12ozProphet History

[misteraven]

In light of the discussion and some really great memories posted in the Weigh In: Has the social media revolution devolved conversation? thread and because @Grassy Knowles never got around to writing up a 12ozProphet History piece, I thought I'd kick off this thread so that those that were there can share stories and photos from the earliest days. The more I talk to people, the more I hear about how impactful 12ozProphet was to some people. The laughs, the sharing of information, the friendships, etc. Obviously I've personally been on a nostalgic tip with where I'm at with everything, but really does seem to be coming full circle lately.

 

Anyhow, before continuing to build forward, I thought it might be a good idea to start documenting the past in some form. Obviously this forum is packed with history. A lot of images are broken from that era before image storage was essentially free and we leached virtually every image posted, but there's literally discussions going back almost 20 years and its amazing to lurk through that old stuff and see a transcript of a long gone era in time.

 

There's plenty of other threads worth checking out, including the Channel Zero...Is it making a comeback?? thread, The Where Are They Now, prelude to a 12oz Reunion Thread, as well as a recent request from original old school crew members @Europe and @diggity that have reemerged and asked about specific flix from the past. Anyhow, I'll start posting some gems from the archive, but also hoping those of you that were there, will share stories, as well as any images that relate if you have them.

 

This thread is dedicated to Crude Oil who was an important part of all this, but no longer around. Rest In Peace to him and all the other friends and members that are no longer around to swing back through, reminisce and contribute to this next chapter.

 

-------------------------------------

 

Starting with some of the oldest shots, swiped from another thread and shot by @psm026, here's the original 12ozProphet / Straight From the Bottom offices back around 1997 - 1998.

 

 

 

 

Here's a couple shots of me and @psm026 when we just accepted delivery of 12ozProphet Issue #6 featuring Os Gemeos. A couple of the issues were pretty big milestones, but this one was a real turning point. It was there very first interview and the first time anyone found out about the pixacao scene in Brazil, as well as well as the amazing work of Os Gemeos outside of a very small handful of people. @Sonik3000 and @STRUGGLE INC were pivotal in both that issue and several of the others as well as a huge part of the early 12ozProphet history. Pretty insane to consider that 35,000 copies of 12ozProphet Issue #6 sold globally. It was actually the fastest issue to sell out and tipped things over to such a degree that the remaining inventory of prior issues all sold out along with it due to its popularity.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited May 29, 2018 by Guest

[misteraven]

I'm going to keep adding to this thread... Have a bunch of CD's, hard drives and photos to dig through. In the meantime, here's a super rare video clip from that era mentioned above. There's not much video from those days, especially of Brazil and Os Gemeos, but we were fortunate enough to video some stuff and somehow those recordings survived (whole long story on that).

 

Anyhow, enjoy...

 

[MEDIA=vimeo]51971026[/MEDIA]

[misteraven]

Believe this was the second mailorder catalog we did for Straight from the Bottom, the mailorder side of 12ozProphet. Back in the early and mid 1990s we used to print these catalogs up and travel around the country and parts of Europe hitting up graff and B-Boy jams, meeting kids off the board and handing these things out. In fact, UPS was so expensive back in those days that we frequently just hopped flights to deliver suitcases of magazines in person since it cost about the same as UPS. Shop owners, magazine owners and friends would let us crash on their couch for a few days and we'd usually return home with suitcases of foreign graff mags. Deal was that you could take a backpack with your gear, but the two checked bags were solely for the cases of zines in exchange for a free flight to wherever. Pretty crazy how different all that works now, but we had some really great trips and got to see Battle of the Year several times, as well as meet a ton of great people. Likewise in the USA, the B-Boy summit and Rocksteady Jam were milestone annual events that we all anticipated so we could catch up, put faces to names and strengthen friendships that we'd been forming in the early internet days here on the forum.

 

\

[misteraven]

http://www.12ozprophet.com and the Writers forum through the years...

