'Window dressing'.
This is the cover of my friend's new book. Well actually to be exact it's a new-release of two previously released books now conveniently combined into one. Harry's Kebabs & The Take away are underground cult classics that you won't be able to put down once you start reading them - I guarantee that.
Regarding the cover image:
One evening whilst out on a graff prowl myself & international man of mystery 'Wise CBM' caught a dead/shut down shop window lacking so we stepped to it with some throw ups. Persy, Chuns & Zonk had passed through before us.
The result was soon to be seen & photographed by Russ (DJ For Mankind) a keen graff viewer who fell in love with the subculture during a decade of living in New York City. He was in the process of trying to find an image for his new book cover & 'well now' The original Harry's Kebabs featured a shop with a yellow sign (just like this one had) so I guess something just resonated & it wasn't long before a photo of this shop front became the template for the new cover.
Some computer graphic design jiggery-pokery completed the look & 'Bob's yer uncle' Myself & Wise are now professional book cover designers. Let us know your concept, lob us a few cans, buy us dinner & we'll bring your dreams to life.
Harry's Kebabs (2026 edition) is out now. Check it out.
Cash Rules Everything Around Me.
Wealth is relative.
If you live on a beautiful beach in a tin shack, eat freshly caught fish for breakfast, drink coconut milk like it's tap water, shower/bathe in freshwater fountains/ponds & sleep under the stars with the sound of waves caressing your dreams - are you genuinely Poor?
If your bank balance is always 8 figured, but you live alone, in pain, confined to a bed, fed through a straw & you're too delicate to be sat in direct sunlight how Rich are you?
I'm a graffiti writer not a street artist so I have no message. There's nothing wrong with any of that, what I do isn't better (or worse). This isn't a homage to capitalism or a rant against it. There's probably ego involved & some unresolved childhood shit going on, but 'in essence' nothing I do under the auspices of being a graff writer has a hidden meaning or a parallel agenda.
If you consider what I do to be pointless & without a higher purpose I'm not going to argue with that, because you're to a large extent right - It has no external meaning, I do it for the sake of it & because I love it.
Is it nice to be noticed? Yes. Would anyone look at this page & read this stuff if I wasn't to some extent known as a graffiti writer? Probably not. Being a recognised (by some) graffiti writer has some kind of value & I suppose being known for graffiti affords me some kind of subcultural wealth.
Does graffiti make me financially or materially rich? No it doesn't, but is it my tin shack on a beautiful beach where I get to live my dreams, whenever I want to, immune to the world & all its complications? F*ck yeah 👊🏼 With a pen in my hand or some cans in my bag I'm fucking minted.🫰🏼💷💰🏧😎
Happy St Patrick's day to all my Irish family, friends & not so bad Irish folks I've met along the way somewhere. Sure may the road rise up to meet you & all that feckin' bollocks. Slàinte ☘️✊🏼🇮🇪🥃
📷: Derry/Bogside, Galway city & the Connemara mountains.
'Electromagnetic Intercourse'
Acid rave imagery, cartoon eyeballs, purple om signs, heart blips, coils, ziz-zags, 'twilight zones', wibbly-wobbly shit, catchy slogans & Graffiti with the hand break fully off. Little Met/Circle line: Late 80's.
I'm not sure exactly when it happened, but my graff got formulaic, repetitive & dare I say 'boring' at some point in the last 25yrs. I'm not saying I don't like it, there's a certain satisfaction in 'respecting the rules', 'honouring a code' & doing things 'the right way', but something died.
The maverick (can you call yourself that without sounding like a c*nt?) who painted these productions (they're not pieces) no longer exists. I've attempted to summon him sometimes (I realise talking about yourself in the third person is certified thunderc*ntery, but bare with me) when the desire to 'go wild' was there, but he's gone & all I can do is fake it a little before the notion passes & I return to churning out graff that serves a purpose, but breaks no boundaries.
