’ omitted the ringwear too, or had two lots where the spools would be!
when we talk about the packshot used for ‘This Years Model’ we’re not talking about anything in relation to re-releases, we’re talking about the picture of the LP cover that was doing the rounds in most press and magazines for the purposes of illustrating reviews and chart positions etc (and even some retailer promotions). we’d like to think distributing a ‘corrected’ packshot to third parties was all part of the grand plan! on the adverts Barney did for ‘This Years Model’ no packshot was used, although the photo of Elvis-with-camera was used as some kind of approximation.
the ‘Get Happy’ cassette? that’s a whole different story… we’ll give pics to David Wills to post up on this (his) blog.
Understood… look forward to seeing the cassette.
[It’s indicative of the games being played that I often feel the need to couch the language I’m using when taking about BB work — using alot of ‘scare quotes’ too. The fact that I feel the need to phrase things in a certain way, which I’m sure I’m not alone in, says alot about the effect of the work and its different layers of meaning.]
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.
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?
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.
Here’s the Lives poster I mentioned (sure you all know what it looks like anyways!) http://tinyurl.com/cmwsvy
regarding the two versions of the Ian Dury Songbook: they are the same publisher, same year, same ISBN
rebecca and mike is discussing. 
David Lowbridge, and 
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