Dark and dingyyyyy Mearns!!

Such a hard place to get nice flicks - well for me it is! Took more flicks but unfortunately they didnt come out.

Cold Concrete

Derm

Rogue One interview

Nice wee interview with Rogue One over here. Not a full on graff interview but a good read nonetheless.

Cam One

The Skinny - Graff feature

Graff article in The Skinny. Make of it what you will but the inclusion of the word "turntabling" just about sums it up. FFS!!

GazMac - Dublin

Scotlands first ever Graff writer????

Received an email from someone who put forward the following questions

who is the first documented graffiti writer in Scotland?
how far back can jazzy tags be claimed?

I sort of covered this in an early post which was slightly tongue in cheek. It did raise the question of whats the difference between "Tam was here" and someone putting up a tag as we would class it.

Personal opinion, I would say there were no Scottish "graff writers" before the whole Hip Hop package was delivered to the UK in the early 80's. I could be wrong.

For me as a young lad living in Dundee, the first writers that I knew of as graff writers were local boys Foxy, Cozmo and Bip. There could have been others and certainly there were others out around that time who became really prominent in the scene. That was back in 1985, although these guys could have been involved in graff for possibly a year or two by that time.

Thats my memory of that time and what was happening in Dundee. I have no real knowledge of what was going on throughout Scotland at that particular time. I know Gaz Mac has incorporated "Est 1983" onto the end of his tag. Were there others before him? Im sure Gaz or others would know. Again, would they know what was going on in other parts of Scotland? If not, can they claim to be the first?

The earliest flicks that I have on this site are archived as 1984 (Eez and Foxy) but by looking at these, particularly the Foxy piece, you can tell that this isnt his first attempt at graff.

Im sure there is loads of info out there, some fact, some slightly mixed up due to ageing memories and brain cells, and some that is absolute made up garbage. I would also put a large bet on this never being resolved.

It would be good to hear what others have to say.

Edinburgh Warehouse mid 90's

Livi shop 1996

Footage of a wall organised by Eez. Wall from left to right Elph, Vera, Lyken and Mie 1. Eez pulled the wall together by doing the background work.
My original Sketch here
Flick of full wall here

late 1980's graff

Couple of Dundee pieces from 1988 videoed a good few years after they had been painted - i would guess at mid 90's.

More vids of older stuff coming soon, just finished converting some old VHS videos.

New York City Graffiti - The Destiny Children

New York City Graffiti - The Destiny Children published by Schiffer books

Received this book just before Christams from the good folks at Bushwood books but due to the festivities its taken a while to get round to reviewing this.

So, given that you are most likely a writer and reading this review, what do you know about The Destiny Children? An internet search wont through up much other than info about this book.

So what do you need to know. Well its all in this book and what a book. 344 pages of high quality old school graffiti funk including 480+ photos. Need to know more? TDC hit the NY subway system and they hit it hard.

This book celebrates 25 years of The Destiny Children. The book transports you back to when graffiti was beginning to explode across the globe and was under serious attack from the MTA. The book features the crews work on trains and their transition to walls and tractor trailers.

To give you a feel of what this book looks like it has a feel of what maybe Subway Art would have been had it focussed on one crew. Like Subway Art the book has fold out pages to show full car pieces but there are far more included in here and it gives you a chance to fully appreciate the individual styles of the crew members. The styles are classic and timeless and burn so much stuff that is out there now.

Given that the TDC were active during the time when NY where cracking down on graffiti on the subway system, the fact that they were able to produce so much quality work is really impressive.

As the book focuses on one crew it means it can give an indepth account of what made the crew and each member tick. There are hundreds upon hundreds of quality flicks in this book including many action shots of the crew in the train yards putting their work up. But what really makes this book for me is the various tales told about train painting missions including Goldie’s trip to NY, numerous fight and beef tales and general chat about what the graff scene was like back then. There is also some contributions from other writers about how the TDC inspired/impacted on them.

Personally, this book is a favourite amongst the piles of graff books out there. The styles are classic, the colours are of a certain time reminding me of why I got into graff in the first place.

The book is available in the UK from Bushwood Books and is priced at £39.95, although it can be picked up for £29.37 on Amazon. Pricey for a book? Maybe. Worth it? For a book dripping with style then yeah, its worth every penny.

highly recommended!!!!!