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.