ARNOLFINI 1985

It was a warm July evening before they invented mobile phones, the Internet, or skunk, and Gallery 1 at the Arnolfini looked like the set of a New York cable TV hip hop show. The pieces on the walls were huge, train-scale, and painted in the mighty German 'art spray' Buntlack: all candy-pinks and oranges, and the deepest reds, electric blues and greens, the likes of which had rarely been seen in Bristol at the time. Enlargements of Henry Chalfant's New York subway graffiti photos hung in the foyer and the man himself was in town taking photos for his second book, Spraycan Art, and giving credence to whole event. In the far corner by the stairs the Wild Bunch were holding court, dropping seminal classics such as T La Rock's It's Yours, and Run DMC's Sucker MCs; whilst poppers, lockers and b-boys worked up a quick sweat in a large circle in the opposite corner, flanked by BSD's Wizard piece and the Z-Boys' comeback comment on the whole issue of 'selling out,' Traitor. Documentary filmmaker Dick Fontaine was also in the house, working on his Channel.4 documentary Bombin'. Something was definitely happening, it was real, large and as fresh as a pair of red Puma States with matching fat laces. 

INTERVIEW ON BRISTOL GRAFFITI BLOG

Last week I did my first interview about Children Of The Can. Here's the link:

http://bristolgraffiti.wordpress.com/2008/10/28/children-of-the-can-preview-and-interview-with-felix-braun/

SOME PAGE SPREADS

Okay, FINALLY,  here's some sample spreads from the book to have a look at. They've popped up in a couple of places already (Facebook and hurtyoubad.com) so I thought I'd better post them here, too. Hopefully this gives you an idea of the variety of writers that are featured: Demz CM is a straight-up bomber, and talks about the police, punch-ups and junkies shooting up in abandoned buildings while you're painting; John Nation gives the inside scoop on the late '80s scene in Bristol, including being accused by the police of being the 'Pied Piper' of graffiti; Ziml TCF gets into the mechanics of style and making it your own; Kato covers everything from bombing buses to painting on kids TV; and Nick Walker reveals the truth about the portal on the outskirts of Bristol that leads directly to New York.

'Z' IS FOR ZORO (and ZEPHYR)

The impact of Charlie Ahearn's seminal hip hop film Wild Style cannot be overstated. Zephyr's animated title sequence was the portal through which countless imaginations were transported to the South Bronx of the early '80s, to a place & time where hip hop gave a creative voice to the youth of this criminally neglected & run-down borough. Graffiti became its visual manifestation, and in Wild Style real-life graffiti writer Lee played the fictional hero in black, Zoro.

“Here’s a little story that must be told...”*

July 1983:

My friends and me sit goggle-eyed in the 

ancient wooden seats of the Arts Centre 

Cinema on King Square in Bristol, as 

Charlie Ahearn’s film Wild Style

plays to a noisy, half-full auditorium. We
react loudly with the rest of the young
audience at the sight of the Rocksteady
Crew B-boying (or break-dancing) in a circle
while the Cold Crush Brothers speak the
new rap language over a new kind of beat:

My goal is the same
I aim for fame
I don’t pop no game
I don’t have no chain.

For us, though, it is the opening scene
of Lee Quinones’ character, Zoro, breaking
into the yards to paint the side of a subway
train that really mesmerises. None of us
dares to blink as Zoro slides down a rope
into the darkness, looking like an urban
ninja on a mission of creative destruction.
The painted letters on the wall behind
him come to life, and introduce the film’s
animated title sequence; the words ‘Wild
Style’ writhe and contort in time with the
off-key funky soundtrack, growing ever
more complex and eventually exploding.

I sit gob-smacked, unable to wipe the
demented grin off my face and savouring
every moment. We are hungry teenagers,
always hunting for the next thing – and this
is exactly what we need.

The urge to emulate, to be involved,
is instant, intoxicating and powerful. My
friends, my brother and me talk about
nothing else for months; we doodle
incessantly in school, trying to recreate
styles that are gradually fading from the
backs of our retinas. The addiction has
taken hold and it feels incredible. In our
hearts and minds we are already graffiti
artists. Or, more correctly, ‘writers’, because
that’s what it’s all about: writing your
name, letting the world know that you
exist:

I write therefore I am.

(Extract from the Introduction to Children Of The Can)

[* Stoop Rap by Double Trouble]

'A' IS FOR AUTONOMY

When seeking a publisher for this book the single most important consideration from my point-of-view was what degree of autonomy I was going to be granted? Sure, a big London-based publishing house might have the muscle to guarantee ten of thousands of sales in the first few months, but that was never my main concern. What would be the point if the final product bore no resemblance to my original vision?

I make no bones about the fact that creatively-speaking I am a total and utter control freak, so when Tangent Books offered to help me realise this thing 100% as I pitched it to them, it was an offer too good to pass up (albeit a frankly foolhardy one, considering I've never written a book before). Plus they're local, they publish books by Big Issue vendors and infamous anarchist agitators, and despite being a Bristol Rovers fan, big cheese Richard Jones is one of the most easy going and eternally optimistic people I've ever met. 

Admittedly concessions have been made, but only one or two. Some artists had to be left out, because we ran out of pages, and a blinding concept for the cover was abandoned simply because we ran out of time. Apart from that everything from the fonts and illustrations, to the amount of swear-words and jokes at the police's expense that made it in to the final version of the text are as I originally intended. So if it's a load of rubbish blame me, not the publishers.

('CIDER APPLE' ILLUSTRATION BY CHEO)

"PROPER BRISTOL HIP HOP (THE MOVIE)"

The brainchild of Turo (who is also featured in the book) and friend Matt, this new documentary covers some of the same ground as Children Of The Can, but with moving images and film of people talking, so you don't have to make the effort to read or turn pages. Here's a taster of the section that covers graff, with Big Daddy Turock getting all bleary-eyed outside the Barton Hill youth club (aka the 'other' Dug Out) and some rarely-seen footage of Inkie painting, taken from the 1990 BBC doc 'Drawing The Line.'

(Link for the film in the Links list)