WAR 42

Young Tagger Stuck and Killed on Highway 60, Riverside County

A Riverside teenager witnesses said was tagging the center divider of Highway 60 near Hall Avenue died early today when he was flung over the center divider after being hit by a car and run over by several other vehicles, the California Highway Patrol said in a news release.

Blake Locko, 17, was pronounced dead at the scene, the news release said.

Witnesses reported Locko and another person standing in the car pool lane of westbound Highway 60 about 2:15 a.m. when Locko was struck by a 1995 Saturn driven by Pomona resident Ramon Rodriguez, 22.

The force of the collision sent Locko flying over the 5-foot concrete center divider into the eastbound car pool lane where he was hit by other cars, the news release said.

There was no information about what happened to the other individual standing with Locko.

Colton resident Anthony Gicking, 27, returned to the scene after striking Locko in the eastbound lane.

Rodriguez, who suffered moderate neck injuries, was transported to Riverside Community Hospital for treatment, the news release said.

When did it become acceptable for people to lay down absolute garbage masquerading as pieces? Don’t pretend like you haven’t seen it. The awkward letters, inconsistent lines, overuse of dots/clouds/arrows, fills that look like the inside of a 2 yr old’s diaper. Hipster graffiti, semester style, hot garbage… whatever you want to call this emerging “style”. It used to be you put your best foot forward. Now apparently you put the foot forward that just stepped in dogshit.

But hey, if you have…

A) The right amount of drugs
B) The right amount of hip connections
C) The ability to fool people
D) More than one pair of skinny jeans in your closet

…well hey, you’re good to go as a member of a new writer subclass that differentiates itself simply producing terrible fucking graffiti.

I remember a higher standard that writers were held to when it came to determining status as a major player. You know….clean lines, proportioned letters, multi-color fills. I mean, the things that take practice, dedication, passion. I guess building a strong foundation of talent has been forsaken in the face of tpromises of quick success and glory.

Graffiti always needs new direction and imagery to stay relevant and fresh in the minds of both it’s participants and fan base right? Then why aren’t we seeing more pieces, throwies and tags that should be making the likes of Saber and Revok re-evaluate the amount of time they spend in the studio and in the streets?

Well, instead we now have fools writing the equivalent of a Myspace blog on the wall. What’s this about your “shattered heart weeping over the echos of time in 2009″? Get the fuck outta here with your cryptic nonsensical bullshit.

The crisp alleyway pieces I remember seeing everywhere? Hmmm, seems to be harder and harder to come across the more I go out. Instead, I’m treated to blobby letters rocking sunglasses riding on clouds crusted with stars. Wow, your Peter Max-inspired bullshit was TOTALLY worth dodging four blocks worth of addicts, broken glass, needles and undercovers to get to.

The scene I’ve grown up with has gone from bombing a wall, racking some tall can King Cobras and bum rushing the show to…sipping lattes and listening the latest offering from “Panic At The Disco.“?!? Everytime I meet these particular writers, it’s hard to tell if I’m talking to a man or a woman. Sometimes it’s both actually. Yikes, check for that adams apple son. Really, I’d rather kick it with people I can count on when the shit flies. Not someone that stands back from the action because they were too afraid of their vintage shirt getting wrecked.

Please, someone explain what it is I am missing when I see this stuff. Obviously the hidden meaning behind those crappy letters and lazy fills continues to elude me. There has to be a reason why there are ENDLESS threads on sites like 12oz Prophet where moderators and resident jerkoffs alike crow endlessly about how edgy and cutting edge this stuff is.

Really, it pains me to see a bad ass Natrl thread sink into obscurity while some no-name, rainbow painting, vespa-riding geek enjoys weeks worth of being in one of the top slots with legions of bandwagon jumpers applauding their excessive and “ironic” use of arrows and sparkles. It’s like when you see a really hot girl with an ugly dude. You wonder what the hell you’re doing wrong and you go nuts trying to find answers that just aren’t there.

Personally, I think trying to assign ANY type of meaning to this emerging style gives it way too much credit. Real talk, it’s a cheap shortcut to fame and recognition for those starting out and a sign of laziness for the heads that have been pushing cans and markers for years. If anything this new breed of graffiti gives legitimacy to the efforts of city government and other entities that would like to see graffiti eradicated completely.

Hey, I’m not one to say what is and what doesn’t count as graffiti. That’d put me on a level with a lot of the people I look down on and well, I couldn’t forgive myself for that. But look… what I do know is what I like…and I don’t like this shit one bit..