I'm guessing what happens in a writer's head is the same as with a studio artist. A painter of portraits who uses oil paints can wake one day & have the desire to only paint landscapes in charcoal from now on. I feel the art controls us more than we control the art. This is I guess the process of being an artist. Don't fight it, let it guide you & maybe where it takes you will be beautiful. Who knows. I dutifully await my renaissance, but in the meantime I'm happy to just be 'getting up' & seeing what tomorrow might bring.
'Analogue adventures'.
Call me sentimental, but I love the innocence & naivety of old graffiti. I mean look at this shit, it shouldn't work, but I think it does. Pink & red with spits (dregs)of blue & lilac for a fill-in ain't exactly the colour-scheme of dreams, but we didn't care 'graff was graff' & you just got on with it. I guess it shows I freestyled this. It wreaks of being made up on the spot with ad-libbed bits covering up the f*ck ups & the parts that didn't look right. Freestyle-ness still exists of course, but modern graffiti paint is a cheat code. This is filled in with red Japlac & pink old skool Belton. Cut-backs weren't really an option. I'm not moaning here (far from it) I'm dwelling on & celebrating the innocence of a time long gone.
I remember going Farringdon sidings once with Robbo & Prime. They had enough paint for quick pieces. All I had was a can of fluorescent green Rustoleum that I'd found in a hardware store. It was fucking rubbish for the bombing Id come to do, but it was all I had & not coming wasn't an option. I'd have got in the trains with a pen & done insides before I'd have been left out of the mission. Just being there meant everything.
I did this in Hoxton over two nights (rain stopped play one night) I had my dog with me on a fake dog walking vibe. The cement floored football pitch where I painted was exposed to passing cars & the police passed a few times. Seeing me in the shadows they'd slow to check me out. I'd step away from the graff before they could see me & when their eyes said "what are you up to?" I'd nod towards the dog & off they'd trot. One imagines that seeing me twice 2hrs apart they thought "that poor dog must be constipated"
Being there - doing it! That's all that mattered 35 yrs ago. We didn't have paint designed for graffiti, the internet barely existed & home phones were our mode of communication. Even these photos are rudimentary & basic. Afterthought mementos of someone for whom the doing meant more than the done. Facebook & Instagram (hello) didn't exist. These photos were bound for a binder. Destined to be seen only by a chosen few or lost in a house fire never to be seen by any c*nt.
Take me back
Most of my heroes.
"These are the faces that they won't show
Cause these are the names they don't want you to know
Yes we can, they say no we can't
'cause most of my heroes still don't appear on no stamp"
'Sounds of the jungle'.
Hoxton was still the Hoxton of Lenny McLean. Pubs like the Green Man (not the Essex rd one) & the shockingly grim Sturt Arms still existed. A fucking ugly tower block just off Kingsland rd behind Hoxton market was known as Skag city, consequently we nicknamed the whole area 'Tackle town'.
Around the time of this photo: 93/94-ish Hackney had a rep as the armed robbery capital of England/Britain. Much of this activity was low tech robberies on small post offices & pharmacies. Often it was no more than a crack fiend with a scaffold pole masquerading as a shotgun under his coat, but a robbery is a robbery & if someone (a victim) thinks you're armed the law says "you are".
Robbo & I started a crew called SOH (Straight Outta Hoxton) one night. It weren't a regular type of crew, no one would ever invite you to be in it, we just simply made it known that if you lived on the manor you were automatically a member (if you wanted to be) SOH crossed my mind the other night so I put it up on a throw up I did on a North London highway, I hadn't written it in over 25yrs, but I guess I'm SOH 4Life. If you live in the area feel free to consider yourself a member too. 👊🏽
Kool (with a K) & Rush FM were my soundtrack back then, Japlac was my go-to brand of bombing paint & if you'd told me this place would one day be trendy & up-market I'd have laughed in your face. I don't know why I used two colours on this outline. I guess something was in the air & I was experimenting. My nephew Patrick who's in this photo turned 34 or something recently. The wall in it no longer exists & my name has vanished into the ether like most graffiti does.