 

Maybe some of the old crew can chime in, but as I recall the original forum was a single section that was straight graffiti. I'd set it up with the help of @Misk-TheDragon to stay in touch with writers from other cities that I'd met along the way. Among the most notable was @Joker who I'd met at the Tribal booth at an old ASR tradeshow. In those days long distance calls were expensive and most writers that new writers from out of town would send hand written letters via snail mail along with hard copy flix or negatives that you'd go get processed and then return. Anyhow, the internet was still fairly new and most the population still didn't even have a computer at home, ket alone several. You got online via dial up and most online conversation took place on IRC or on various BBS systems and shit like UseNET. IRC was a pain in the ass to use and I figured if I couldn't easily figure it out, most writers probably wouldn't bother. Then I came across the first forum system I'd ever seen, an old CGI based forum system that was browser based and pretty simple to use. I reached out to Joker and a few people and that was the start of the 12ozProphet forums.

 

Very quickly I saw the potential of community and looked to create a sort of virtual writers bench on a global scale. At that time, the few graffiti websites that existed were mainly static photo archives that you couldn't really search and took a monumental amount of work to maintain. I was more interested in the networking and conversations (Still am after all these years) and so 12oz moved in a different direction by always focusing on the community aspect of it.

 

The forum started growing and so we added sub sections for trains, walls and graffiti discussions (tips, news, etc). The core members invited friends, that in turn invited other friends and it grew from a small handful of writers to a pretty big forum. @Misk-TheDragon being the young computer genius that he was knew how to exploit Microsoft Front Page extensions and would hack some other competing sites and setup redirects so their traffic would go to 12ozprophet until the owners could figure out how to fix it, often a few hours later or maybe a day or two if we were lucky. Likewise the zine was really coming into its own by Issue #3, featuring a very early interview with Barry McGee aka Twist which also turned a lot of people onto the website and as the mailorder got bigger, that was another avenue for people to find out about the site and forum since we'd stuff each order with various flyers and other stuff. I believe 12ozProphet was one of the first companies on the East Coast selling spray caps and for a few years, we were by far the largest. Once we connected with Os Gemeos and discovered the crazy skinny caps they were using out there, the game got raised to a whole other level. We'd trade batches of 1000 NY Fat or NY Skinny caps with the twins in exchange for the stock Colorgin caps they were using, which we're thinner than NY Thins by at least half or more. On the plane ride back from the trip that led to the Os Gemeos feature in 12ozProphet Issue #6, I made up the name "micro caps" and it didnt take long for those to be the biggest thing in graffiti for the next while. We struggled to keep them in stock because whereas we had the plug to the factory for NY Thin, Fat and Rustos and literally bought them in batches of a million or more, Os Gemeos were bribing the janitor at the ColorGin factory to swipe caps at night when he mopped the factory floors. In any case, we still got requests for micro caps like half a decade after they were no longer available. Even into the era of all the Euro graffiti0centric paint companies that opened the flood gates with quality paint, in a massive spectrum of colors that were low pressure and had a library of various specialty caps available.

 

If I'm not mistaken it was @beardo was the person to suggest we start a forum for non-graffiti discussions. Up until then members would have to add "NGC" before thread titles so everyone knew that it was "NO GRAFF CONTENT". Worked well until the forum really picked up momentum and then we started breaking the forum down into more granular subsections. Among them were "Channel Zero" inspired by Public Enemies 1988 hit song by the same name and "Static Age" which was inspired by a Misfits album that dropped about the same time (In turn inspired by a much older song title).

 

 

 

 

 

[glorydays]

this is so fucking awesome...that last pic is the last time I remember this forum

 

I'm getting emotional lolol

[misteraven]

this is so fucking awesome...that last pic is the last time I remember this forum

 

I'm getting emotional lolol

 

Yeah that was the last big one before this one here. Got jacked up when I had to strip out the blogs. There's actually a couple more iterations including a forum that was only live for a few days when we rebuilt the site in whatever the new ExpressionEngine was that had the integrated forum system. The queries to it were poorly isolated and once I turned the thing to live, it collapsed under the loads, which weren't even that high. Sucks because that site took almost a year to build and I paid out the ass and put countless hours into a manual migration all for nothing. Then had to suddenly find a replacement and quickly build it out since the site had just gone live and then suddenly wouldn't work. Old version was a mess and it was just a big fucking mess. Another big tech blunder in the 12ozProphet story.

