general

[newness]

This forums pretty good,much less beef than the guestbook,too many little kids, ,if anyones round long road way check the dif and jak production.

[spyke1]

wise serge nice tagin down hils and long road seen the damage down long road some ones torched a car and burnt away the jak and dif production fukin twat peace spyke1

[Ohmism]

spent the last few days in bury st edmunds and i have to say it has basically no graffiti scene there atall,i went looking around and all i could find was some janda thc and some thug 2 tags,not sure if theres any hof's there and didnt check the tracksides so i may be wrong,but to me it seemed like a very clean place with way too many cctv's for my liking.

[gdee]

There used to be writers in Bury in the 80's. There used to be hof there as well but I believe it has been built on now. Im sure some of the Ipswich boys will know more about it?

[suffolklover]

was an old house you could paint in a LONG time ago apparently...

couple of years ago there was a plan to turn some wall into legal wall. dunno if it happened. was a shite idea when theres no one doing pieces there.

heard of one old writer from bury. but hes got a job, kid etc etc

ohmism, you live there/near there?

[ohmism]

no i dont live there but i regularly visit bury and always have paint but nowhere to use it.

[tractaz]

ohmism mail me

[e-mail]

[tractaz]

i posted under suffolklover before by the way...

just forgot

[glamour dwarf]

Guest-suffolklover said:

was an old house you could paint in a LONG time ago apparently...

couple of years ago there was a plan to turn some wall into legal wall. dunno if it happened. was a nutse idea when theres no one doing pieces there.

heard of one old writer from bury. but hes got a job, kid etc etc

ohmism, you live there/near there?

[glamour dwarf]

I know the Bury writer you are talking about, he's been into graf for years but didnt really start piecing properly until he moved to london in the mid 90's. Now he is fairly well known in the uk scene.

I've had several conversations with him about east anglian graffiti "back in the day" and he knows his stuff...

[suffolklover]

no... i was refering to someone else who lives in ipswich and was cheating on his wife with a girl i know. but i know who you mean (D**?). i think you told me that once via email, if you are who i think you are!

and who is vanda? seen paint pen tags in bury and ipswich but nothing else on internet or anywhere

[corrector]

janda not vanda.

[wize1]

theres a few paint pen janda tags round the cambridge scene but ive never seen anything in paint by him.is he oldschool then?

[Webmaster]

some information...

ALL CITY
What a writer is considered to be when he/she is "up", but this term implies more status than being just "up". Many people can be "up", but only a select few could be considered "all city". Can also refer to a crew instead of just one writer.

BACK IN THE DAY
Refers to the "old days", old school, or when a writer first started writing. Also a hip-hop/rap term.


BACKGROUND
Originated on the subways out of neccessity. Backgrounds were used to make the piece stand out from all the tags and assorted scribbling on a subway car that make the piece hard to discern; the color or design painted behind the piece to make it stand out from the wall or train.


BACK TO BACK
A wall that is pieced from end to end all the way across. Also can refer to throwups that are one after another.

BATTLE
This is done when two writers or two crews have some sort of disagreement. The battle can take two forms: skills battle or getting up - essentially quality vs. quantity. A skills battle is when two writers piece a wall within a certain time period (usually a day or a few hours) and whoever does the best piece is the winner. A getting-up battle is when the writers take a certain area of a city and whichever crew can get up the most in that area within a certain amount of time (say a week to a month), wins. For both kinds of battle, an outside crew or writer judges who is the winner. The terms of losing and winning are usually negotiated by the crews involved and can be payment in paint, pot, a sock in the jaw, the losing crew has to stop writing their name, etc., etc.

BITE
To copy another writer's style. This is considered a no-no and is looked down upon, even though writers often borrow imagery from cartoons and comics.

BLOCKBUSTER
Big, square letters, often tilted back and forth and in (usually) two colors. Mainly invented to cover over other people and to paint whole trains easily, but they are effective on smaller walls for maximum coverage. Blade and Comet claim to have invented these.

BMT
Train line in NY that had only ridgys and ding-dongs (except for the As and Cs.)

BOMB
Prolific painting or marking with ink. To cover an area with your tag, throwups, etc.

BOMBING
To go out writing.

BUBBLE LETTERS
A type of graffiti letters, usually considered to be an older (and sometimes outmoded) style. Often used for throwup letters because of their rounded shape, which allows for quick formation. Phase2 originally created this style.

BUFF
Any means employed by the transit authority to remove graffiti from trains. The more modern usage is when any graffiti is gone over or removed from any surface, not necessarily just from trains.

TO BUFF, BUFFED
to erase, erased.

BURN
To beat the competition with your style. Also refers to a really good piece, as in one that "burns".

BURNER
Originally a well-done wildstyle window-down whole car, a burner is a very good piece. Obviously, the reference to a window-down car is not applicable for pieces that are not on trains. A burner is any piece that has good bright colors, good style (often in wildstyle) and seems to "burn" off of the wall.

