This book has got to be THE B-boy manuscript. We had a copy of this legendary tome in our school library and you'd be hard pressed to find a book as influential as it was on certain generation of kids. Along with the film 'Style Wars', this book served to document not just the NY graffiti scene of the late seventies 'n' early eighties but also the nascent Hip Hop scene. I would pour over this book for literally hours, imagining the pieces winding their way through the city like enormous steel snakes.
Inspired by the incredible artwork in this book I, like many others, took to creating my own graffiti. This in turn led me into the path of other like minded individuals and from there to the formation of our very own posse: The PAS Crew, its unabbreviated Sunday name being The Performed Art Syndicate. We'd tag up everywhere and once in a while grab some spray paint from D & E Motors in the Old Town and do a throw up. Happy days.
Back then, even in the one horse town of Runcorn where I grew up, you would see incredible burners appearing on the regular. However the torrent eventually became a trickle and before long it completely disappeared. There were one or two spots where people still painted, behind Runcorn FC's Canal Street ground and under Sutton Weaver Bridge being two notable exceptions but you rarely saw anything new appearing in the street. The transition for feast to famine happened so quickly.
Anyway, I still consider myself a b-boy and firm proponent of the global culture of Hip Hop, which is why I was utterly overjoyed to find a whole street of burners on a recent holiday to Palma Nova, Mallorca. Check out the pictures I took on my Flickr page. B-boy/girl or not, anyone not able to appreciate the artistry here must have a swinging brick for a heart. Enjoy.