[diggity]

looking back, the misfits was my favorite header image.

[CILONE/SK]

How in the fuckedy fuck am I not on these screen shot?

[glorydays]

Yeah that was the last big one before this one here. Got jacked up when I had to strip out the blogs. There's actually a couple more iterations including a forum that was only live for a few days when we rebuilt the site in whatever the new ExpressionEngine was that had the integrated forum system. The queries to it were poorly isolated and once I turned the thing to live, it collapsed under the loads, which weren't even that high. Sucks because that site took almost a year to build and I paid out the ass and put countless hours into a manual migration all for nothing. Then had to suddenly find a replacement and quickly build it out since the site had just gone live and then suddenly wouldn't work. Old version was a mess and it was just a big fucking mess. Another big tech blunder in the 12ozProphet story.

 

@misteraven yo...i work IT for the department of defense....if you need help somewhere let me know

[misteraven]

@misteraven yo...i work IT for the department of defense....if you need help somewhere let me know

 

Fuckin A man, can definitely use help! DM me on the board what your skill set is specifically so I know what to pester you with. Was actually wrestling with setting remote MySQL connections for the last few hours.

 

Thanks man.

[misteraven]

Will keep this sort of brief, but was just digging through a pile of CD Roms looking for a copy of the Jesus Potato emoji file that has been a popular request over the years and found a few screen grabs some of you super OGs might appreciate.

 

Back in the late 1990s, 12ozProphet was going through a weird phase... We'd just come off the peak of the first (original generation) of fans and hype. Issue #6 featuring Os Gemeos took things to an entirely new level and we managed to sell over 35,000 copies globally all through independent distribution. A little time had gone by since that issue and I'd been back in Miami for a couple years after college in Rhode Island. I was hanging out a ton with Crude Oil (RIP) and had developed a jaded attitude about things. Seemed like every time an issue of 12oz dropped, I got slammed from all sides by people wanting to get down, sending promo product and inviting me to events. Then 6 months would go by without a new issue (took me forever to drop new product... story of my life) and it was *crickets*. I struggled to even get people to call back, suddenly some writers were skeptical about getting down on the next issue and everything in general sort of became something akin to the lack of momentum you might experience from trying to run under water. At the same time, 1990s graffiti was reaching its pinnacle with European writers frequently flying to NYC to get down on mega murals that were happening all over. Even Brasil was popping since they'd already started going out there also after we blew the lid off the scene with the Os Gemeos issue. There were lots of caps, tons of new painting tricks and techniques being developed now that graffiti art optimized spraypaint was easily accessible.

 

We'd helped provide a platform for all that with the 12ozProphet zines, but ever since Issue #3 with Barry McGee and from hanging out with Crude Oil, coupled with what felt like an over saturation of the graffiti scene, I sort of yearned for simpler times. So I ended up building out a concept called theVapors Project, which was intended to deconstruct graffiti back to its most simple, primal form. Likewise, it was a chance to start clean, with no baggage of expectation, which had really started to feel kind of heavy at about that time. Likewise, it was also my sort of inside joke and a subtle "fuck you" to what I felt were some fair weather friends at a lot of the big companies that sort of tried to get down with what we'd been doing, but then never really did. Guess that was some post-teenage angst I was working through or something, but the result was pretty awesome. Cody Hudson (@struggleinc) and Caleb Neelon (@Sonik3000) were rallied up and convinced to help me get that project going. Odd as it seems now, there really were no bombing zines back then at all (at least none we saw anywhere, including the magazine racks at Tower Records) and we really had a chance to evolve some of the visual direction we'd developed doing 12ozProphet.

