The Difference In Graffiti Supplies From Then Till Now
I’ve been meaning to write on the huge difference between graffiti supplies between the earlier days and today for a hot minute now but haven’t/couldn’t figure out exactly where to go with it. It’s also very hard for me to talk or type without every other word being “fuck” so I’m gonna give it a shot here. Please forgive me if I’m all over the place with it…
First off, graffiti as a whole is nothing like it was back in the day. I first noticed the walls when I was in 3rd or 4th grade whatever year that was, I’m guessing around 1982 or 1983. Back when Hip-Hop was just starting to seriously pop off along with break-dancing and DJ-ing & MC-ing, at least that’s when I remember seeing it everywhere. New York was gettin’ it in since the early 70’s or before, but I wasn’t there so I can’t speak on that time & place but I do know my history and the history of the Philly graffiti scene.
Streets On Smash
Back in those days I remember seeing the walls on the way home from my grandparent’s house in the suburbs, especially the rooftop pieces on the Market/Frankford Line, or the El as we call it around these parts, the Suroc Tide piece on top of the old Sears building and the walls that lead into the Eastbound tunnel at 40th & Market. Mr. Blint, Clyde, Pizzazz, Dane, all classic old school names that were killin’ shit in those days. I was too young to even know who these guys were but the mysteriousness of who they were or what they might look like always had me trippin’. Who in the hell were these people and how did they get their names in so many places all over the city?
Back then there was no Instagram, no nut-ass Facebook…shit, we didn’t even have cable television in South Philly until I was in like 5th or 6th grade, maybe later. But there was writing on the walls in every neighborhood I went through in all parts of the city. Back then the popular tools of the trade were Red Devil, Krylon Wet Look, and Rust-Oleum cans and the Uni- and Ultra-Wide markers, homemade markers and pretty much anything you could find with a fat tip. I remember stealing a whole set of chisel tip Outliner markers from some kid in my class & pretended to find them on the way home from school so my mom wouldn’t smack the shit outta me for stealing. And forget about caps, any cap you used was either a stock cap or something you stole from the supermarket or mom dukes’ cans of cleaning supplies. You had to literally go through cap after cap to make sure they fit the can, they didn’t leak, the spray was nice & wide, and so on. Nothing like today where you just order a 100-pack of your favorite fatcap or specialty cap. Nowadays you literally have spraypaint manufactured specifically for graffiti with a color range upwards of 250+ colors, depending on the manufacturer. Writers from the 70’s & early 80’s probably lost their minds the first time they saw a can of MTN or Belton.
New School Vandals
Nowadays you go to one of hundreds of websites, pick out all of the fanciest markers, cans and caps you can afford and wait for the UPS man to drop em off at your doorstep. I mean people still rack but there’s nowhere around these parts that keeps the fancy paint out on the shelves. You have to get a store associate just to unlock the case to get a marker nowadays. Back in the day it was yard out on any & all hardware stores in the area. Sometimes you could go back 2 or 3 times in one day & really hit em in the head for as much paint as you can grab. Back then you had to save the same fatcap for months. If you wanted that cap to last you had to clean it out and pretty much hold it for ransom so none of the cats you wrote with would steal that jawn from you. Nowadays they sell acetone cans that you put the cap on and spray it and the cap is clean. Or just but a 100-pack and toss em when they clog. Either way, it’s very different from back in the day.
Now there’s tall cans that range between 600ml-800ml, 150ml pocket cans, 30ml micro cans, ultrawide cans, and even goddamn fire extinguishers are being used to get up. And for some strange reason, none of the American-made brands of spraypaint want to embrace the graffiti culture. They still look at it like criminal activity. The money they’re missing out on is ridiculous, but I’m sure they already know that. Their loss.
The marker game has changed significantly as well. Back then it was ultrawides and pilots and now it’s mops, flowpens, steel tips, etch mops, etc. The amount of styles and types of markers on the market, especially labeled as “graffiti supplies” is insane. Back in the day drips were frowned upon, whether you were using a can or a marker. Nowadays alot of people go for the drips and make them look damn good. Back then the shoe polish mop was probably the go-to tool for the thickest lines. Now there’s 30mm-50mm wide-head markers that can take up an entire door or bus stop with one or two tags.
What Happened To Quality?
But the main thing, at least for me, is the quality of ink and paint. Sure, everything is packaged real nice & pretty and the labels are Pantone-matched to the ink inside the marker, but pretty much all the ink and paint can be buffed easily. Sometimes the ink is so cheap, if it rains you could say goodbye to your stamp wherever you left it. Most, if not all inks today being labeled as “graffiti ink” or “graffiti supplies” is acrylic/water-based or alcohol-based. Period. There’s hardly any ink out there like the old school Garvey XT80, Marsh T-Grade, that mean-ass Blacktop Ink made from Sanford, and anything containing Xylene or M.E.K. due to it being carcinogenic, flammable, having high VOCs and being highly combustible and “ruining the environment” or so “they” say. There are a few shops claiming to sell old school Garvey & Marsh (besides the actual manufacturers) but those recipes are their own and not the official mixtures as far as I know. I mix all of my inks by hand and refuse to use any new materials outside of what I’ve been using since I started Illadel back in 2006. But that’s another story for another time.
