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STEAM156:
International Graffiti Art Documentor
graf interview
0006 added 09.01.07 words
Shucks One
technical Spoon
Steam156's legacy has been a huge influence on several generations of European writers. As an early contributor to iGTimes, Hiphop Connection and Knowledge Magazine, and his legendary slide shows namely The Fairfield Halls in Croydon, helped rejuvenate the UK scene. He is probably 'The' Graffiti Documentarian, not just in the UK, but the world's walls, travelling to New York on almost 40 occasions alone since 1986. He assisted many writers organise events, exhibits and mural projects, also helped start the UK based graffiti magazine Graphotism. All this completely self supported, selflessly spending hours, and thousands of pounds, to document an artform that has always been under siege by the buffers.
His site www.aerosolplanet.com is second only to www.artcrimes.com, and has the largest selection of Old School UK walls, with the biggest selection of Hex, The Chrome Angels and old school London Underground train images on the Web. The new www.aersolplanet.net site is now up and the recently released series of Aerosol Planet Graffiti DVD's feature some of the world's best writers.
UKHH.com would like to salute one of the hardest working Graffiti Documentarians this country has ever produced. His obsessive dedication to record the history of the world's best graffiti, has saved it for the prosperity of future generations. Without his photos, many of us would not even be here!
How did you first get involved in Graffiti culture?
In about 1984 when I first started off, I lived in Brighton. So the first thing I saw was the usual, [Malcolm Maclaren's] Buffalo Girls [music] Video, clips on the news, [Graffiti film] Wildstyle, stuff like that. I was unemployed, I got kicked out of school, didn't take no exams, no nothing! I couldn't get a job, getting a job down there was really bad. So all I was doing all day was just tagging my name everywhere. I'd hooked up with a DJ down there, called DIZZY/PAZ, he was like a Surfer, and we would go out every night and break dancing everyday. We had this huge roll of Lino, and I had one of those giant Philips ghetto-blaster things. That's all we would do all day, practice [B-Boying]! Norman Cook/Fat Boy Slim used to DJ at these Hotels where they used to put on these [Hiphop] Jams. We used to go there with our Kappa Tracksuits, Beat Street body-warmers and that, and dance at these jams. But the main thing for me was the Graffiti. I was just hooked on it, just tagging. But even then, I used to have this little Haminex 110 camera, so I was still going round taking photos at that early stage.
What crews are you in?
I'm in 156, which JON156 put me in, back in I suppose 88' or 89'. I'm also in The Master Blasters, which Iz The Wiz put me in. Iz The Wiz came to England I looked after him, we did a [Gallery] show together, then later I went out there and they looked after me. They took me around the Bronx, to the Amtrak lines and everything else, and made sure I was all right. I used to be in STEAM & MEAR Productions, that was when we were doing murals together. When I was first starting I was in All City Boys, and I can't even remember the others, little toy crews you put yourself in.
When did you start documenting graffiti?
The first day I moved up to London, I got a job with a stationary/office supplies firm. I was basically a van assistant, going round helping to deliver this furniture, all over London. So driving around London, I started seeing all these tags everywhere… Then all of a sudden I would see a wall or whatever, and so what I did was drive round with this guy and right all of these locations down. Even if I saw hoardings with loads of tags, or old abandoned buildings with loads of tags or throw-ups, I though straight away, "yeah, there might be stuff in there!" So as soon as the weekend came I would get my 1-day Travelcard, I would be up at 6 o'clock in the morning and spend the whole day just travelling around London. I don't think anyone else was even doing this. I was just so dedicated to taking photos and documenting stuff. I was going from East London… to West London… Neasden… everywhere!!! I just saw so much stuff, it was such an ideal opportunity, travelling around London. I would make a little route across London, to save doubling back on myself. I would go to Peckham where I might've seen a few throw-ups, and some abandoned buildings. A lot of the times it was like finding Gold!!! I remember going to a couple of warehouses, jumping over the wall and started looking around, because I saw a few tags. Inside I found a couple of pieces by people like DRONE2, it was just like finding buried treasure!!!
Who were some of the writers you really respected artistically back then, that time may have forgotten?
My all time favourites I would have to say were the Chrome Angels. Even still today, their stuff was just remarkable. Look at Spraycan Art, nothing touches what those guys were doing, so obviously finding pieces by The Chrome Angels was like Gold dust. I remember travelling around I came across that Half Moon Theatre piece by ESKIMO, 2SHAY and those guys outside Stepney Green Tube station. Or the "Let It Rock For Many Girls Controlling The City" piece [in East Dulwich] by The London Giants, and I think The South-East Vandals. I was just blown away. I found a wall down in Brixton on St. Saviours road, it was a battle wall by Ready Rock and Custom Boys. It was a [wall] battle between them and Non-Stop Art. I was just going everywhere trying to find graffiti.
What was the London Graff scene was like in the late 80's?
Back then I would say in West London, between 85' and 88' you'd get at least between 20-30 brand new walls each week up there! It was just amazing people like RIO, ICE3, Non-Stop Art, and none of them were crap. Really excellent pieces, [under the Westway] where the pillars used to be painted, obviously Carnival, it was done all the time. That was the main stop I used to go to, West London, The Pit, the Ladbroke Grove area, and Peckham because there were so many warehouses around there. Obviously also all these other walls I had found and that, so I built up this huge collection, I had god knows how many portfolios full of photos of graff.
Some of the early UK graffiti pioneers ended up quitting graff and fading into obscurity, whereas in the States or Europe they had more of an industry to support them. What happened? Were they just ahead of their time?