 

It only released as a single first issue unfortunately, but it did hit people pretty hard eventually. When it first dropped, nobody could understand why we were regressing shit like we were. Everyone was trying to do bigger and bolder style productions, literally inviting a dozen top names and showcasing the height of can control, elaborate backgrounds, photo real characters, expertly executed in a complexity of color that would have Pantone choking. But there was still no denying the simple beauty of ink drips or the talent it takes to have true handstyle. Eventually people went from scratching their heads, to criticizing what we'd done to later really giving us respect for publishing theVapors Project. We eventually upgraded the splash screen that made up the website for theVapors Project into a full site and though the 12ozProphet forum was already massively popular, also launched a simple forum system that was an early online hangout for a lot of NYC bombers just getting online.

 

Anyhow, here's a picture of the cover and a shot of the forum I just found. Also, I'm attaching a screen shot of the design template for the index page of the site I found from before the website was actually coded. I'll try to dig up better pictures a bit later.

 

 

 

[CILONE/SK]

I joined right after that screenshot. I was home on leave from the Army, and visiting a wall in Bridgeport CT. A writer Sket told me about here. Been here ever since.

[glorydays]

Im gonna try bringing back da kid mero

[misteraven]

Continuing on with some of what we did with theVapors Project, that project / era was also our crossover to the larger world outside graffiti. The fourth official employee of 12ozProphet was a young local DJ that had an entrepreneurial spirit (The first was actually Teal FC, followed by @psm026 and soon after a girl I was dating named Sandra G, followed by Danny D / DJ Muet). Besides working full time at 12ozProphet / 7th Heaven (The second iteration of our mail order and distribution after Straight From The Bottom), he also did some Miami street team stuff for Rawkus and other music labels. 12ozProphet helped him put out a mix tape, which in turn inspired the idea to found an indy label named Counterflow Records. That label would eventually out out a bunch cool music with album covers often designed by @STRUGGLEINC. We would eventually come full circle and drop a 7" and an EP on both vinyl and CD. Through Cody Hudson (@STRUGGLEINC) and his appreciation and history with music, 12ozProphet started aligning closer to that world. At this point, Cody had moved to Miami for a bit to work on a gig we had started with the company that was printing 12ozProphet Magazine to kick off a clothing label called MTRPLS. Honestly, it's a huge regret of mine that we never had the chance to see that through after funding got clipped and for reasons I still don't understand, why we didn't move forward and just do it ourselves.

 

Anyhow, it was during this same time frame (actually slightly earlier) that we also got hit up by a local IDM music label called Chocolate Industries to design an EP that was also to be released in Europe by Warp Records, which we were super stoked on. That album was Ko-Wreck Technique. Cody and I collaborated on the design, with some handstyle by CrudeOil (RIP) who was steadily dropping by old warehouse regularly and had become our in house hand style guy. The artwork for that EP represents to me one of the best examples of the design aesthetic 12ozProphet would become known for and still at the core of what we did later with Also Known As (more on that later) and also with the current iteration of 12ozProphet projects like The Official Bootleg Series v2.5 and most of the shirts we're releasing these days. We would later design a couple more covers for various remixes and some other albums (was psyched when Rapid Transit happened since I'm a Prefuse73 fan) and Cody would also go on to design many more albums for Counterflow Records and Chocolate Industries, especially after he returned to his native Chicago and Chocolate moved out there not long after.

 

Seems crazy to even claim it, but nobody had really done much as far as merging the gritty graffiti aesthetic with graphic design. Cody was always into that sort of analog approach and with me helping curate and creative direct the graffiti side, we dropped some designs that I'm still excited and proud of. Ko-Wreck Technique being one of my favorites.

 

Disclaimer: Apologies for the lack of and poor quality images. This being an era before digital photography and long before mobile phones with cameras, not a lot of photos were ever taken and the film ones that were are largely scattered and buried. I plan to start looking for all that stuff and cataloging it all and will eventually get the stuff posted online so it accessible to everyone interested.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[misteraven]

Original shots of CrudeOil (RIP) taken by myself and Sarah Prieres. This was actually in a parking lot up the street from the old 12ozProphet warehouse. No doubt it's best to not shit where you eat, but happened to be that we were conveniently situated in a warehouse district where a lot of commercial trucks were laid up and also not far from some train tracks where they'd also layup some freights.

