Barney Bubbles

{feuilleton} also features an excellent article on the innovative British visual designer Barney Bubbles, real name Colin Fulcher (1942-1983). Mostly famously, Barney Bubbles was responsible for Hawkwind's psychedelic-science-fiction-Hell's-Angels-meet-Russian-Constructivism designs, but also for some new wave artists like Elvis Costello and Ian Dury. He also contributed to the UK underground magazines such as Oz, IT and Friends/Frendz.

http://www.johncoulthart.com/feuilleton/?p=1296

Barney Bubbles 1983 obituary @ NME, as republished by Aural Innovations

Reasons To Be Cheerful: The Life & Work of Barney Bubbles by Paul Gorman (a book, published November 2008, UK, ISBN: 978-0-9552017-3-8)

John Coulthart on Reasons To Be Cheerful

Hawkwind: The Spirit of the [R]Age

"The music business is a cruel and shallow money trench, a long plastic hallway where thieves and pimps run free, and good men die like dogs. There's also a negative side."
- Hunter S. Thompson

As quoted by Hawkwind's on-off managerial type Douglas Smith, these words by the late "gonzo" writer Thompson might well crystallize the story of this legendary "spacerock" band (and probably also British cousins to German Krautrock acts of the same era), as accounted by Carol Clerk in her The Saga of Hawkwind (Omnibus Press, 2004).

And what a dirty saga it is, as I found from Clerk's book I just finished. Hawkwind which got its beginnings in the days of UK's flower power scene and communal spirit of the late 1960s, as a "people's band" (like their peers Edgar Broughton Band, Deviants and Pink Fairies), has underwent several line-up changes, the most famous of these ensembles consisting up to mid-70s of Hawkwind's self-declared "captain", guitarist/vocalist Dave Brock, mischievous sax player Nik Turner (Brock's future nemesis), the amphetamine-fuelled bassist Ian "Lemmy" Kilminster (best known from Motörhead, of course, the band he founded after having been kicked out of Hawkwind), electronics guys Del Dettmar and Dikmik, plus drummer Simon King. Not to forget Stacia, their six feet (180 cm) tall Amazon-like naked dancer.

By the time Hawkwind reach the 21st century, the only remaining original member is Dave Brock. Behind them are not only loads of albums -- some of them undeniable classics, some of them bootleg drivel -- but also countless behind-the-scenes bickerings, accusations of financial rip-offs and records released without permission from other band members, court cases, back-stabbings and innuendo. Musicians sacked as the result of "personal problems" and ruthless band politics. Nik Turner accusing Dave Brock of this, Dave Brock accusing Nik Turner of that (most likely both cases of the kettle calling the pot black). Everybody thinking Dave Brock either as a hero or a villain. One of the best known Hawkwind tracks is called 'Spirit of the Age', and this is exactly how it feels: the band changing along the times from the easy-going, communal and sharing Zeitgeist of the 60s and 70s to the greedier and more egotistic times of the 1980s, 90s and early 21st century. All this reads like Spinal Tap but many times more as tragedy than comedy.

Recommended, perhaps essential reading to everyone who plans a career in music business; with tons of excellent advice on how NOT to handle things, business and personal relations.

Hawkwind in Tampere, May 2005

Hawkwind In Tampere

(No, this pic is not from the Tampere gig.)

Last night I saw Hawkwind, the legendary UK spacerock band, who started their career in 1970, and have been together and touring, with constant line-up changes, all this time, like an old but still relentless warhorse. During their "classic era" of the early-to-mid-70s Hawkwind comprised of such people as Lemmy, later better known from his Motörhead (which got its name from a Hawkwind song), the late poet Robert Calvert, Nik Turner, and the well-known sci-fi/fantasy writer Michael Moorcock who provided some lyrics.

Not to forget their legendary onstage dancer, the 6 feet tall Stacia (pic above; did you think I would have had photos of some wrinkled old hippies here?) who was their gig mainstay during these years; something you won't see on Top of the Pops. Whatta woman.

Obviously, for their communal spirit, there are some comparisons being drawn between Hawkwind and their American hippie cousins Grateful Dead, but whereas The Dead has been known for some prolonged, laidback guitar jams, Hawkwind's music has been always grittier and more anarchic, even closer to the spirit of punk at times. Maybe of their contemporaries, Hawkwind's Ladbroke Grove mates Pink Fairies, or German musical genre of Krautrock would come closest.

Personally, Hawkwind in its current incarnation probably goes to the category "Well, now I've seen this band too", meaning the musical act in question has their meaningful place in history and therefore a "must-see at least once in a lifetime" -- even though their current shape would not live up to their legendary past reputation.

Of the original line-up there was left only Dave Brock, 63 years old at the time of writing, who looked exactly like an archetypal old hippy: a wrinkled, skinny man with a long, albeit slightly thinning hair and moustache, resembling one of the characters out of Asterix comic books.

The band, wearing white lab coats, started their set with one of their best known songs, 'Spirit of the Age', after which they played a set of tracks where their other classics such as 'Silver Machine' or 'Urban Guerilla' were sadly not included. Well, that's always a problem with these old bands, who don't want to be regarded just another nostalgia act playing a jukebox-like set of their "Greatest Hits", but instead concentrate on their newer material, unfortunately more unknown outside the circle of hardcore fans. (Dave Brock announced a couple of other songs as "golden oldies" but at least I did not recognize them).

So, all there was left to do was to assess the band as themselves, and they were OK as raw "spacerock" with occasional synthesizer burps familiar from their records -- no elaborate guitar solos or other "virtuoso" showing-off, which I was grateful of -- which clearly had paved the way for even punk and metal. One song was fashionably anti-American, being against the US wars for oil, with the obligatory "fascist regime" mention. Well, you can't change an old anarcho-hippie. Hawkwind's grittiness, with such song titles as 'Agents of Death' or 'Assassins for Allah', reminds me of cheap, trashy sci-fi novels or Judge Dredd comic books: hard-hitting and entertaining despite the lack of higher virtuosity. If you are a neophyte to their music, I recommend checking one of their "Best of" collections first, though.

http://www.hawkwind.com/ - the official site

http://www.starfarer.net/ - an extensive fansite

Jørgen Angel's photos of Hawkwind with Stacia -- for obvious reasons, I would have liked to included some of these here but since Mr. Angel would probably have busted my ass for that, just check the site!

More Stacia

---

Hawkwind: The Spirit of the [R]Age