We kick off part two of this post with the golden age train writer Cazbee 53 from DSS Crew Da Sure Shots, from Ladbroke Grove piecing the outer wall of the MuTate Britain mechanical zoo….Many of Cazbees pieces rolled past this spot on trains,or were under the Westway itself.
Now he’s back 20 years later, along with oldskool steel writers Fuel, Skore, Mear, Crok, Don myself and a few of London’s more new skool to take the vibe back to the raw, enabling a potent and complementary mix of the hardcore underground vibes and tribes….
and back inside for another shot of me and Vibes….
……and onto the wild, diverse art within, here’s Jimmy South of War Boutique
Lyle Doghead, LRRY and friend
Elate, Obey
Anarchist Crockery by Carrie Reichart
In Dog We Trust by Jolly Good, made with real dollar bills…
Vera Bong
Dotmaster
The toilets…
New Arrivals…
What I have posted is a fraction of what is there, you really have to get down to this 12,000 foot space and experience the most revolutionary art happening London, probably even the world has ever seen.
Many thanks to Hip Hop and Graffiti documenter and archiver Skire for allowing me to use shots from his amazing archive.
It’s thanks to people like him we can look back on a golden era.
This shot features vintage London handstyles including an old Elate tag at the legendary and much missed Groove Records in Greek Street, Soho, the Mecca for Hip Hop’s early days, and pretty much the main dispenser of all the Hip Hop Electro imports from the US in the mid eighties, and where I spent most of my money back then, starting in around 86.
The Groove Electro charts were our ever changing bible, and mainstay of the Mike Allen show on Capital Radio, the pioneering spirit behind UK Hip Hop.
This place was pretty well hit in those mad old days, as anyone who knows London’s graffiti history will see from the tags…
It’s nice to see my handstyle in its’ transformative phases, (starting with a small e and ending with a capital E at this point!) It’s on the top of the door frame below Rogue and above Noize for those having trouble….
Also I can make out Drax WD, Jinx WD, Rogue, Crime, Up2, Dare2, Noize 207, Fuel, Daube, Cane 1, State of Art and Rome ACR amongst others I’m not 100% on. The piece was by the legendary Fade 2
Many thanks to Skire for this classic shot of an early Elate ‘EL’ throw-up taken in 1989. This is on the District Line tracksides in Bow, East London and done with Fugi, Spasm & Pusher.
Last Saturday 27th June I went along to the Covent Garden writers bench reunion to meet up with some very old friends, put some faces to old tags and drink some beer. The day started well with glorious sun…..
I started hanging out there in 1986, but it had been a meeting point since ‘84. Every Saturday afternoon through the late eighties it was a hive of activity with often over 100 writers signing blackbooks, showing photos and planning missions to get paint and then on to the train yards.
It was one of the first places in London to have proper graffiti art on the street, the work by The Chrome Angels on the hoardings around the Royal Opera House. As a young inexperienced writer it gave me a focal point to meet up with those with more experienced, make friends and be taken along on various missions.
The sun was however short lived and the day took on a dramatically different turn…..pictures continue….
When we all went off to paint together at Tufnell Hall of Fame that changed very quickly….The heavens opened and what followed was a torrential hail, thunder and rain storm of epic proportions…
This was the size of the hailstones ricocheting around our shelter spot, every now and then over the roar you’d here a surprised ‘Ow!’ or a ‘Eek’ as they found their mark…it was like being pelted with icy stones.
After about half an hour of this the heavens really opened and it turned to torrential rain, before long the trees provided no cover at all and deafening thunder and lightning broke out directly overhead so by now fearing a direct strike and utterly drenched we made a dash and hid in various bin rooms and people’s porches. It carried on like this for about another half hour.
We emerged from our cover soaked to the skin but laughing to do some tags and take some shots. It was a brilliant day and certainly one to remember and laugh about even more in years to come. After this we all went to the pub and I dried off under the hand drier and carried on. I hope to see more old faces at the next one, but better weather next time please…
Massive, massive respect to Envy, Colt 45, Sham 59, Dj Dexter, Mess, Prime, Coad 5, Reez, Dev 666, Crane, Shoom, Time, Jano, Baps, Mear, Urge, Crime, Keen53, Don One, Fuem, Merc, Fued, Dsia and anyone I missed…Legends All !
Please note the ‘rant’ that previously accompanied this post has been removed for revision as it appears that some people completely misunderstood my point….
The Painting
In this painting I have gone back to the gritty roots of UK graffiti, to show where it all started, tags, throw-ups and early pieces on London trains.
The images from New York in the book Subway Art and the film Style Wars had radicalised fertile minds in 1984 where it incubated, mutated and developed through important years of early bombing. By 1986 London writers had become numerous and dedicated enough that most trains were running with live graffiti on them and confident enough to concoct identities and assimilate styles more independently of New York influence, by now using our own indigenous cultural references and attitudes.
This is when our scene really began in earnest as a uniquely London phenomenon rolling on the oldest underground railway in the world. Pieces got bigger more beautiful and more original, raising the bar higher and higher.
This painting is not meant to be a complete list of London’s graffiti pioneers but features many of London’s legends. I’ve painted it from my own personal memories with input from my pal Envy, one of my old bombing partners, and from my experiences of the yards (particularly Loughton) between 1987 and 1989.
Anyone who spent any time in the yards of London in the late eighties will instantly recognise the vintage rolling stock, layers of stains of old tags on the panels, empty cans on the gravel, and spookily quiet atmosphere in this painting.
It’s based on Loughton train yard. Check out the leaves around the outside and the trees to the left, it could be accessed through bushes and this was one of my favourite views of the fronts of the rolling stock as emerging.
I have put people’s tags and throw-ups in the places I remember them hitting wherever possible. I realise there are discrepancies that purists will notice, (I have included certain writers who didn’t actually hit that yard) but it’s not meant to be historically accurate more a ‘dream-yard’.
Featured writers are Robbo 484, Doze, Prime and PIC from WRH We Roc Hardcrew. Envy, Jano, Kis 42, Coma and Dsia from CD Criminal Damage, Elk and Drax from WD World Domination, Cast and Fuel (who kindly did his own F throw-up on the canvas) from Cold Crush Dukes, Chane and Grand from YDS Yardies, Tilt, Hit, Rate, Kez, Sham 59, Cop and myself, Elate.
If you look carefully at the ‘stainers’ of old tags you may be able to pick out a few others. …there are many more legends that are missing than there are included!! Massive respect to all….
Many of these writers were either better artists than me back then or more ‘up’ than me and did more pieces on trains than me but I was still there doing my thing on the trains for a good couple of years and I spent a lot of my best memories bombing with some of these guys, who showed me the ropes and took me to yards, the others I looked up to and emulated their work.
The early graffiti scene was however vital to my development and one of the biggest influences on what made me the artist I am today. I can almost feel the crunch of gravel under my feet, surge of adrenalin thumping in my heart and the sickly smell of the paint fumes…
I got the idea for this series of paintings as this was a time in history that most never got to see, so decided to try and get the vibe of those mad days across as well as I could. Anyone who wants to see photos from this era of London graffiti should check out Rocking The City.
Many thanks to Skam for this snap of an old Elate tag from the eighties uncovered during recent renovations to Marble Arch station. If anyone else has any old Elate snaps I’d be very glad to hear.
Vera Bong
Dotmaster
