Srsly, how does that guy stand up and keep fighting after that punch (actually 2 punches) at the 2:08 mark on that clip? Yeah, I know it’s a movie and all. But still.

Found this clip when I was downloading a punk compilation from Hardcore Punk Reviews, I remember Jim Kelly from watching the Bruce Lee flick, Enter the Dragon. That was the big production that was set to make Bruce Lee a huge international movie star. Unfortunately, we know, or sort of know, what happened to Bruce Lee.

You may also know Jim Kelly from one of Ol’ Dirty Bastard’s verses on 36 Chambers.

So the above clip is the title sequence from Black Belt Jones. It’s pure 70’s golden funk silver screen sun-kissed California goodness. I kinda like to think if Grand Royal Magazine still existed, and had a blog they’d post stuff like this.

Back in like ‘96 I hunted this magazine down just so I can read the NACE interview.  I finally found it in Philly.  I remember it was $5 and that was all I had on me.  It was either get this magazine or a cheese steak. I got the magazine, and I starved for the rest of the night, but it was wort it.  On August 12, 2001 NACE passed away after being hit by a drunk driver in Cincinnati Ohio while attending Scribble Jam.  I though it fitting to post this up.  Hope everyone enjoys.

How long have you been painting freights?

I’ve been bombing/painting since ‘91 or’92, but didn’t get serious until ‘93.

How did you get started?

Well it was around ‘88 or ‘89. I started going up to N.Y.C to see hardcore shows on the L.E.S and that when I really started to take interest in writing. Just seeing dope pieces on subways was enought to spark my interest on this artform, So that is when I started messin with handstyles and drawing pieces.

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It’s crazy how the police in NYC were so worthless back in the day….6:57  NYC looked like a warzone….looked kind of fun.

We have been working with Ricky Powell over the last few weeks on a story for our Soapbox Section.  I finally got to meet him and he gave me a copy of the newest issue of Frank 151.  Exceptionally great mix of people.  I was really feeling the Joe Conzo interview.  Ricky was a cool ass dude and we hope to be working with him more in the future.

If after I die I wake up in 1976 as a black guy,  this shit is going to be my anthem.  Got caught out there this morning at a red light blasting this song and I looked over to see some dude clowning me.  I did an office space move and slowly lowered the volume until the light turned green.  This shit is so pimp.  One of my top 10 favorite songs of all time.

Found this one today…Richmond VA.  Kemos, Bigfoot, Eulogy for The Art of Storytelling

It’s kind of funny that I got La Laupe and this song playing back to back but these two people are keeping me focused to get this book done.  Tim Barry Avoiding Catatonic Surrender…the East Brunswick NJ refrence is the shit..  Mr Barry will be joining us in Book #1.

If you don’t know about this lady do some research.  She is on heavy rotation in our offices.

Check out the Dave Chapelle cameo at the end of the video.

Lords Vs. Cobras

Project One Gallery & Lounge

251 Rhode Island Street (Between 15th &16th)

San Francisco, CA 94103

It’s amazing what you can do when you remember your password. I’m starting 2011 with all kinds of goodwill and wishes and exercising and eating better and vows to post regularly and to actually enact my harebrained scheme for world domination. So expect another post or two, and then for me to drift back into obscurity and the waiting arms of complacency. Eh…no point in being negative, but still stating the grim reality of so many resolutions and best intentions.

So I’m offering up “Todor & Petru”. (Maybe that should be italicized rather than within quotes, but I’m probably the only one who has a rat’s ass to give around here for that sort of thing. Please note that I probably will not spellcheck this post before publishing. Conundrums rule everything around me.)

So yeah, I’m following up my New Year’s reality check with a bit of unreality in the form of a short film from Wizz. I love the combination of motion graphics and still photography injecting some living colour into what by comparison is a much bleaker world. If only these cartoon creations started to live and breathe in the physical realm, we might need them to stave of the clone armies our military must certainly be working on. Or am I only suggesting that because Cartoon Network had the gall to introduce what looks like Darth Maul 2.0 in a Star Wars: Clone Wars episode, but start it a half hour earlier, and I’ve been denied getting my geek on for the evening.

Bastards.

I would be remiss if I didn’t mention Surfing on the Street and Scary Ideas for finding this clip. And yeah I’ll be looking for Thunderclaps track, “Judgement Day” that’s featured in the video. Happy New Year.

Let’s start off with where you’re from, where you’ve been, and where you’re at now?

I was born in Atlantic City, NJ, lived in Manahawkin, NJ (really amazing place) until I was 19, then I moved to Arizona for about 9 years. I met my wife in NJ, so I packed up and left Arizona for NJ again. So what got you interested in tattooing? Well besides being a total fuck-up when I was a kid, I used to do stick and pokes (tattoos done with a sewing needle) on my buddies, but I never really thought much of it. When I got into my 20’s I stopped being a fuck-up for the most part and and got interested in doing artwork again. I got my fi rst professional tattoo when I was 21 and that was it – I was hooked.

