Barney Bubbles Tunes 1977-84

In 1977, Barney Bubbles created some revolutionary covers and saw him paying respect to constructivist and modernist imagery with stunning original results for Stiff Records.
Barney had a long artistic relationship with Ian Dury, designing various classic sleeves for both his singles and albums.
The most famous of his LP covers for Dury and the Blockheads was probably 1979’s Do It Yourself, which was released with 36 cover variations based on Crown Wallpaper! 
His most prolific work was probably done for Elvis Costello’s releases, as he followed Costello & Nick Lowe from Stiff to Radar to F-Beat Records.
Even so, his work was not confined to those 3 labels as he was also active for Chiswick, Epic, a.m.o.
Barney had a very strong work discipline and took his assignments seriously, whether he could relate to the music or not.
Unfortunately, his private life was a rather different story (bipolar disorder and continuous financial problems didn’t help), and he took his own life in mid-November 1983... 

Barney at times had disagreements with both record companies (especially for the US market!) and artists, e.g. Dave Edmunds wasn’t pleased at all with the back cover of his Tracks On Wax 4 album... 

Even so, Barney’s design for Edmunds’ Twangin’ redeemed him completely!
The amount of work he produced was staggering, and this compilation only shows you the tip of the musical iceberg.

I’ve done my best to present either an album or a single cover of each song represented here, and the 35-page PDF also gives more details about Barney's influences.

As quite a few of the punk/new wave period Bubbles-related songs were already included in my previous Radar and F-Beat Records posts, I opted for some more obscure music, e.g. The Imperial Pompadours (Barney’s own band!), Elvis Costello in disguise, Laurie Latham’s band The Vampire Bats From Lewisham, and a Roger Chapman vinyl-only dub!
Besides the above, 1977-84 also features :
Ian Dury And The Music Students  / Generation X / Graham Parker / Mick Farren & The Deviants / The Adverts / Big Star / Humphrey Ocean's Iron Hoof / Nik Turner's Sphynx / Whirlwind / The Sinceros / Clive Langer And The Boxes / Chas Jankel / The Inmates / The Damned /  Dr. Feelgood / Inner City Unit / The Psychedelic Furs / Amazulu / Billy Bragg / Mercy Ray / Wang Chung 

The 2 volumes (which easily could have been 3, volume 1 posted yesterday for the 500niversary!) here give an adequate overview, covering prog-rock, space-rock, folk, pub-rock, country-rock, punk, funk, new wave, rockabilly, and more, enjoy! 

Jokonky's 500versary!

Today marks our 500th post. We (Jonder, Koen, and Stinky) would like to thank the readers who have followed and commented on the blog over the years, as well as newcomers.  It was March 2018 when Jonderblog started, with a post reflecting on the somber occasion of Mark E. Smith's birthday (somber because The Fall's frontman had passed away two months earlier).  

Stinky LePew joined in November 2018, adding a welcome sense of humor, a boundless imagination for creating new compilation themes, and a wide-ranging knowledge of music and musical trivia.  The two of us started a a "label" called Jon-Ky Records for our collaborative posts.  

Koen was a frequent visitor who was contributing guest posts to another music blog.  After that blog ended, we invited him aboard.  His debut was in December 2023, with the first of several excellent posts on the music of Robert Palmer.  Jon-Ky became JOKONKY, and we adopted a weekly schedule of posting (Koen on Mondays, Stinky on Wednesdays, and Jonder on the weekend).  

Today we interrupt our regular rotation to deliver a triple post.  I (Jonder) am sharing the fifth set in my series Punks Got Soul.  Today I also want to highlight a couple of my colleagues' contributions.  Koen's compilation of Chuck E. Weiss' music is one of my favorites. Another favorite is Stinky's three volume tribute to pioneering punk guitarist Brian James, who died in March of this year.  

Thanks, Jonder! And here's Koen, still very happy to be part of the JOKONKY gang. My partners' highlights are as follows:  

 

Stinky posted this great collection of classic songs from the 1960's and a wonderful write-up!  5 years ago, Jonder posted this neat Adrian Sherwood collection that seems to have fallen between the cracks, shame really, do check it out!  My own favorite post depends a lot on my mood, but for now it's the one about Garland Jeffreys. 

One of my own artistic 'heroes' is Barney Bubbles, and my contribution to this 500versary is Volume 1 of a 2-part collection of songs associated with him during 1969 to 1977, with artists range from Hawkwind to Brinsley Schwarz to Quiver to Johnny Moped... Volume 2 will be posted next Monday.

CONGRATULATIONS on 500 posts, Jonder—and thanks for letting me be a (Stinky) part of it!   Here's my personal favorite of Jonder’s posts—because I love PEARL, & because this post started our long association!  Everybody's Boring But Pearl Harbour (Part 1). My favorite Koen post: Geraint Watkins - Squeezin' & Pumpin'. And my favorite of my own posts: David Johansen - I Can't Be Wastin' Time.

