SMdoubleXL 5,785 Posted April 10, 2020 Share Posted April 10, 2020 5 minutes ago, glorydays said: you never painted? Ive painted ... ...nails. Lots and lots of nails 5 2 Quote Link to post Share on other sites
Drue_Down 4,631 Posted April 10, 2020 Share Posted April 10, 2020 I don’t have many photos of me prior to 2000. I avoided pictures in high school during my peak graffiti days, we all did. Chicagoland in the early 90s was wild. Mad graffiti crew beef, snitches upon snitches, photo-mats snitching on graff photos, CPD & surrounding cities raiding homes and using photo albums as evidence. We socialized with monikers, we switched up our monikers a lot, we stayed the fuck away from cameras, and we lived in the moment.... we were gonna live forever, so why bother recording the past? It’s sad, I don’t have any pictures of phenomenal friends, or even ex-girlfriends... unless parents took them. I pulled out an album today and realized all my late teen pics include me smoking weed or drinking malt liquor. Here’s a few: After my long hair phase 17-18, I let a girlfriend cut my hair and she fucked it up. I ended up shaving the sides and keeping it long on top. I was full on Faith No More. Not like anyone would notice, I wore fitted baseball caps, Kangols, and fisherman hats for 20 years straight. 17 & 18, early 90s: Chicago went through a phase of getting your tag name stitched into the back of your hat, what the fuck were we thinking?! 92-94, any other cities do this too? 19-21: MAYOR DALEY’S GRAFFITI BLASTERS! This was my apartment, I lived alone on the North Side of Chicago. Daley implemented a ban on all large markers and spray paint in Chicago. We had to go way out in the burbs to rack markers and streaks, and we’d drive to Indiana to buy Krylon for $1.80 a can. Any graff offense was a felony, possession of graff supplies was a felony, your fill-ins we’re lucky to run past 48 hours... it was a war against the city. Hamm’s 40oz dude became my roommate a few years later, he was a well known battle MC in Chicago & NYC known as Presence. I spent many years working as an artist and digital marketing in Midwest hip hop, best days of my life. The truck jewelry. I’ve always has a fetish with ridiculous 80s rope chains, I still intend to buy a real one some day. See the caddy emblem? My crew and I used to steal hood ornaments all day, I fucking loved it when I was 12-17, I wish I still had my collection. 4 5 1 Quote Link to post Share on other sites
misteraven 5,266 Posted April 10, 2020 Author Share Posted April 10, 2020 Don’t quite remember the year but very early 2000’s. Best guess is likely summer 2002. NYC over the trauma of 9/11 but before they got it all dialed in and shit turned corporate as fuck. Can’t remember what even this was, only that I was drunk and having fun at a block / park party. Kids were skating, someone was DJing, 12oz was exploding and I was having fun. Think this was about 1996. @dekayfa, Ease, Shie, Rage and myself (Free Agents, Inkheads). This was before any of us living in NYC, but we knew a lot of people and it was starting to feel like a second home. 5 6 Quote Link to post Share on other sites
misteraven 5,266 Posted April 10, 2020 Author Share Posted April 10, 2020 Here’s some extra old school shit... Out taking graff flix with my dog. Believe this was 1985 or so. Rocking them cool vans and my sporty SoCal skate look. First piece I was truly proud of, even if they were just simple blockbusters. Copyright 1989. Can’t remember the exact year, but about halfway through college when I took a year off to do graffiti and drink lots of malt liquor in Savannah GA. Suppose that would make this 1993 or so. Freights there were easy and I got into doing clean readables most of the time. Cool group shot the day after hitting more freights. Went back the next day for clean day shots. Shie, me and Jel (Inkheads) around 1993. Fun little wall featuring a Bode mouse. Also Savannah, so still 1993. More readable freight shit. 1994. 8 5 Quote Link to post Share on other sites
diggity 416 Posted April 10, 2020 Share Posted April 10, 2020 42 minutes ago, glorydays said: @SMdoubleXLi'm not trying to offend but is that a fucked up wu-tang tat?? Here's my teenage hillbilly wu-tang story. Around the time i was in 11th grade they were going to do a show in Atlanta. This was right after the Wu-tang forever album came out and they were opening retail stores. My best friend at the time hyped it up and I was down. Well back then, there wasn't really a way, at least that we knew of to get tickets to a show thats 4 hours away. Atlanta was 3-4 hours away and my buddy had heard about it on the radio. The day of the show came around, we hop in the car and drive down early so we can get tickets and good seats. We get to Lakewood and the place was trashed. Wu-tang flyers everywhere. I look down and pick one up and the show was the night before. Today that would we have just said fuck it, mapped our way to Lenox or some place else. But being the boy scouts that we were, we only brought a mapquest print out to get us to the show and back home. Ended up back in the car driving home disappointed but we still had a good time. Looking back I can't imagine even having the money to get in. The whole thing was a complete failure but probably ended up better that