 

[Joker]

Damn... I remember those early days of the forum, for sure. It was interesting to watch it grow and go from something that was easy to moderate to something that sort of became a job without really being a job, if that makes sense. Thinking back, in those early years I met some life-long friends that became partners in Transcend and more importantly got honest feedback about the work I was doing at the time, mostly from @seeking whose critiques I appreciate and listen to above all others. Between the connections and the critiques I was able to hone my style and push it where I didn't think it would go, and eventually landing myself in the hot seat as a key player in Abstract Graffiti. I note the rise of my style and those connections to 12ozProhet... not just the forum, though it played a major role, but the brand itself.

 

@misteraven I'm sure you tire of hearing me say this but to annoy you I'll say it again - The design of those early 12ozProphet magazines, and later The Vapors, really set the bar for what graphic design would become in the 90s. The work you and Cody were doing was so inspirational that practically every Graffiti magazine thereafter copied bits and pieces of your designs. Then I started seeing that inspiration in other things not related to Graffiti, and somehow it just became a style of graphic design that everyone was doing. It's no wonder people were hounding you after every issue release to be part of the next one. Every time a new issue dropped it was like the Beatles released a new album. You would send me a couple copies of the new issues when they'd drop but a little secret... I had already bought a copy, every time. I couldn't wait to have one to study. To this day I think the two of you inspired a lot of writers to become graphic designers, myself included.

 

Personally, I don't mind the long breaks between releases. I was talking about this sort of thing with Rachel last night. We were watching a documentary on M2M about the lost art of hand-made items in haute couture, notably the big fashion houses in Paris. And how the few that remain are being bought up by conglomerates who own a lot of the larger fashion houses. The industry itself has changed quite a bit in the last ten years due to fast-fashion (think Forever 21 and H&M) and so this bigger fashion houses that used to release collections twice a year and now release more collections, more often. This has put these smaller family owned ateliers in a tight spot because they're making everything by hand but because they're so small they can't react to the shift in the industries demand for quicker returns. And so these big houses by them up and the family business becomes a memory and the art essentially dies. It's kinda sad. The reason I bring this up is because I see this as a horrible way to do things. These houses release new designs more often, basically flooding the market with their designs, and destroying what made them highly sought after to begin with. If 12ozProphet or the Vapors or The Bootleg Series released something new every month, eventually consumers would get to the point where we wouldn't be as excited to get that new issue. It wouldn't feel as special... at least that's how I see it.

[misteraven]

@Joker thanks for all the high praise brother. Especially meaningful coming from you.

 

Keeping up with the flow of things is definitely a big issue and being honest is a personal fault of mine. I have a tendency to try and make things *perfect*. Whether I ever achieve that or not is questionable, but what isn't is how long releases often take me, which hasn't done me much justice over the years. A guy that mentored me a bit about business once said that being in first place doesn't require you to be swimming laps around second place. A great analogy for the fact that there's a quickly dimension return on investment once you get to that 97% or so mark on accomplishment.

 

I'm definitely working hard to map things out now and keeping to a consistent, dependable and manageable release schedule is near the top of my list of goals. But I also realize (painfully realize), that it takes money to make money. That's always been a hurdle with 12ozProphet since historically its never really paid its own way. As soon as things scale to a size where it can be profitable, I tend to also raise the bar in terms of ambition and execution. Since most the time I need things to not just be successful, but to hit out the park, it puts an unrealistic expectation / burden on just about everything we tackle with 12ozProphet. I've actually been working these last months to close on a really big deal that'll bank roll my next 12 - 18 months of big plans for 12ozProphet. I've been refining concepts for years that I've been dying to bring to life. Stuff that I believe will redefine 12ozProphet completely, as well as validate all that came before it, if I can just see it through.