Finally, here's my post for JOKONKY’s 500versary: Get In Loser, We're Going Rockabilly Vol. 6

Radar Records Singles 1978-79

After my Howard Werth post I finally bought The Wild World Of Barney Bubbles, an absolutely fabulous treasure trove of his designs and paintings. He was miles ahead of others during that time, great to read about his influences and concepts.  It also provided a lot of insight of the music scene in those days and the groups/musicians he was close with; Hawkwind, Elvis Costello, Ian Dury, Nick Lowe, Billy Bragg, a.m.o.

Special mention must be made for Jake Riviera as ‘mover & shaker’, a British music business entrepreneur, manager of Costello and Lowe, and co-founder (with Dave Robinson) of Stiff Records.  He was a firm supporter of Barney and in 1977 recruited Bubbles to work with him on an impressive run of designs for record sleeves, posters, badges and advertising and promotional campaigns for Lowe, The Damned, Costello and such performers as Ian Dury, Wreckless Eric and the veteran music hall star Max Wall.

However later that same year Riviera left Stiff, taking with him Barney, Costello and Lowe to the newly launched label Radar Records.  Nick Lowe’s Breaking Glass was the first Radar 45 release and a hit for the new label.  Barney had designed both the Radar Label’s logo and the sleeve for Nick’s hit!

Radar lasted only 2 years before Riviera moved on, again taking key artists and Barney with him, to another new label… But during those 2 years Radar released a lot of good music, besides Costello and Lowe, there were also excellent records by Bram Tchaikovsky, Inmates, 999, Yachts, The Pop Group, a.o.

Several of Radar's early releases (including Iggy Pop and James Williamson's Kill City, the Good Rats' From Rats to Riches and Pezband's Laughing in the Dark) were licensed from independent American labels. 

After reading and thinking about the above I suddenly realized something odd! During my vinyl buying days in the previous century I bought quite a few Stiff and Radar singles, extended plays, and albums. I have good memories of the various Stiff artists compilations (later CDs as well), and downloaded Stiff collections from different blogs, etc. But I never bought a various Radar artists album/CD or found a digital collection online.   

This is because strangely enough Radar never released any such compilation... 

As for why nobody ever considered putting a digital collection together, that's anyone's guess...  Therefore Jokonky proudly announces the arrival of the Radar Records Singles 1978-79 compilation!

Despite the fact that virtually all of regular visitors are probably familiar with Lowe & Costello, I still felt that I had to include them. A perfect candidate was the Nick Lowe single I bought back in 1978: A side - American Squirm with on the B What’s So Funny ‘Bout (Peace, Love and Understanding) by Nick Lowe And His Sound which turned out to be Elvis Costello!

Besides the earlier mentioned Radar artists and groups, there are also: Bette Bright And The Illuminations, Metal Urbain, Neon, Ray Campi (licensed from Rollin’ Rock!), The Red Crayola, The Soft Boys, Sussex, Tanz Der Youth, The Thirteenth Floor Elevators, Visage, and Wayne Kramer.

4 D Man - The Field Guide To Howard Werth

As most of you probably know by now, besides music I have a strong interest in art and design.
This occasionally leads me to weird places and forgotten artists…
I really like the cover (and assorted) art Barney Bubbles did for several artists (e.g. Ian Dury) during the 70s and 80s.
Last month a google image search led me to an artist I’d completely forgotten about, the singing guitarist Howard Werth
Barney designed the album art of his 1979 solo record: ‘Six of One and Half a Dozen of the Other’, as well as the sleeve of the ‘4 D Man’ single.
According to allmusic Six of One is ‘one of the most schizophrenic albums of the late '70s’ as it’s swinging between Rock & Roll and New Wave…
For me one song in particular stood out: ‘4 D Man’ as this was included in a compilation I bought many years ago…

Among the musicians helping out Howard were Steve Nieve and Billy Bremner who later covered ‘Meek Power’ from this album.
I discovered that Howard had been active before with his art rock band Audience with whom he recorded 4 albums during the early 70s for Blue Plate and Charisma Records.
Although well received no breakthrough appeared, therefore Howard decided to try it solo and recorded an album with The Moonbeams, 1975’s 'King Brilliant'.
At the same time he was approached by The Doors and asked to fill the space left by Jim Morrison. Howard spent some time rehearsing with them, but finally Ray Manzarek decided against The Doors reforming.
Howard worked for a while with Ray on various musical projects, including songs that would end up reworked on the earlier mentioned 'Six of One' and 'The Evolution Myth Explodes' (2003).
He reformed Audience in 2004 and did a much more successful tour which resulted in a live album: Alive&Kickin'&Screamin'&Shoutin'
A compilation album 'The Grapes of Werth' was announced in 2012 but never appeared. Sadly enough the record label which was supposed to release it, Luminous Music, no longer exist either.
As Howard is definitely an artist worth hearing imo this 20 track Jokonky compilation should be a decent introduction. Including here are some of his tracks with Audience, solo albums, B-side, live, Blank & Jones remix, and his final (up till now at least) recording with Blue Pulse.