wonderful graffiti

luka

Well-known member
As someone mentioned on this thread there's this step change when specialist paint is introduced and as a result of that the older stuff becomes extra evocative. It doesn't have the modern gloss and pop and density
 

DannyL

Wild Horses
Yeah, really good point. Plus the texture of faded photos for added nostalgia.

It's interesting to me to look at the characters and letter styles in particular. I was always really into letters. The characters are typical teenage boy stuff, gangsters gesticulating, but, just thinking London did have it's own distinctive lettering for a long while and there's something to me that looks very teenage about it also Quite cramped, not fully taking up the space like you see in later pieces where the artists have thought about their practice and are more confident, more mature.
 

luka

Well-known member
Yeah I agree. London was never as arty as Europe, or even as Brighton. i agree it feels cramped. I often think about how a kind of relative crapness is, for people who were there, cherished much more then the polished iteration that succeeds it but it's impossible to fully appreciate in retrospect, where the tendency is to condescend or disdain.
 

DannyL

Wild Horses
"Relative crapness" is perfect! Yeah, it's bound with memories and the as you said, the texture of the city. Polished wall graf or - shudder - street art is nothing like it.
 

Mr. Tea

Let's Talk About Ceps
It's funny, for all the time I spent in London the graffiti that I mainly remember isn't the big impressive stuff so much as the minor taggers, the ones that are really just a short word or phrase sprayed or even written with a pen with no discernible skill or artistry. TOX, TEK 33, E-dog, Inch, Rogue MP (always liked that one). ELAMENT scratched into the window of a Central Line tube carriage.

Glad I moved out before all this tedious NAT HAS HERPES bollocks.
 

DannyL

Wild Horses
There's an economic factor with paint as well, as I guess there always is with art and artists tool. The new brands of paint and the colours available are indicative of a time of a more professional class of painters who pay for the paint. The old stuff was all stolen, racked, or if you had big balls, taxed off other writers. BITD, the only nice paint available was Buntalac which you could only get from art shops, and was by the time i was involved, under double lock and key. I can the lilacs and pinks in some of those pieces and think that must've been a can on Bunt.
 

DannyL

Wild Horses
I loved how crude Tox was. No fannying around.

You seen this Luka? I only found out about it earlier this year, totally brilliant:

 

version

Well-known member
It's funny, for all the time I spent in London the graffiti that I mainly remember isn't the big impressive stuff so much as the minor taggers, the ones that are really just a short word or phrase sprayed or even written with a pen with no discernible skill or artistry. TOX, TEK 33, E-dog, Inch, Rogue MP (always liked that one). ELAMENT scratched into the window of a Central Line tube carriage.

Glad I moved out before all this tedious NAT HAS HERPES bollocks.

The best I've seen is one scrawled at the foot of a billboard saying "Connor has bare credit".
 

Mr. Tea

Let's Talk About Ceps
I bet whoever first drew that big angular 'S' has spent the rest of their life regretting not copyrighting it.
 

yyaldrin

in je ogen waait de wind
I loved how crude Tox was. No fannying around.

You seen this Luka? I only found out about it earlier this year, totally brilliant:


this is great

"I'll never be over graf man. I'm fuken a pure bred bro. Fucken meant to graf mate. There's nothing I've ever done in my life that I've felt as comfortable as when I'm out painting. Doin a piece or scribbling on a train theres nothing that beats that. It's the rawest artform. Ever. It's the rawest hobby you could be involved in. It's not like you go out there and you'll lose today or you'll fucken, you know, you won't win and then, you know, or you'll get sent off the field it's like you fucken lose, you lose man, that's it. It ain't no second chance shit. That's whats so real about it.

If I was like everyone else I'd live like everyone else and be a sad matrixed out motherfucker that wakes up every day at 9, goes to work comes home at 5, eats their dinner, watches a bit of shitty tv then goes to sleep and does it all over again. I'd rather be, ya know, my own person and do what I want when I want and not have to answer to anyone. And if that means that I can't do it, for what two years while I'm on a suspended, I'm gonna have to fuken take it on the chin man. Because to me as much as I love graffiti, goin to jail for the shit aint worth it, ya know.

The day I get off my suspended, is the day that I start playing this game we call 'Graffiti' with the reject cops of Melbourne.

Wherever theres trains theres always gonna be graf as long as you can get to the train and get 5, 10, 20, half an hour whatever theres gonna be, shits gonna be running man cos ther're gonna be dudes like me out that wanna fuken do as many as we can on this little time that we've got on this earth ya know. It's all about spicin life up, ya know. You can either live for 20, 30, however long and then die, ya know. You can be part of the matrix and just have some dead end job, work, pay your mortgage off and just die. I wanna do all that shit but I'm gonna get 100 galves under my belt, ya know. I wanna die with a fucken phat photo album there ya know. Hopefully. See how I go"
 
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Mr. Tea

Let's Talk About Ceps
Hey yyaldrin, do you know anything about the people responsible for what you might call 'stickiti'? I mean stickers used in much the same way as graffiti is. I see it occasionally in the UK but I was bowled over by how omnipresent it is in the Netherlands when I lived there. I get the impression it's closely related to skater culture, although I'm not quite sure why. A lot of the logos look like the kind of thing you might see Tippexed on a teenager's backpack. Interestingly many of them don't appear to be trying to sell you anything, so they're not really advertising so much as just a territorial branding.

stickers.jpg
 

luka

Well-known member
If I was like everyone else I'd live like everyone else and be a sad matrixed out motherfucker that wakes up every day at 9, goes to work comes home at 5, eats their dinner, watches a bit of shitty tv then goes to sleep and does it all over again. I'd rather be, ya know, my own person and do what I want when I want and not have to answer to anyone.

LEGENDARY.
 

DannyL

Wild Horses
Glad it resonates! He has great insight. I like the bit where he says about watching TV and staying in and getting stoned "that's what you do when you can't fucking walk".

Was thinking on this after looking at those Instas - I love the second one, actually saw one of my old tags on there, but I love Drax's as well he's a great writer - that this was all stuff that's done by grotty kids off estates. It's kinda similar to drill in that way. These aren't people that moved in to launch creative careers, it kinda grew out of London.
 

DannyL

Wild Horses
I actually dreamt about being on the tubes last night (and having a fight!) so I think this thread must've plucked a few associative-memory strings.
 
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