Graffiti art is the most ephemeral of art forms, it twinkles momentarily then it disappears. We don't cry when our stuff goes away because Its all part of the process, it's part of the mystique & magic that makes it special.
Time keeps on slipping into the future. 😎✊🏼
Venice Biennale 2015. Part II.
I've stood in vast piazzas beneath great citadels, walked in the footsteps of calligraphic kings & seen the sun set majestically as it silhouetted an island formed from ashes. Ashes made from the charred remains of bodies burnt there in medieval plague pits. The moonlight shimmered on the water as we sailed back to shore. First world small boat arrivers seeking first world sanctuary & 'bellini cocktail' respite from a hellish place we'd left behind somewhere out on the horizon.
I've seen the biennale in Venice & dwelled on its circus mirrored corridor of perplexing charms & majesty. The rich & powerful hide themselves here behind masks at balls only accessible by gondola boats, oil lamps glisten under arches built 1000yrs ago & some interesting characters wrote their names & other squiggles on a Bridges of Graffiti programme I'd acquired at a most stupendous gathering. One of them even wrote my name. Modern hieroglyphics, pseudo brass rubbings of the criminally insane, the tracings & veneers of an ancient cult, souvenirs of a life misspent, the trophies of an autograph hunter &/or the calling cards of signature killers. Bats circled around the bell tower of an ancient basilica, the chatter of the crowd dissipated out into the lagoon as I gazed up into a bottomless black sky punctuated by a million tiny glistening stars & dreamt myself in & out of existence. All this will be forgotten in time. Like tears in rain.
Venice Biennale 2015.
"I barbari sono al confine. L'Impero sta per cedere".
Sipping Bellini cocktails in the shadow of St Marks basilica & listening to the thousand-language soundtrack of a million tourists.
Private taxi boating back & forth to the grandeur of our private Island hotel whilst dwelling on the distant howls of the mentally diminished people & long forgotten lepers who once inhabited a creepy island out in the lagoon that we visited & painted our soon to be forgotten names.
Great art, great people & poignant shit to ponder on. Grazie Venezia. A most wondrous time.
No Comment
Anyone who's ever had a prolonged interaction with the graffiti branch of the British Transport Police will recognise this as one of their badly taken polaroids. I was talking to someone recently about UK graffiti & what made it different from the scenes in other countries. Without hesitation I said "the legal consequences".
Nowhere in the world (as far as I know) imprisons writers as much as the UK does. I know of hundreds who've been to prison for graff offences. Members of crews who fought big 'conspiracy' cases, but also individuals who've gone to prison for charges as minor as 'going equipped to do criminal damage' (aka being known for graffiti offences & having a bag of paint on you in the wrong area or at the wrong time of night) I'm not exaggerating: The UK at certain points in history has treated writers with a zealousness one might expect in North Korea. The noughties were the worst. Everyone I know that was active in that era has been to prison, some of them (like King Tox) on numerous occasions.
Meanwhile in the UK much worse crimes can see evil degenerates treated leniently & they never see a prison cell. No decent society should treat those with an "over exuberant sense of self expression" more harshly than someone who commits a genuinely heinous crime.
Is there a point to this post? Yeah, I want to applaud all those who've fallen foul of police state Britain's skewed view of what real crime is. I was lucky (many of us were) that I went to court for graff 10+ years before wholesale incarceration in virtual kangaroo courts became the norm. I didn't go to prison, but I have endless admiration for those who've fought that battle & haven't allowed it to define or destroy them. The UK is in many ways not a fair or a just place & huge respect is due to those who suffer from its callousness & still hold their head high. I applaud you.
📷: Seize & Draks Wd tags on a Little Met train 1990: They were done at Farringdon, but the photo was probably taken at Hammersmith.
