GRAFFITI LA

On the way to grab a bite nearby (Artist District), I came across a great production going up by SH and K4P. A bunch of guys were involved including Panic, Mandoe, Modem, Toons, Dsrup, Neo, Cache, Zuco, Eyer, Noek, Biser, Precise. It was great for me to finally meet some OGs that I have flicked since back in the early ’90s but hadn’t previously talked to.

Also nearby was the L.A. against the War gig going on. Yesterday I caught up briefly with Siner about to paint with Aybon (rough in the Sun!) and today UTI was painting there including heavyweights Plek and Fearo. Kudos to Man of Crewest for his fine organizational drive.

ALSO, NOTE THAT I POSTED SEVEN NEW PHOTOS IN THE GALLERY. I’LL TRY TO MAKE IT A WEEKLY THING.

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I forgot to mention that I finally have a MySpace page, myspace.com/stevegrody and I want to thank John of ONEOONE (oneoone.org) for being such a good guy putting it all together for me.

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I went to the CBS show at Crewest last night, and it’s a strong show. The night before, Atlas and Xpress were working on the walls and helping hang the show. Nice to see a good variety of work in various media. Featured artists listed were Anger, Atlas, Aura, Axis, Bizar, Crash, DJ Rob One (RIP), Defie, Dytch, Esel, Haste, Hex, Kasl, Lex, Mers, Nace, Natoe, Nicnak, 1987, Pastime, Phever, Posh, Quake, Rasha, Skate (RIP), Sram, Tyer, Unit, Use, and Xpress. Always nice to say Hey to those I saw, including Anger, Haste, Dytch, Xpress (with lovely wife and sweet daughter) and Asylm. I had a chance to talk with Plek (one of the most stylish and up guys running these days) and it’s always cool to hear when someone has their art and their money gigs in balance like he does. I’ll have to go back and look at the work again without the crowd…

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I was just doing a quick glance back at my slides shot during March, and thought I’d do a quick recap of just some of the highlights. Revok once again keeps setting that bar really high, with rollers on Levitz (along with Nekst), “stone” pieces (with Nekst and Augs, a trio also off the Arroyo), Soto yard, Highland Park and Hollywood. A demolition site in Hollywood has Augs, Ween and Zes still up. A newcomer with a nice style I’m noticing is Spiro, on the same legal wall in Commerce with Kofie, Sonek, Brek (dope organic style, who I also caught in Hollywood with Tank who we probably won’t be seeing around for a long time), Pryer, Trickster and others I’m forgetting off hand (sorry). A cool production in an Echo Park alley had guys doing pieces as beer labels: Clowns, Necro, Size, Wutnot, Ruets and Tony. Thanks to Lokus for the heads-up on a chill wall that he and OG Siner were doing in South Central. Siner was also on a roll down at Commerce with Braile and Sloth, keeping it loose in that great way distinctive to LTSers. Siner and Aybon were also on COI alley wall that was supposed to be done with Vyal, but the production was never finished. MSKs re-did a wall in Hollywood, with Rime, Revok, Ewok, Push and Sever along with Ruets PDB doing the usual great stuff. Rime also did a great Mickey Mouse piece elsewhere in Hollywood, with Ruets just a wall away. Thanks to Asylm for letting me know about an El Serreno production happening: great stuff by Asylm, a superfine piece by Swank, a little bit by Panic, with a nice Sherm next to a cool little Kofie piece (also doing his unique graffics pieces in Echo Park and Melrose). Caught some good stuff in ELA (always nice to catch Kapow), and a nice Visions Crew production in “Shit Alley” not to be confused with the Shit Yard in the Valley. And finally, though I know it’s now April, I ran across a great new Augor/Fucte wall downtown, and when I got in to flick it, Augs was there with a friend to get pics himself. Well, I’m sure I missed talking about somebody I caught flicks of, but that will do for now. We have an embarrassment of riches here!

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The term “corporate” is the graffiti term coined by Yem (Krenz), founder of AM7, for doing a piece on the front of a billboard. Ideally integrating the piece/s with the existing imagery. I ran into Yem who wanted to clarify that his first partner that worked with him was Dae, followed by Doonze/Dew. Today there are plenty of “bill-bombers,” but few that actually work with the imagery like Revok and Augor. When I have talked with people outside of graffiti culture about the vandalistic/ethical questions of doing corporates, I tell them that while I, of course, can’t encourage it (like any kid would be influenced by me anyway), that I honestly have enjoyed seeing the Silver Surfer parting waves of Revok and Augs names, and find it hard to believe that any revenues were lost to a movie production company for example, because Aug’s name was coming out of Spidey’s hand. On the other hand the surge of toy tags on private/mom and pop businesses and public art sucks, a reflection of the loss of some standards that of course spills back over into the graff world where toys don’t understand respect for dope pieces and productions as well. It’s all tied in together.