Outside of the tattoo scene, what have been some of your biggest artistic influences?

14th and 15th century painters, that stuff is amazing. I never made it to college so I don’t know anything about art history, but any museum I go to, that’s all I look at. Like most things from the past, people had so much more passion and time, we live in chaos. But i guess that helps sometimes. What is your all-time favorite album cover? Iron Maiden, Number of the Beast. Actually, I love all the Maiden album cover because the dude that painted them is sick. I forget his name, but I forget EVERYONES name.

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Photo by: Joe Dantone

Interview by: Justin Rossi

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What is DJ Nappy up to these days? Coming back hard I assume.

I’m just catching up with what’s been brewing during the past 3+ years in dubstep and sorting out which tracks I’m going to refix. Working some rough mixes and seeing what sounds appealing. Also linking with producers, emcees, singers, and dj’s for collaborations. I need others to properly operate, and the input is way more important than the output. Movement is slow but precise. Been watching old episodes of ‘The Wire’ and Jersey Shore. That Snooki…. she’s so crazy!

Haha the Wire is pretty dope. I actually just started watching it a couple of weeks back. I still have a bunch of seasons to view. I could see you kicking it with snooki… that would be a hilarious tv show! Speaking of jersey, where did you grow up?

A little town called West Windsor, but I spent most of my time in Princeton as a teenager and young adult. It’s the next town over and there was a lot more trouble to get into in Princeton.

” Thugstep works best in clubs in my opinion. I have some r&b and underground hiphop cats on Dubstep beats, and it doesn’t feel right to me. I’d prefer to hear Snoop than Murs with this type of production. The ignorant rap over complex bass and drums and synths seems like the perfect blend, and you can take a shitty Soulja Boy song and make it fun with a dubstep track behind it.”

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Little Sammy has been holding it down on the video tip.  This video was done by  the same dude responsible for the Rime / Trailer Park fiasco.  I was just with Sammy this weekend at the Chiller Show and we were throwing around ideas for some new video content for the Art of Storytelling.  At any rate, check out this new Young Zee and Mr. Green video.  You may remember Young Zee from the Eight Mile Soundtrack as well as the Fugges album ”The Score”  Zee is also a member of the legendary ”Outsidaz.”

THIS ARTICLE ORIGINALLY RAN IN THE ART OF STORYTELLING MAGAZINE ISSUE #1.

I want to say it was 2002 or 2003, I was already established in skating and I was riding for a company called USD. My problem was that I had my head wrapped around a lot of projects. I had one distribution company that I worked with making my wheels/hardware, another company I was working with doing a street contest called IMYTA, and there was also this video game that was coming out that was called Rolling and I put many hours in on that project. But that’s a whole different story.

“During this time period, I was also working with a bunch of music artists like Sage Francis, Sole from Anticon, and Masta Killa from the Wu-Tang. I was making a DVD surrounding all those artists and rollerblading.”

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THIS ARTICLE ORIGINALLY RAN IN THE ART OF STORYTELLING MAGAZINE ISSUE #1.

When I first started Beautiful Decay Magazine, one thing we always did was throw release parties. At the very beginning, the release parties were vital to the business because advertising didn’t cover the cost of publishing the magazine, let alone making a profit. So my friends and I would throw warehouse parties, to raise money to put out the issues.

“He opened up the trench coat and pulled out a sawed-off shotgun, and was just working the crowd with it, threatening everyone.”

The great thing about Baltimore is that space is cheap, and you can rent out an entire level of the warehouse for $400 to $500 a month. I was friends with a lot of bike couriers at the time and they loved to party. All they cared about was having enough money to pay their rent and buy cheap one dollar canned beer. I became friends with a courier who lived in a large warehouse downtown, and was willing to rent me his entire warehouse which was about 3,000 to 4,000 square feet for about $100 and all the beers he could drink for the night.  Read more »

THIS ARTICLE ORIGINALLY RAN IN THE ART OF STORYTELLING MAGAZINE ISSUE #1

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So where did your interest in Bigfoot come from and why did you decide to startpainting Bigfoot characters?

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It’s been about 14 years now since I decided to start writing Bigfoot. I realized the symbolism of Bigfoot was the culmination of all things I was into portraying, nature, magic and an opposition to the modern human world.

“If I stayed in Jersey I would definitely be making art but wouldn’t have started writing Bigfoot and would’ve ended up doing hard time for like 2 grams of weed.”

Graffiti artists have the luxury of hiding behind their artwork. I have met tons of graffiti artists and there are a lot of dorks, social idiots and loners in the graffiti game myself included. But they have a unique talent, graffiti is illegal, above the law, the act of graffiti has street credibility, so for a lot of people it serves as an alter ego. Is this the case for you as well?

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THIS ARTICLE ORIGINALLY RAN IN THE ART OF STORYTELLING MAGAZINE ISSUE #1.

