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Monday 20 July 2009

Crack & Shine first look

I know there is a shit load of people hating on this book, I'm sure for all their own reasons. Heard alot about it, and obviously read all the comments last night on the last blog post.. Amongst other things.
The main issue probably being that they sent in, or got asked to send in their stuff and then never see it appear... And that's the way it's always been with anything that's come out in London and it always will be... until 2012, GraffLondon mag edition 1... hold tight

So I had a flick through the book eventually, wasn't at the launch party as me & Shoreditch don't exactly see eye to eye..

..It was bigger than I thought, which is a good thing. It's all laid out quite nice, good quality pages. I didn't have time to read much inside, but there's alot of text, which I'm sure is a good read.

Alot of well known writers who you would expect are included, obviously there's alot also missed out.. can't have both.
One thing that kind of didn't surprise me was the fact that I've seen a big majority of photo's which are in the book. Alot I know other people won't have seen, but there are so many that everyone would have seen in there.. and I'm not sure why you would bother putting them in there, unless you are trying to reach out to another crowd or something.... who knows...

Now I heard so many rumours about what exactly GraffLondon's part in the book was. And to clear it up for anyone that's still asking. Basically on ATG's page it says something like 'ATG thought it would be wrong to comment about themselves in the book so they thought they would leave it up to members of the London graffiti forum, GraffLondon.'
Then appear a page of quotes with certain peoples usernames, all completely negative comments which was pretty bloody funny! I suppose they could of put at least 1 positive comment in there. Even if they were just doing it for laughs, comments like this are well worth it:

"ATG mounted an expedition to south london once. in north london it was widely believed that crossing the thames was impossible, but with their gung ho islington spirit and a final cup of earl grey, the chaps set off southwards. by all accounts they found a way across the river, but no one knows how. despite coming under constant attack from the pale faced, voodoo practicing gypsies that inhabit the barren wastes south of the river, they finally got to streatham common and planted a flag signifying that they had conquered this awful place. after a triumphant "huzzah!" and a bit of back slapping, not to mention the last satisfying mouthfuls of their panini rations washed down with mummies homemade pimms, they set their bearings for home. unfortunately, its reported that things started to go wrong at this point. its thought that rest and harm succumbed to the inhospitable terrain somewhere around elephant & castle, running out of oxygen. the air was too thin for their delicate lungs you see. the others bravely carried on, making it as far as london bridge before disaster struck again. rayds was kidnapped by bandits and never seen again. some say they took him to a football match - leyton orient v millwall - but the horrors that he must have witnessed at such a place are too dreadful to think about. thankfully, the rest of ATG made it back safely. they didn't do any graffiti for about 10 months in 2005, in order to recover from this ordeal." - Skidz (posted on the forum but who knows if its skidz's words or not..)


The book is something outrageous like £25 but a must see for anyone that takes interest in this movement.

21 comments:

  1. if you read between the lines the ATG story was a pretty astute history of the crew - Rayds, Rest and Harm DID disappear (i think Harm has made a comeback since then) and they did slow right down for a while in 2005. the only thing that kept them in the limelight was their internet fans constantly talking them up and i think thats what Skidz was taking the piss out of.

    i would love to see Rest make a comeback. admittedly he didn't have much style but he fucking smashed it.

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  2. grafflondon mag in 2012? you do know that world is gonna end on december 21st, 2012? theres youtube videos about it so it must be true!

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  3. book was better than thought would be, had more people than i thought bearing in mind that was made by one of atg's rich mates.

    main thing missing was more tox (but then heard he didnt want more in it) , also really wanted to see a gsd bit like oker/shogi/petro/bice/ceres or renks (but i heard they also said they wanted no part of it) so guess not more you can do.

    all in all book was good altho knock was right id seen LOADS of flicks before especally in dds bit ( but at least they are classics) but id seen all of the ats flicks which i though was a bit shit, i preferred BA3 as had more flicks i hadnt seen and was cheaper but crack and shine is still a quality read, shit cover tho

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  4. 'hefner's section is just gay. is this the same hefs as in TPG???

    silverlink pannels and tracksides by an LA writer (whose only been to london once - visiting for an exhibition) in a london graf book??? i swear theres a billion more relevant things that couldve filled those pages...

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  5. ye hefner tpg.

    revok bit is shit, i swear i heard rumours that had been pulled out after threats from a certain someone, must have been bollock chat.

    i like the book, but some writers proper sold out for it, way too much talk and fake action posing in fancy dress.....GAY

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  6. nah the rumour goes that the Revok chapter originally had some harsh text criticising London... personally the opinions of someone who was in the country for a month mean nothing to me. at least Sput and Banos did proper stints here, whatever you may think of them.

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  7. You can just about read the ATG page in one of the flicks here:

    http://hurtyoubad.com/?p=477

    Jokes!

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  8. Yes, I did hear about the world ending in 2012, but I'm sure that was from Justin Case...

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  9. "Rayds, Rest and Harm DID disappear."

    Think for a second about all the people who were getting up in the first half of this decade, and how few of them you still see properly up to this day; truth is vast majority of heads who were on it in those times have started to fade away or stopped completely. This is what happens in graffiti as a rule, surely? Christ knows how many heads from the crews still rolling today that have come and gone through the years. Also, worth bearing in mind that two out of those three had VERY good reasons to stop writing.

    "They did slow right down for a while in 2005."

    And came back fucking hard, and have remained on it fairly consistently since then.

    "the only thing that kept them in the limelight was their internet fans constantly talking them up"

    Or the fact that they were still up as fuck throughout their period of inactivity, and still are. Rest has stuff East, South, North AND West still standing, and he hasn't written for 4 years. I've never seen that much internet sucking off of ATG - more often than not I've seen overhyped fuckwits who've never done anything trying to rag on them for not being 'real'.

    "i would love to see Rest make a comeback. admittedly he didn't have much style but he fucking smashed it."

    Same, he was an all-city mangler. He still has so much stuff standing all over the shop, and he did a lot of trains as well. Not much hope of a comeback though I'm afraid!

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  10. atg faggots posting on here defending themselves yet apprantley too cool to care. gays

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  11. na mate that aint ATG defending themselves... when someones using homosexual posh language like mangler, fuckwits etc and pretending they know more than they do, who else could it be but chunga ATG?! lol

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  12. Yeah, someone that can spell proper. It must be 'Chunga'

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  13. wtf is a 'all city mangler'? sounds like some jack the ripper shit. top to bottom fishwifes, window down washboards, LOL was 2005 really that long ago?

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  14. Homosexual posh language? You may enjoy sounding like a complete fucking retard, but I don't. When you don't need to or have to, why bother? Ya cunt.

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  15. all the beef starts on the anonymous posting haha!

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  16. its possible to be intelligent without being posh chunga you tory boy

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  17. you lot are all waste, why dont you get off your seats finish off the sandwhiches your mum made you and go do so graff instead of talking about it

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  18. axtually anonymous i'll have you know my mother makes excellent sandwiches

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  19. an anonymous person on the internet tells me i'm 'waste'. my life is fucking over. goodbye cruel world! i never even got to see the paris hilton sex tape...

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  20. i give the book 10/10 for effort and about 8/10 for the actual contents. i liked the Grand interview and Farringdon story the best. its a minor miracle that a book has even came out of the London scene.

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  21. the book is shit.

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