CAP, FAT or SKINNY (tips)
Interchangable spray-can nozzles fitted to the can to vary the width of spray. These are usually racked off of commercial products, such as K-Mart's Bug and Tar, various cleaning products or starches. Many stores and graffiti fanzines sell caps nowadays. Also referred to as "tips" (as in "flare tips" and "thin tips".) The really big fat caps are sometimes called "softballs" because of the wide and soft-looking spray they produce. Tips are sometimes referred to by a certain number of fingers, corresponding to the width of the spray (for example, a "four-finger spray" would be about as wide as your hand. The number on the front of a tip is the catalog number for that model.

CHARACTER
A cartoon figure (usually, but not necessarily) taken from comic books, TV or popular culture to add humor or emphasis to a piece. In some pieces, the character takes the place of a letter in the word.

CHINA MARKER
A type of grease pencil used by artists to mark up contact sheets of photos or the photos themselves for cropping. They come in red and blue, and were adopted by writers for tagging because of the grease base. China markers are not very big, only as big as a crayon, but will write on almost anything.

CLOUD
Stylistic form applied to pieces. The use of clouds is not as freqent now as it was in the early days of subway car painting. See "background".

COMPUTER STYLE
A certain style of wildstyle that looks digital or bitmapped, as if it came out of a computer.

CRAZY
It means crazy in the dictionary definition but can also mean "really" as in "crazy big".

CREW
A loosely organized group of writers who also tag the crew initials along with their name. Crew names are usually three letters, many times ending with "K", which stands for "kings" or "kills" in most cases. Some crew names are just two letters, some are four, it all depends.

CTA
Chicago Transit Authority.

CUTTING TIPS
A way to cut standard tips, thus modifying them into fat caps or flare tips.

CUTTING LINES
A painting technique used on inside fills of letters and characters to get thin lines, thinner than thin tips.

DIS
To insult. Comes from "disrespect". Originally it was just a hip-hop/rap term but has found its way into the culture at large. Hey, even my mom says it! See "front".

DEF
Really good, (derived from "death"). In its day it had as much use in the hip-hop scene as in the graffiti scene. Not in use as much anymore, in some circles its use is considered downright cheesy. I'm all for bringing it back.

DING-DONG
Relatively new stainless type of subway car, so named for the bell that rings just before the doors close. Ding-dongs were preferred because they were so flat. They were a quick buff so no one did any full-scale pieces on ding-dongs.

DOPE
Originally a rap/hip-hop term that means "cool".

DOWN
To be in with, part of the group or action (as in "he's down with us"). Part of your connection, if you are down with someone.

DRIPS
Stylized drips drawn onto letters to add effect. Although inept paint application causing unintentional drips is considered the mark of a toy and is wack, stylized drips drawn on letters are acceptable. This style originated early on in New York subway graffiti.

FADE
To blend/blended colors.

FAME
What a writer gets when he/she is constantly and consistently getting up. One of the goals of writers is to have fame within the subculture of writers, and some, like Chaka, aim to have fame (or at least be recognized) outside of the subculture.

FANZINE
A fan magazine devoted to a narrow interest. Often shortened to "zine" In the graff scene, fanzines would obviously be devoted to writing, featuring photos of pieces, etc. The first graffiti fanzine was "International Graffiti Times" started by Phase 2. Nowadays there are many fanzines such as Can Control, Skills, Crazy Kings, and many others.

FAN SPRAY
A newer type of stock tip on spraypaint cans (used to be only on cheaper brands but almost every company, including Krylon, now sport these on at least one line of their paint) which sprays in a fan pattern that can be adjusted from vertical to horizontal, but is useless for tagging because it looks wack. May be used for fills but the cheezy tips prevent any kind of detailed can control. The tip is not removable for insertion of fat caps.

FAT
Can refer to something being thick, as a "fat line", or can be a general term of good, like "yo, that's fat!" Often spelled "phat".

FEMALE TIPS
A new type of tip that is called "female" because the can has a "male" counterpart. Traditional cans are vice versa. These female tipped cans are no good for writers, except maybe for fills, but even that's questionable.

FILL
The solid interior color of letters on a piece or throwup.

FLAT
Older slab-sided type of subway car; the most suitable surface for painting. This term refers mainly to subways, although it could refer to certain types of freight cars as well.

FLICKS
Prints of photos of graffiti. Also "flick" (singular) and "flix" (plural).

FLY
Cool, same as "fresh". Early hip-hop term.

FRESH
New, cool, good. An early hip-hop term.

TO FRONT
To hassle someone, to want to fight. For example, "You frontin' on me?" Also a hip-hop/rap term. Probably comes from "confront".

GETTING UP
Originally, "getting up" meant to sucessfully hit a train. Now it means to hit up anything, anywhere, with any form of graffiti, from a tag all the way up to a wildstyle burner -- although the term implies the process of tagging repeatedly to spread your name. Tagging something once would be getting up, but would not make you an "up" writer.