way. Those days were filled with road trips not working out. When I was 16, I lived about 90 minutes away from Dekay's Skate shop. Since I lived so far away, and cellphones weren't a normal thing back then, I would get up early and drive down, spend the afternoon, get some pizza and be back before dark. The only problem was that a lot of times I didn't take into account the shop might not be open the days it was suppose to be open. Many times all that was dependent on what kind of parties had gone on the night before or if the college was out or not so many times I came back empty handed. Also think this was around the time Dekay was spending a lot of time in NYC so Shie or Ease would be running the shop. Thats actually where I got my first introduction to graffiti. There was some 12oz magazines for sale and posters on the wall and I asked about them. Being from a small town I hadn't ever seen anything like it. Most of what I had seen done with spray paint up to that point was shit like"Jimmy Loves Jane" or racial slurs. Anyways, Ease was telling me all about things and I believe he is the one that told me how to find the roundhouse. I don't think he ever expected I would go down there. Timeline wise, this was right around the time Samors was being painted. I think Shie was working on that wall but i could be wrong. The Ease piece that was painted there remains to be one of my favorite pieces by him. One time I went down for a skate competition. I wasn't sure of the start time so a sketchy guy i kinda knew a stayed over the night before, the kid i normally skated with wasn't able to go so he suggested i take this guy. He agreed to pay for half the gas and all food. We were so excited we didn't end up going to sleep until like 3am or some shit. we got like 2-3 hours of sleep and wake up tired as fuck. We stop at the gas station to fill up before making the drive, I ended up paying for gas because he only had one check on him. He convinces me to stay away we need to take some yellow jackets to stay awake - I assume all of you know what those are but its basicly over the counter speed for truckers. Looking back I'm amazed they sold them to us because we were so young but I guess theres no age restriction on that kind of thing. So we both pop two, chase it with soda and hit the road. I felt fucking awful the whole day. jittery as fuck, couldn't eat anything, didn't put it together why until years later. Later we end up at the skate shop. Homeboy buys something at the skate shop with a check. Whole trip I felt sick, the kid never actually paid for anything and to top that off I think his check bounced at the skate shop. Most of the time I would calculate how much money I needed for the trip down to the penny. I'd normally only have enough to get me down there and back. maybe a slice of pizza and a coke. First time I actually met Dekay, A friend invited me out for Chinese. I only had like 5 bucks on me but didn't want to pass up a chance to meet these guys. I chose the cheapest shit on the menu - Chicken on a stick, and thought I was good since it was like 4.95. Totally didn't think about money for tax or tip or whatever. In my defense, I hadn't really gone out many places at that time in my life without my parents so I hadn't ever really thought about it. Those aren't great stories but since old times were brought up, WuTang and I figured Raven would be able to relate to some of them a bit knowing the time period and people involved. I'm not sure that I have any photos from that time of my life. I would say my entire life I have been really awful at documenting things. I can probably dig some up from college this weekend. 1 3 Quote Link to post Share on other sites
Mercer 10,496 Posted April 10, 2020 Share Posted April 10, 2020 Shit motels and shoplifting. 4 6 Quote Link to post Share on other sites
Mercer 10,496 Posted April 10, 2020 Share Posted April 10, 2020 Pittsburgh 1996 6 3 Quote Link to post Share on other sites
Schnitzel 3,146 Posted April 10, 2020 Share Posted April 10, 2020 everyone posting their coolest shots 1983 on right with my two sisters (cannot believe the baby is now nearly 37) January 1991 around the time the gulf war started. dude with the mullet is Jcee - Sydney's first train king.(r.ip) look at those ratty nikes - Saved up so long for these and then couldn't afford another pair they were ptached up with Shoogoo and superglue. in 2015 a friend alerted me to ashot in a video clip from the same day 1991 graff exhibition - pittsburgh pirates hat because thats what Chuck d wore 1992 in front of a wholecar by Szar who now lives in NYC gigantic Fila boots. adidias USSR jumper stolen form a youth hostel. 1996 extremely hungover as best man for a mkate's wedding. I failed so hard that day was hoping to have some more dorky shots but a recent unfriending on facebook has taken some away dammit. 1994-1995 rave era goodness 6 4 Quote Link to post Share on other sites
glorydays 1,869 Posted April 10, 2020 Share Posted April 10, 2020 (edited) 9 hours ago, Mercer said: Shit motels and shoplifting. YO...that birdhouse tee i still have that deck hidden somewhere...back in the early 2000's birdhouse was going through this edgy shit after they lost all their original team riders. shit was fucked up cuz the deck back then cost around 50 because they were printed on "slick decks" which were around 15% more expensive and the art didn't come on regular decks. I just really liked the art work. Edited April 10, 2020 by glorydays 1 1 Quote Link to post Share on other sites