 

As usual, oh so close, yet oh so far.... Still the brother behind the struggle and doing all I can with what I have to work with.

 

On that tip, it would be a huge favor to me, 12ozProphet and the community we're trying to reestablish here on the forum if those that are fans of what we've done / what we're doing, to help spread the word. As I've said over and over, I can recover any account that ever existed on the forum. I can merge new accounts and the forum system has been fully functional for a while now so anyone can create a new account and join in. There's literally almost 20 years of graffiti history on these forums that pretty much doesn't exist anywhere else on or off the internet. Any help in reaching out to OG members or even reaching out to friends that might appreciate what we're doing here by becoming new members, would be greatly appreciated.

 

In the meantime, I'll keep posting stories as I remember them and also encourage those that were there to contribute as 12ozProphet was never just about me. Otherwise, check back as time allows and enjoy!

[misteraven]

Will send a free copy of the new book to anyone that can find the original 12oz Jesus Potato emoji and post or send it to me. Dig through 50 thousand CDs and cant freakin find a copy.

 

Anyone up for that challenge? Has to be a cached or archived copy somewhere.

[Pistol]

I might have the Jesus potato emoji. I have to check if I still have the hard drive with 12oz stuff (i.e. Drawball, cheeto feet, wet tshirt contest, Bojangles laser school photo, etc.) at my parents in storage. Crossing my fingers.

 

/nh on the Bojangles photo.

Edited June 3, 2018 by Guest

[misteraven]

Ah man, that would be huge!

[Schnitzel]

Wow that history

 

remember looking at the issue #6 in next Level records in Sydney and the guy saying "you've gotta check these brazil guys out!" quick scan and the mag was mine!

 

 great story - how many of the first issues did you print?

[misteraven]

@SchnitzelThanks man. I need to continue this thread. Lots and lots of stories and a ton of old photos. 

 

I think I did 5,000 of the first issue, 10,000 of the next couple. By #5 it got bumped to 22,500 and that issue was the fastest to actually sell out despite being bumped again to 35,000 copies. 

 

@psm026can probably remember better but pretty sure this is accurate. 

[earmuffs]

Hated the white forum. 

[Kults]

I’m loving the old pics Raven 

[misteraven]

LOL, regarding the white forum. Was thinking of doing a white alt to this one, but yeah... Everyone hated it but me.

[misteraven]

5 minutes ago, Kults said:

I’m loving the old pics Raven 

Thanks man, will post more asap...

 

Again, @psm026needs to chime in here.

[Kults]

1 hour ago, misteraven said:

LOL, regarding the white forum. Was thinking of doing a white alt to this one, but yeah... Everyone hated it but me.

I liked it 

[misteraven]

I'll do it when I have extra time, so probably no time soon.

[~KRYLON2~]

that chocolate inc cd is nice, i still have a copy of the urban renewal program album floating around somewhere and a copy of MUL crew cassette

[Sek Fink]

On 5/29/2018 at 1:57 PM, misteraven said:

Believe this was the second mailorder catalog we did for Straight from the Bottom, the mailorder side of 12ozProphet. Back in the early and mid 1990s we used to print these catalogs up and travel around the country and parts of Europe hitting up graff and B-Boy jams, meeting kids off the board and handing these things out. In fact, UPS was so expensive back in those days that we frequently just hopped flights to deliver suitcases of magazines in person since it cost about the same as UPS. Shop owners, magazine owners and friends would let us crash on their couch for a few days and we'd usually return home with suitcases of foreign graff mags. Deal was that you could take a backpack with your gear, but the two checked bags were solely for the cases of zines in exchange for a free flight to wherever. Pretty crazy how different all that works now, but we had some really great trips and got to see Battle of the Year several times, as well as meet a ton of great people. Likewise in the USA, the B-Boy summit and Rocksteady Jam were milestone annual events that we all anticipated so we could catch up, put faces to names and strengthen friendships that we'd been forming in the early internet days here on the forum.

 

\

back when the german outline was the gods honest truth on cherry red krylon!