There was this spot on other side of my town that I started hearing about when I was really young. Some of the older kids said, ‘’You got to go to the spot on the other side of town; it’s called “The Bowl.” We had our own jumps that we called “The Brook” because you had to jump over the Brook. The Brook was right down the street from my house. I lived in Clifton, New Jersey and it was a pretty big town. The Bowl was on the other side of Clifton, which was probably still close to five miles away. When you’re in the fourth or fifth grade that’s really far. We had our own local scene and we didn’t go that much further, but one day we did a little voyage over to the bowl and it was just the sickest spot ever.

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“This dude Hodges, that crazy motherfucker. I still remember him burning all his hair off. He used to do a lot of acid and he had some braids. He bugged out one night and burned off all his hair.”

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THIS ARTICLE ORIGINALLY RAN IN THE ART OF STORYTELLING MAGAZINE ISSUE #1.

So where in Jersey did you grow up?
Monmouth County, Eatontown.

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How did you get involved in the hardcore scene?
Like a lot of kids who get into hardcore, especially kids from down the Jersey Shore at that time, I found music through skating. Prior to high school, I mainly learned about hardcore from skate magazines. I’d read the “Notes” section of Thrasher, which gave the run down on bands. I hung out with this kid George and he’d give me his old Thrashers. I bought or copied tapes when I could. Some years later I got into high school and some of the kids from the adjacent towns were part of the school. That’s where I met Josh Grabelle who later started Trustkill Records. Josh was the one who knew everyone in the area. Through him I met a lot of people who were into hardcore and about upcoming shows. I also met a fellow named Rich Flanagan, who I went to my first show with freshman year. A year later I met Carl Severson who later started Ferret Records. Carl was basically an Army kid from Fort Monmouth and I met him the first day of sophomore year of high school. I was wearing a Gorilla Biscuits shirt and he leaned over and was like ”DUDE! The Gorilla Biscuits.” And that was how it all started.

“Back then I just wanted to absorb everything skateboarding related. In that Dogtown documentary, Henry Rollins explained how he did the same thing. He waited for Skateboarder Magazine every month. You would get to see those pictures and you got snapshots of what was going on.”

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THIS ARTICLE ORIGINALLY RAN IN THE ART OF STORYTELLING MAGAZINE ISSUE #1.

Conversation with Fred Gall’s Mom:

Freddy got his first skateboard on the boardwalk in Seaside Heights, New Jersey. He won one of those real cheesy boards. Freddy was playing one of those big spin wheel games and he won, but it was one of those games where you could win really big prizes. They had washing machines, TVs, and things like that, but all Freddy wanted was the skateboard. So what were we supposed to do? He wanted the skateboard so we got him the skateboard even though we could have gotten all these expensive prizes. But he took that cheesy skateboard and that’s all he cared about and he did really good with it. So next Christmas, I got him his first real professional skateboard, a Lance Mountain. I can’t remember what kind of wheels or trucks we got him but that doesn’t matter. Freddy loved that Lance Mountain.

“Tracker Trucks called, all the way from California they heard about Freddy, the little guy with the big moves, and they wanted to come see him.”

After that I would take him every weekend to the contests under the Brooklyn Bridge. I remember the fourth time we went there Freddy put his skateboard down and charged the bank. At that time Freddy was just a little kid. He put the board down and rushed right toward the bank and over into the street in the middle of traffic, like a mad man. I almost had a heart attack.

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Most of you already know that in the first issue of our magazine we did an article on CLOWN the founder of  T.I.T.S crew.  When we put the issue together, we had a lot of east coast content and we wanted to do something on a west coast writer. CLOWN immediately came to mind.  Everyone here at the mag referenced him as a major inspiration, especially since most of the staff was heavy into graff during the time period where CLOWN was out there pushing TITS crew really hard.  I recently contacted CLOWN again to see if I could do an interview with him about the clothing line.  It was at that point that I found out the real story behind the brand.  TITS (the original graffiti crew) sent over this article and asked if I could post it up, so here you go.

Those Tits are Fake!

1995 was the year.  The graffiti writer known as “Clown” was looking to draw some attention to his name.  In a joking manner, the four letter word “Tits” was brought up.  Bang! A light bulb popped into the heads of a few other fellow graffiti writers of the time and after a few months, “Tits Crew” was born.  It took only a short time to form the crew which originally consisted of 10 members.  Soon after, Tits Crew was a smooth running graffiti organization.  At the time there weren’t many other groups who had four letter monikers to represent their crew, let alone four letters that even spelled out real words.  This excited the new group of graffiti artists because they all had a common goal, destroy and this new name for their crew was going to grab attention.  Original meanings for the acronym of the crew were brainstormed quickly.  “Time is too short”, “Terror in the streets”, “Thunder in the sky” and “Clown’s original, “Two in the shirt”.  It was genius.

“In other words, he stole the name of the crew and started to profit from it .  Marek never had any contact, any arrangements or any approval from Clown or any other member of Tits Crew.”

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