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Just a heads-up to people writing to get in touch: don’t post anything on the site that you don’t want everybody to see. If you are sending anything like a personal e-mail address or phone number, send it to graffiti@graffitila.com and only I will see it.

Steve

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As I scan my slides, now up to 5-93, I’m seeing Aero AWR quite a bit (along with a million other writers of course). He’s long retired and now there’s an occasional “Aeroe” I see on CBS walls now and then. And just to add confusion for history buffs, there’s Aroe from the U.K. of HA crew and now a part of MSK. Not always easy to keep things straight!

‘93 was a very good year: Motor yard was going strong, along with Venice Pavilion, 7th and Santa Fe, Huntington Beach Walls, and the Arts District. Of course Melrose was going strong too.

I think it was when I was recently scanning in slides from 3-93 that I found my first shot of Saber’s work. I’ll be curious to see my first Revok when I get to it. It has been great to find stuff I didn’t even know I had because early on I couldn’t read it or didn’t know how to look for the signature. So I’ve found shots of Skate, Nuke, Besk, and so on that have been nice surprises. I’m not being a tease when I say there will be posts in the gallery along the line.

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I had a chance to grab a coffee and hang with Tackz AM7 this last Monday. He goes back to the first generation of graffsters in L.A. and had interesting things to say about Back Then. For example, he apprenticed under the legendary Hex TGO and Skill UTI, and talked about when he was with Hex, he was only allowed to watch for some period of time, and only eventually was he allowed to actually pick up a can and help fill in. That discipline of having to watch and take the learning step at a time is one of the things that has been relatively lost. Kids these days (classic old fart beginning of a rant…) too often don’t take the time to understand basic design and strong letterforms and try to jump right to the technical stuff and miss the base. Too much sizzle and not enough steak as the saying goes. Tackz also talked about an irreplaceable blackbook with Hex and Geo pieces in it that got lost when his car was jacked. The moral of that story is back up all photos somehow and scan blackbooks when they get filled. You’ll be glad you did.

I think this is elsewhere on this site but it bares repeating. In my original manuscript, I gave credit to AM7 and Krenz (now Yem) in particular of starting the “corporates” trend. That is, not just bombing the fronts of billboards, but integrating the pieces with the existing imagery. Tackz was very much part of that and props are due. Unfortunately, when one of the Saturday Night Slaughters of my writing came back from the editor/satan, that was missing and I didn’t notice soon enough to get it back in.

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I did an interview with Sum-In-One for Vlaze.com, and they split it into nine parts, so if you need to waste some time, go to Vlaze and search for Steve Grody and my stuff will be on the second page. Thanks to S-I-O for putting it together.

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I got back from the snowy mid-west last week and have caught up with at least some shooting (as in photography) of local graff. I ran across a CBS/WAI production going up on a new Melrose wall and had a chance to meet Haste, who is influenced by many styles of graphics thinking outside of graff, Reds (who has been a WAI fave of mine for some time), Werk (with his cool spidery style). Also going up were Sram (super strong letter style) and Mers (probably the bombingest of all the 3D writers out there). There’s some great new production work going on in the East L.A./Commerce area: the COI wall has a new collaboration with UTI and MSK (Vyal, Werc, Kofie, Retna) which is a great new combination of talents. A little east was work from Heavy Artilery (including Wrench and Aero) from the U.K. along with MSKs Rime and Revok. Do I really need to say the work was top notch? The same group went up along the tracks near the Sear’s yard (which some refer to as the “Soto yard”) where there’s usually something worth catching. Saw Ruets/Bonks and ? piece-bombs on a site I climbed up to, but I’ll have to try and get by when it’s closed so the roll down door that the Ruets is on can be seen (if it’s still there). Went by Highland Park on the way to visit Chaz who was taking an interesting guy, Francois Chastenet from Fance, around to document Cholo placas. Francois has a new book out on Sao Paulo graff and it’s a unique style, so it’s definitely a book worth having and there’s some deep writing to read as well (check Amazon).

Kofie gave me shout about a nice little colab he did with Asylm in Echo Park, so I went over and was glad to run into Asylm getting his own shots. He kindly turned me onto some things worth checking out in ELA.

Over in Hollywood there’s a demolition going on, always a favorite place to hit because who can really complain? Anyway, Zes is there and it’s hard to imagine him doing anything not worth shooting. He had the company of Augor and the very weird Ween (and by weird, I mean good) although I don’t know if Ween was there at the same time.

For history hounds I promise that within the next week I’ll post some archive shots from ‘91/’92 in my gallery.

Thanks to those giving me the tips on what’s up.

Over the past week I’ve shot three rolls of 36, so I’m sure I’m forgetting to mention something, but that’s at least some high points. Now if the rain would just stop…

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