kuato lives

Rip. Much respect.

I always assumed that gaze got most of his style from bay area new wave? A lot of it is pretty dead on to techniques/looks that were heavily used in the mid-late 80s by dudes like aladdin, sno, nexus, cray, Picasso. Wcf/tws /etc. All of that really sharp abstract blurry splattery sort of stuff was definitely around . Never really knew the history exactly but know joker was painting San Jose walls around 1990 - believe there was a photo in the first 12oz prophet magazine of one - and that he is some how connected to that genre of "abstract" writers from dc/baltimore/etc, so they could potentially have had photos pretty far back? I keep reading on here that gaze is the godfather of a bunch of things I associate with 80s west coast, so just curious how it all fits together?

graffiti as fine art is toy and everyone is stupid. fab 5 freddy's work really sums it up quite well. genius, really.

i think everyone appreciates the effort baer is putting in to his new paintings, i do at least, but it would probably be good for him to know that "biting horfe" has been mentioned in every description i've heard of his newer work, also.

if bando and conneticuit/dc 92' had a baby....

Veks

Rad!

what city gets buffed the least in that state?

must be. "haha" i started writing in 90. it's a law about age but it has nothing to do with age. cities with curfews just mean a cop will stop every single time they pass you after 10 o'clock no matter how old you are... they slow down and spot light you, then stop and say "oh you're over 18, just checkin for curfew it's passed 10... so what are you doing out, what's in the bag, there's been a lot of robberies in the neighborhood - are you on meth" flash light to the pupils, run your name, then they check your hands, shoes, bag, and pants for paint splatters. pretty standard procedure.

uhhhhhhhh when did santa cruz become one of the hardest towns to paint in california? do they even have a curfew?

wait, people still listen to underground rap?

yes but let the man rest.

definitely a dude that left a "story" of everywhere he'd gone... there's more of an "autobiographical" feel to his work than anyones i can think of. he roamed, lurked, lived.. and left a trail. he got up everywhere he ever went and went a lot of places. it was almost over night that he was suddenly up in tons of cities and had scribes on every pay phone. i'd never heard of him, someone mentioned how vent was friends with some train-hopper dudes in texas that were starting to write, and then boom.. before i even realized what happened it was everywhere. if he'd ever spent time in a city you were in - you knew it. the dude knew how to get his shit to run. he was pretty much the epitome of what could happen if punk traveler culture and graffiti ever came together. i didn't know him as well as some people, but he never struck me as flashy of boastful... more soft spoken and kinda lurky, kind of uneasy i guess... tattered. i was really surprised at how he looked when i met him actually, didn't expect it at all. i liked watching him tag- he would kinda jump into it and "pop into action" and be super fast all of the sudden and was done before i even fully realized what just happened. i liked that he always had a pocket full of different tools on him at all times for different surfaces, and was the kind of guy that would find 2 half cans and somehow make a night of it. he never struck me as a big racker but would always give me a pen if i didn't have one. he was exactly what graffiti needed at the time when he came out, he did it however... and he did it a lot. in my mind i thought he probably liked it for all the right reasons, it was refreshing. he was maybe the key figure that helped establish the validity of the "anything goes" vandal around the country... and is the first really prolific example of "outside participation" that i can remember seeing. so prolific that it no longer even seems like outside participation, now its just a standard. tons of people write like that now. he's definitely one of the most important writers of our time along with jesse, as far as the timeline of graffiti history in the u.s. goes... they were like our version of "outsider artists" or something, and by just tagging were somehow able to cross over into the realm of "americana" more than any others i can think of. kids is one of those guys i'd always get jealous of because so many regular people would always mention him whenever graffiti came up. i think his name and the way he wrote was almost non-offensive to them, and they were able to pass it off as "friendly mischief" or something, or they didn't feel excluded by it like all the other graffiti. i always liked it because it totally looked like "some guy went and did that right there".. and for whatever reason it totally emphasized the surface itself; it'd always be "that kids tag ON THE ____ ." he was one of the few people i've ever come across that has been up so much in certain cities that i quit even noticing it because it was so regularly occurring. very sad to hear the news, i have no doubt i'll still be seeing kids tags up for as long as i have eyes. much respect, and rest in peace, friend.

"kefresk" (adjective)

sorry to hear fellas. a nice dude. kept the east bay smashed... even during the couple years when things had gotten slow and not many people were still going out. r.i.p.

stole..

santa cruz too. holler.

sf wouldnt be so bad if it wasnt full of a bunch of wannabes that grew up in the north bay and the penninsula trying to claim it all the time. paint your moms neighborhood... thats who you'll always be.

montreal:

Pittsburgh:

"I got rushed on my way here, but that can't stop me." 99.

best jason bateman movie since teenwolf too! i didnt read through all the shit people wrote here, but was cut chemist the school teacher? he looked familliar, thought maybe it was him.

rip the cd.. haha.

those abnormals are tight

how come no one that actually bombed with twist ever pushed thr? ... always figured it was like a joke crew or something cuz of that. tight flicks though.