I think the problem with England back then is, we were too good, and too advanced for our time. The Chrome Angels were blowing people away back then. Non-Stop and all those guys that stopped at that early age. They were producing some of the best stuff ever, Goldie, look how good he was! They all stopped at an early age and now that's all gone. It feels like no one really picked up [that tradition] and carried that on. For instance, take [graffiti book] Spraycan Art, the best things in that book are what the Chrome Angels painted… except for Bando, they were from England! What does that say?! You look at the Non-Stop stuff, it's better than the stuff in [the New York section] and everywhere. England again! What we were creating in the early 80's was just incredible, but now I feel a lot of the impact is just not there.
When did you first meet the legendary SEEN (UA)?
The first time I met SEEN was on my very first trip to New York in about 87' or 88'. I got in contact with (early graffiti documentor and co-author of Subway Art & Spraycan Art) Henry Chalfont. I found out where his studio was and Henry wrote me some letters and sent me photos. That first trip I didn't know one single writer, I was just absolutely lost, so I decided to go down to Henry's studio. I spent about 8 hours looking at photos, all of a sudden there was a knock on the door and it's like QUIK and SEEN together!!! They just walk in and I'm like gobsmacked! They were getting ready to go to Holland to do a show that they had there. So Henry hooked me up with this young teenaged kid, I think he was called JUNO or something, who lived up in the Bronx. That was my first trip to the Bronx, and I was absolutely shitting myself up there!!! So I met this kid, he took me around all these Projects and stuff like that. I don't know whether you remember in Spraycan Art [on pages 34-35] there is this bridge called 238th Street Bridge. Its like this Bridge where the Amtrak Trains run along, it's like 5 pillars with Graff on them. It says [M-KAY and DESISM]. We get over the fence, I start taking photos, and then all of a sudden from behind one of the pillars 5 guys come out saying "let's get those mutherfuckers!" They had bats, rocks, everything you can imagine! So I had to run from 238th Street Bridge along the Amtrak Lines to the next Bridge while the Amtrak train is driving along past me [honking] at me to get off the train line! I would say that day I near enough had a heart attack!!! I got to the next bridge, and had to find a Subway to get back. That was about one of my worst experiences there, but since that I've made about 38 trips to New York, and I would say I've met everyone you could think of.
How did you end up finding the writers while travelling, when it's hard enough meeting some writers in your own city?
I saw Subway Art and Spraycan Art, I studied those books, like which cities the writers were from, and I planned trips to New York or Paris and whatever. I went over there to see what was going on, and tried to meet these people. So I've got a lot of early stuff by writers that I don't think anyone has really heard of in England. When I first started going to places like LA, no one had even heard of this guy HEX. I started going to LA and people would be like, "oh what photos did you get?" I would tell them about what was going on, and when they saw these photos of stuff by HEX, they could not believe how good he was!!! So a lot of the artists that people know about here in England, basically came from me. People didn't know that much about LOKISS either, and what he was painting out in Paris, I was going to Paris and photographing his stuff.
What does your site feature?
www.aerosolplanet.com has over 14,000 international graffiti photos, that's basically all my first photos, my trips to New York, all the people I've met, the largest collection of Hex photos in the world, the largest collection of Chrome Angels photos in the world.
What would you say is the aim of the new .net site is?
The aim with www.aerosolplanet.net is to showcase more [modern] stuff, the newer productions that are being done. I'm trying to feature different new writers, like a guy from Germany called DOME. He's fucking incredible!!! I want to put a site together that is the crème de la crème of pieces, I want to try and work it out where, say if COPE2 does a piece out in New York. I could get a photo of it the next day. I want to try and build up a site of the best pieces [from around the world]. Like you go to some sites in New York and they have T-KID, and another they have a COPE2 on another, I would like to have them all together on one site. Like my favourites like BATES, COPE2, T-KID, SEEN, but new walls by them, I'm trying to put that together now. I also have the trailers for the DVD's on www.aersolplanet.net at the moment as well.
How did the Aerosol-Planet DVD's come about?
Ok, the DVD thing started off where I was just mucking around, filming stuff, so I started going to shows and filming different stuff. Then I started showing up at walls, festivals, and whatever, and so I brought out Volume 1. Volume 3 is out now as well, features mainly Paris and England, Write4Gold Jam, The Brighton Jam, all the big Halls Of Fame in Paris, the Kosmopolite Festival (2005 & 2006), Paris street bombing. There are good interviews with Jim Prigoff, JON156, PSYCKOZE, AMORE who used to write DARK, there is so much stuff on that, it's 2hrs long. Volume 2 comes out soon and is a New York special, that has big interviews with SEEN, Henry Chalfont, NYC LASE, CHICO. It's basically everything I saw in New York when I went with RIZE. The 106th Street Hall Of Fame, all the walls up in the Bronx, The Scrap Yard Store, street bombing and tagging.
As you have been documenting the culture for so long; do you have any advice for someone reading this that wanted to get into documenting the artform?
The advice I would give them is obviously, get yourself a good camera, start travelling around, and not just in your own area. You could look up on the internet and find 5 or 6 Halls Of Fame, start getting a name for yourself as a person who documents graff. Do your research, see what you can find. That's how I started off. From taking photographs down in Brighton, to running around headless in the bloody South Bronx… trying to find walls… trying to avoid getting killed! Hahahaha!
Aerosol Planet Vol. 1, Vol. 3 are both out now at about £15.
Vol. 2 "The New York Special" coming soon!
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Shucks One
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