GOING OVER
One writer covering another writer's name with his/her own. Also known as "X-ing out" or "crossing out". "Crossing out" is usually just that, painting an X over another writers tag or piece. In the early days of New York graffiti, Cap was the master of doing black and white throwups to go over people. There was even a crew called TCO (the cross outs), whose main goal was to cross everyone out. See also "blockbuster letters".

GREASE PENCIL
See "china marker".

GRIFFIN
A type of shoe dye used in homemade markers.

GROCERY STORE INK
A kind of purple ink used by grocery stores in their marking guns. Writers took this ink to put in their homemades and refillable markers. Writers from back in the day swear by it because of its permanence.

HIP HOP
The culture in the late 70s and early 80s that spawned the graffiti culture as we know it now, breakdancing and hip-hop music, which has since turned into modern rap music.

HIT
To tag up any surface with paint or ink.

HIT UP
When something is covered with tags.

[Webmaster]

HOMEMADE
A type of homemade marker made out of old deodorant containers stuffed with socks or felt chalkboard erasers and filled with ink. Homemades have been made out of many things, including (most commonly) various deodorant containers all the way up to VHS videotapes. (!) Homemades have also been called "mean streaks," although this has no relation to the paint stick made by Sanford corporation.

HOMEMADE INK
A kind of homemade ink made for your homemade marker. The basic recipe involves shredding carbon paper and mixing it with alcohol and/or lighter fluid. Said to be almost as good as grocery store ink.

ICY GRAPE
An old, discontinued Krylon color that is prized by writers when the odd can turns up.

INSIDES
Originally referred to tagging the insides of subway trains. Now refers to the insides of any mass transit vehicle. For example, "He's the king of insides" would mean he's really up on the insides.

IRT
A train line in NY that had many burners because its cars were all flats.

JUNGLE GREEN
Another old, now discontinued Krylon color that writers go crazy over.

KARAK
Same as "character".

KILL
To hit or bomb excessively. To really get up in a major way.

KING
The best with the most. Some people refer to different writers as kings of different areas. King of throwups, king of style, king of a certain line, etc.

KRYLON
A brand of spraypaint, easily recognized by the distinctive 5-spot logo. Most favored by writers because of its large color selection and cheap price.

LAYUP
Side tracks where trains are parked overnight and on weekends. Initally used to refer to subway layups, but now can refer to freight-train layups.

MAD
Crazy, lots.

MAGNUM
A type of fat marker used by writers, not refillable.

MARKS-A-LOT
Standard black magic marker with a tip about a quarter-inch wide. Had its place in the early days of writing (early to mid 70s) but has been discarded in favor of bigger, better markers and spraypaint.

MARRIED COUPLE
Two cars permanently attached, identified by their consecutive numbers. This is an older subway term from New York.

MEAN STREAK
A type of paint stick made by the Sanford corporation. Writers like it because it is opaque, waterproof, and is generally a bitch to buff because the base solvent is ethyl glycol. Comes in white, blue, red and yellow. I've never seen black or green.

MTA
Metropolitan Transit Authority. (NYC)

MURAL
A large-scale type of piecing, done top to bottom on a wall; usually a large production involving one or two pieces and usually some form of characters.

OLD SCHOOL
General term used to refer to the early days of writing, more specifically, the mid 70s to '82 or '83. Also may refer to hip-hop music of this period. Old-school writers are given respect for being there when it all started, and specific writers are remembered for creating specific styles. For example, Blade and Comet created blockbusters, Phase 2 created bubble letters, clouds, Skeme's "S", and so on.

OUTLINE
The drawing done in a piecebook in preparation for doing the actual piece. Also called a sketch. Can also refer to the outline put on the wall and then filled, or the final outline done around the piece to finish it.

PANEL PIECE
A painting below the windows and between the doors of a subway car.

PIECE
A graffiti painting, short for masterpiece. It's generally agreed that a painting must have at least three colors to be considered a piece.

TO PIECE
To paint graffiti, creating a piece, not just go out tagging.

PIECEBOOK
A writer's sketchbook where outlines and ideas to be executed are kept and worked out. Also referred to as a "black book" or a "writer's bible".

PILOT
A type of fat marker. Prized because it writes wider than a Marks-A-Lot and is made to be refilled.

PROPS
Respect, comes from "proper respect". From hip-hop/rap.

RACK
To steal, usually paints or markers. In the past, most writers stole all materials used for painting. Due to paint lockups in California and other areas, this is no longer possible, so most paint is now bought.

RIDGY
Subway car with corrugated, stainless steel sides, unsuitable for graffiti. Writers did mainly two-color throwups and some top-to-bottom throwups (one color and silver because silver was hard to buff) on these types of cars. Ridgys ran in Brooklyn.

ROLL CALL
Tagging everyone's name in a crew, or the list of people who helped create it to the side of the piece. Not done very often - tagbangers seem to like doing this.

RED DEVIL
A favorite brand of spraypaint that was quite popular back in the day, but now has wack fan spray for tips.

RUSTOLEUM
A brand of spraypaint, generally more expensive than Krylon.