Back in 2004 the EPA (Environmental Protection Agency) banned oil-based paints, primers, and pretty much anything solvent-based as far as enamel paint. This is why all of the spraypaint on the market today is acrylic-based and easily buffed or removed. Back in the day boy, that Borden-stock Krylon, that Red Devil and that Rusto was the shit. One pass would cover the surface for the most part and it was thicker than a Snicker, it smelled like chemicals and it stained the surface. Besides that, all the illest colors come from the vintage cans…for instance, Hot Razzberry (selfless plug), Jungle Green, Avocado, Mint Green (one of my personal favorites), Marlin Blue, True Blue, Popsicle Orange, Cherry Red, and so on & so on. Now there’s Belton Molotow with close to 260 colors in one range of aerosol. I’d hate to be the sorry bastard that has to come up with color names, shit.
All the paint today, the fancy paint at least, is great. Large color selection, interchangeable caps, high & low pressure as well as ultra-high pressure, a slew of different sized cans, and the quality is top shelf. Minus the lasting qualities of the spraypaint from back in the day. The fancy paint is awesome & all that, but spray that shit on a freight train that’s sitting in a layup in Arizona or New Mexico and see how long the colors hold. Some will fade faster than others, but hey…the EPA fucked the game up. It seems like those in a position of power are watering everything down nowadays. This is one of the main reasons I still use all the old school materials to mix the ink I sell. Besides saying “fuck outta here” to the law, the end result of xylene, lab-grade chemical stains, and a book of vicious recipes that’ll make your eyes water and your nose run.
Here Come The Corporations
Anyway, back to the graffiti supplies. One of my biggest complaints is there’s so many people out there either attempting to make “graffiti ink & paint” or paying other companies for private-labeled markers and spraypaint. Back when I stopped running around in the street and started selling my own ink & mops there was only a few companies selling spraypaint geared towards graffiti writers specifically. It was MTN Colors/Spanish Montana first, then German Montana (Black & Gold) did the whole corporate lawyers & smear campaigns against them to try & steal their whole product name & concept. That’s why there are two brands both named “Montana” for those who didn’t know. Google that shit bro & you’ll see what I’m talking about. That reason right there is the main reason corporations shouldn’t have anything to do with this subculture. Fuck them and their lawyers. Anyway, besides the two Montanas there was Belton/Molotow, a graffiti supplies giant in their own right and that was about it until Ironlak came onto the scene out of Australia.
Then everyone and their mother who had some drug money stashed or some investors willing to spend began seeking out Chinese manufacturers in a quest for their own private labeled cans. Some succeeded and many, may have failed. Same goes with the markers. I’m not gonna mention his name, but the biggest mop/marker in the business right now is private labeled for the most part. Google the company ArroMark and you’ll see the likeness in just about every product they sell as their own. Then there’s them folks from Germany, that are in every graffiti supply shop in the civilized world, who personally robbed me of one of my pigmented ink lines back in 2008, fucked the recipe all up and sold it anyway as a different product called “mop paint”, and the other private-labeled-from-China people from Italy. I know this because I know all the manufacturers these people use. In the past I’ve used them for certain things but never compromised my ink or paint recipes. Anyway, the point I’m trying to make with this overdose of text is there are too many “in-it-for-the-minute” weird-ass suckers trying to put out their own products simply because they have the money to do it. There’s hardly any love for the culture, just love for the money. Culture Vultures I think they call em.
All Good Things…
I guess what I’m trying to say but dragging my feet doing it is this: all the really good shit from when this thing started is gone. If it weren’t for the images on Google, the last remaining living legends like Cornbread, Futura2000, Zephyr, Lee Quinones and a few others to make the history known to the newcomers, this whole shit would be going in a different direction. I saw earlier before writing this, some YouTube graffiti weirdo explaining how to use an online name generator to get your “graffiti name”. I lost my shit when I saw that.
I used to talk about this with my man The Kodakk Kid (RIP playboy). He was “The Keeper of the Culture” some would say & he was definitely on the same page as not only myself, but many others. They say time changes everything but I think time kinda fucks up everything that is perfect. Not only in graffiti, but everything in general. Take a look around right now LMAO…the world is an entirely different place my friends. All the legends in whatever game you wanna pick are gone for the most part, rats are everywhere and it’s openly accepted, and I’m not gonna even mention the other weirdo agendas poppin’ off right now. I don’t wanna have the site penalized and removed from Google’s search results.
Hopefully this whole situation will do a 180 and come back around. Hopefully originality, style, quality, pride in your work and products you make, hopefully everything that comes with it makes a comeback. And fast. If I was all over the place with this post I apologize. I’m trying to do 10 things at one time. And that about raps it up y’all. I’ll holler.