My greatest fear is that I’m alone in feeling this way. Prove me wrong people.

more pics at Mr. Cartoon’s blog

onlyMarkers Interview: KRINK

Many great things this days, …

I meet some close friends from Sâo Paulo who i miss a lot, i paint a little, i have the luck to meet and talk with BLU at The influencers, very nice and smart people and finally i have my own DIY “stealth ink” working …

Too much things and no time to write here. Sorry.

Well, here we go with our first interview, KR aka KRINK aka Craig Costello, don’t need an introduction, but if somebody don’t know him i’ll introduce him in few words. KR is an independent manufacturer of markers and inks. Based in the city of NY where he produce his hi quality and very nice look products. In fact is a cult hero in the marker scene and have many rip off brands in both sides of the atlantic. The products are expensive, but you’re buying something more than a marker …

Let’s go …

I see in internet a picture of an old green plastic bottle with a KRINK label handwrited,
how many bottles like this you sell before the creation of the KRINK branding?

The bottle you mentioned was never for sale. I would give ink to friends and put a sticker on the bottle or write a tag on it.
I did not start making Krink to sell, I made it to use it and write. It was only much later that I decided to start selling it. I was making Krink, catching drippy tags, etc… for about 8 years before I sold the first bottle. Today so many people want to sell things to ‘cultures”. They start a business, but have no history, it’s very strange sometimes, but the almighty dollar (or Euro) rules.

How many people are involved on KRINK right now?
Not many. We are very very small, and we are making moves daily.
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www.myspace.com/verbalthreatmusic
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We live in a very dynamic time, and constantly rushing somewhere, and we are afraid to miss, but if you stay at least for a moment, it becomes clear that vanity is meaningless. Global political, economic and personal problems, only aimed at the possession of wealth – all this is temporary and does not deserve our attention, now all our attention we pay to these daily detail, as close to us die eternal phenomena, such as art. It is suffocating in this vain world, but is looking for ways to escape from the busy crowded cities. The first project «Freedom» is able to make the art of graffiti.

It would seem, which may escape from the city of graffiti, because it was originally kind of street art? The project «Freedom» display art to a new level: the nature and the endless expanses of Russian beauty!

We live in a very dynamic time, and constantly rushing somewhere, and we are afraid to miss, but if you stay at least for a moment, it becomes clear that vanity is meaningless. Global political, economic and personal problems, only aimed at the possession of wealth – all this is temporary and does not deserve our attention, now all our attention we pay to these daily detail, as close to us die eternal phenomena, such as art. It is suffocating in this vain world, but is looking for ways to escape from the busy crowded cities. The first project «Freedom» is able to make the art of graffiti.

It would seem, which may escape from the city of graffiti, because it was originally kind of street art? The project «Freedom» display art to a new level: the nature and the endless expanses of Russian beauty!

Russian art is always stretched to nature, and Russian graffiti is no exception. It is difficult to provide urban type of art outside the gray urban landscape? Believe me, graffiti feels more than comfortable in the surrounding forests, fields, lakes, rivers, mountains and vast plains. A proof of this is the project «Freedom».

The project «Freedom» will consist of four phases, each of which sold during the year. Stages of the project will comply with the four seasons. At the conclusion of each site will be updated photographic record of the work undertaken and the project shows. The site and forum you can find detailed information about the life of the project and the people to participate and support, as well as learn how to participate in the project at any stage.

Check out the whole galleries at there site artsvoboda.ru

New UGK Album coming out at the end of the month. Here the tracklisting and a new Bun B interview by WordofSouth.com.

1 Intro
2 Still On The Grind
3 Everybody Wanna Ball
4 Feelin’ You
5 The Pimp & The Bun
6 She Luv It
7 7th Street Interlude
8 Swishas & Erb
9 Purse Come First
10 Harry Asshole
11 Used To Be
12 Steal Your Mind
13 Texas Ave. Interlude
14 Hard As Hell
15 Da Game Been Good To Me
16 Outro

UGK: The Trill OG’z
Sunday, March 15, 2009

WordofSouth.Com: “UGK 4 Life” March 31st, marks the end of an era. Will this album give UGK the proper send off the fans expect? How important is it to you that the fans are satisfied with this project?