Dirty_habiT 4,435 Posted April 10, 2020 Share Posted April 10, 2020 Me and my maternal grandmother. This was 96 I believe. 3 3 Quote Link to post Share on other sites
SMdoubleXL 5,785 Posted April 10, 2020 Share Posted April 10, 2020 (edited) 17 hours ago, SMdoubleXL said: ante up muther fuckers ya know I’m lookin forward to makin this my own personal smash or trash thread Edited April 10, 2020 by SMdoubleXL Sorry, I’m a creep 7 Quote Link to post Share on other sites
diggity 416 Posted April 10, 2020 Share Posted April 10, 2020 Heres one from college and one from like 5th grade. 3 3 1 Quote Link to post Share on other sites
diggity 416 Posted April 10, 2020 Share Posted April 10, 2020 another college shot. 3 3 Quote Link to post Share on other sites
glorydays 1,869 Posted April 10, 2020 Share Posted April 10, 2020 1996 2017 3 4 Quote Link to post Share on other sites
~KRYLON2~ 1,141 Posted April 10, 2020 Share Posted April 10, 2020 me back in 2000-01 Yo Drue I went to a few shows that presence performed at, still have one of his albums. Back when Chicago had a good underground hip hop scene 3 3 Quote Link to post Share on other sites
Drue_Down 4,631 Posted April 10, 2020 Share Posted April 10, 2020 @~KRYLON2~your pic reminds me of MCA in his prime. That’s bananas 🍌 We've probably crossed paths a few times. I worked with a lot of Chicago acts of that era, mainly collaborating with molemen, urbanized music, and a host of names and crews I haven’t said in 15 years. It truly was the golden age of underground hip hop, even though Prime correctly labeled Chicago “Hater-Ville.” If the Presence album is “Let It Begin”, I did the artwork. 2 Quote Link to post Share on other sites
~KRYLON2~ 1,141 Posted April 10, 2020 Share Posted April 10, 2020 Hahahah hell yeah! Prime, all natural, the molemen, presence, seal fresh, nacrobats, juice, vakill, qwel, and to many more to list. $5 shows at The Abbey pub, Fireside, and sub t. Good times, and precious memories. Btw that album cover was sick Drue 2 1 Quote Link to post Share on other sites
Drue_Down 4,631 Posted April 10, 2020 Share Posted April 10, 2020 Jesus, those were all my people. Sub-t was my spot! 2 1 Quote Link to post Share on other sites
Drue_Down 4,631 Posted April 10, 2020 Share Posted April 10, 2020 (edited) For the outsiders and millennials, watch this video. As us oldies know, recording and editing a video in the 90s was not easy, a lot of our friends lives may have accelerated if we had the current tech sitting in the palm of our hands now. This video is a time capsule of Chicago graffiti and fashion of the era. Edited April 10, 2020 by Drue_Down 5 1 3 Quote Link to post Share on other sites
glorydays 1,869 Posted April 10, 2020 Share Posted April 10, 2020 4 minutes ago, Drue_Down said: For the outsiders and millennials, watch this video. As us oldies know, recording and editing a video in the 90s was not easy, a lot of our friends lives may have accelerated if we had the current tech sitting in the palm of our hands now. This video is a time capsule of Chicago graffiti and fashion of the era. Ive edited vhs before...i needed like fucking 5 VCR's just to clip skate vids together 1 1 1 Quote Link to post Share on other sites
CALIgula 1,937 Posted April 11, 2020 Share Posted April 11, 2020 not gonna lie.. i'd bump that today. 3 1 Quote Link to post Share on other sites
Kalashnikov 287 Posted April 11, 2020 Share Posted April 11, 2020 Damn this thread is fun. @Drue_DownI'm so envious of the Chicago glory days. I remember riding the Blue Line or the Metra when I was a kid in '95, '96 and just staring out the window, going home to (awfully) sketch and I couldn't wait until I was just a few years older so I could be out there myself. My old man would take us down to Marshall Field's on State for candy and the train ride to and from where I could just watch the graff was my absolute favorite part. Then of course before that could happen my parents moved us and I didn't get back to Chicago until '06 for a few years. It was still fun to paint at that time but the days of the city being covered in graffiti were long gone, your shit would ride for a day or so tops, maybe a weekend if you're lucky, and then the chocolate brown would be covering it. 1 1 Quote Link to post Share on other sites
misteraven 5,266 Posted April 11, 2020 Author Share Posted April 11, 2020 18 hours ago, diggity said: You'd have made a pretty good Harry Potter. 1 1 Quote Link to post Share on other sites
Mercer 10,496 Posted April 11, 2020 Share Posted April 11, 2020 19 hours ago, diggity said: Heres one from college and one from like 5th grade. You look like one of those kids that go to grad school and has their own software startup. 1 2 Quote Link to post Share on other sites
~KRYLON2~ 1,141 Posted April 12, 2020 Share Posted April 12, 2020 Hey DRUE if you gotta copy of this tape hit me up. I loved this mix, but it almost impossible to find. I even got into contact with the man himself and he wanted a copy to 😆 2 Quote Link to post Share on other sites
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