OK, so I'm sure there are some dedicated cycling purists who have been riding for years and can legitimately claim an affinity and appreciation of Fixie bikes... but sadly, Vans sporting, tight jeans rocking, poncy courier hat, fashion-blow-in-victims of Surry Hills... ...that ain't you. Get fucked and get with the program. You live in a psycho traffic infested wank city, with hills far too steep for your weedy skinny legs to pedal up or brake whilst riding down, leaving you to ponce up and down the relatively level roadwork of Crown and Bourke St... The only ray of hope in this new wave of wannabe wankers is the almost Darwinian potential for the blatant unroadworthiness of the bikes, coupled with riders of limited athletic ability constantly distracted by their reflection in passing shop windows to add up to plenty of mangled and maimed hipsters fucking off to the Oxford Art Factory in the sky....
I had the roller pole ready to launch straight through the front wheel of the first fixie clown I saw but was lucky enough not to have to witness the lameness and pumped a quick piece in Surry Hills to promote the Keep Australia Colourful response to the Keep Australia Beautiful graffiti clean up. The wall was a minimal graphic work with Beastman providing the minimal pallet and Numskull rocking the signage style slogans while Roach and I keeping the rap paintings rocking. Check out more info on the event day and ongoing resources for writers and people wanting to really learn about what the culture has to offer at www.keepaustraliacolourful.org . Extra shouts to Ironlak for slinging us some paints too!
Many years ago as a little graffiti grommet down the coast I would pass this one wall on the train going to school and wish I could rock as piece on it with local legends like Idiot, Pudle, Slap, Pearl and Comics. I would study the pieces and collect the flicks, and whenever I managed to corner one of th guys painting ask a million questions (Slap even hooked me up my first ever proper caps, to that point I had scalpeled and glued together all kinds of crappy nozzles from Dads garage), which on refelction was probably as annoying as hell for them, however, the mentoring and skills passed down from them was an integral part of me catching the fever and painting with the dedication to this day. It also inspires me now to try and educate and get young writers I meet on the skills and achievement path, rather than perpetuate the negativity in the scene. It was with a strange sense of accomplishment that I was able to rock a piece on this spot with local shredder Fetish and the one and only Idiot. In coming blogs I may try to track down enough pics for an Idiot special, definitely one of the most underrated writers... until then here is a dodgy phone shot of one of the country's most elusive style masters...
And a snippet of the work on the day from yours truly, probably been dogged by now though, going... going... Gong!
Until next time, learn to signwrite fuckers... http://vimeo.com/10562000