Bun B: This album will absolutely give them what they expect. The fact is if I didn’t give them what I felt they deserve…not so much what they expect but also what they deserve because for 17 years of unconditional support – I wasn’t going to do it. The “Underground Kingz”double album debuted number one on the billboard two-hundred charts, had a Grammy nominated single, number one. If that had to be the send off, it would have been an excellent way for UGK to go out. I felt like I had the opportunity to give us one last shot, one last go and it wasn’t just a matter of taking a couple of songs and putting out an album, but actually having enough structure and theme to make a cohesive project and I thought I had that; we moved forward and made that happen.

WordofSouth.Com: 17 years, UGK had an unbelievable run. It’s the final UGK album. Did you ever think that day would come?

Bun B: I never thought we were going to have the first one (laughs). We signed with Jive; it was a five album deal. I never assumed people would want to hear five albums from us to be honest. My entire career has been icing on the cake. I had a great run as a member of UGK and the UGK legacy will still live on, longer then you and I. For me, it’s definitely been rewarding at the end of the day. I’m content; I’ll be very content with UGK’s placing in history at this point.

WordofSouth.Com: Absolutely. “Da Game Been Good To Me” is the first single, and it’s the epitome of what UGK music should sound like. Was that song cut off the last album and if so, why? Is a music video coming to accompany the song anytime soon?

Bun B: No it was not cut off the last album but it was produced by the same people that helped co-produce the last UGK album. The production from the last double album and this album is extremely cohesive because it’s the same production team. The last double album, if you notice the credits, a lot of them was co-produced by several people and those same people are the co-producers or lead producers on this album.

There is a video that is going to accompany this song. I’m not going to perform in it. It’s more-so of a retrospective look back at the career of UGK from pictures, photo shoots and videos from the first album all the way up until today.

WordofSouth.Com: That plays perfectly into my next question. With it being the final UGK project, I imagine you carefully picked out which guests and producers you wanted to appear on the album. Tell us about that process of finding the right names.

Bun B: Well it was more-so about making sure that it made sense to listen to UGK and these are people Pimp C would have done these songs with. For me to have a song about women dancing and shaking in clubs and to have Lil’ Boosie and Webbie featured on it – people know that number one, they’re apart of the UGK family and two, they’re direct Pimp C protégé’s and three, they’re known for making songs about women in clubs – it was a perfect fit.

It’s the same thing with 8Ball, MJG, E. 40 and B. Legit on a song called “Used to be” on this album. The song is basically talking about the circumstances that we started with in our careers and how far we’ve been able to go, where we’ve arrived to and what we’ve achieved. I thought 8Ball & MJG, E. 40 and as well as B. Legit coming from the same era and to still be viable artists in this day and time, I thought it was an excellent fit on the record. And with them all being friends of UGK and had previously recorded with us, it makes sense to the UGK fans.

WordofSouth.Com: We like that explanation. Were Pimp C’s vocals for this album recorded specifically for the next UGK album or was he working on a solo project?

Bun B: He was working on both. A lot of these songs are songs as I said, that came from recording sessions for the last “Underground Kingz”album where we got to the point were we knew all the songs weren’t going to make it onto that album and some of them would make it onto this album. An example of this would be “Here We Go Again” produced by Mannie Fresh and features Ron Isley. It was actually the first full song I and Pimp C completed after his release from prison. It was something that was just so special, we could never get the right mix on it and we didn’t want to just put it out because it meant so much to us because it was our first time back.

That’s in the instance and also in the instance is the song “Hard as Hell” which is featuring and produced by Akon. It was originally recorded for the last album and meant to be the follow-up single to “International Players Anthem” but it ended up becoming too costly a song for the budget on that album and got pushed over to this album.

WordofSouth.Com: We appreciate the in-sight delivered to some of those songs right there. How often during the post-production of this album did you see yourself saying “What would Pimp C do?” since you normally took a back-seat role in the rest of the UGK projects.

Bun B: Well I was very lucky to have people around that were involved in the project in terms of the mixing and mastering of the last projects as well, with the exception of N.O. Joe who I couldn’t reach out to be apart of this album simply due to time constraints. Everyone else has already been apart of the process; especially a person like Mike Dean who was a long time friend and recording partner of Pimp C. He has a very, very good understanding of the kinds of elements that Pimp C would want brought forward in the music as for making drums, key boards, bass guitars and different things stand out more than others, and making sure certain things were very clear and the sound was grand enough and the mix was warm; you know what I’m saying?
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