Brought to you by the Number 2 and the Number 5
IMOGEN NEALE tracked down train-wrecker and all-round graffiti dive-bomber Wane COD at the Boost Mobile Aotearoa Hip Hop Summit 2005.
WANE COD has a problem. He only has one pair of eyes and here on this new playground there are way too many things to look at; lithe legs in little more than nothing skirts, boys flexing their box-fresh sneaks, walls begging for a thick coat of NY-spray freakness, lithe legs in little more than nothing skirts... so many legs... legs... legs... skirts and legs. Yup, Wane has a problem. Not that it seems to be bothering him at the moment; with his flat cap turned to the left just so, his sneaks riding high and his jeans slung low the slight schwing in his walk suggests that he’s actually rather pleased - especially given the way the wind and the rain are playing a violent game of tag outside. Indeed if it wasn’t Boost Mobile Aotearoa Hip Hop Summit weekend most of these skirts would still be at home neatly folded between sundresses and school socks, bikinis and beach towels. But the Summit is the undisputed eye candy festival of the year and thus rain, shine, hail and wind (which Auckland managed to deliver all at once) the skirts had to come out.
Within five minutes however Wane’s mad scrolling eyes get to relax; the discussion panel he was a keynote speaker on has wrapped up and everyone has all but cleared the room. Everyone apart from me and three pairs of swollen tongue sneaker freakers. My plan had been – go to the seminar, listen, jot down some conversation starters, wait till he was done, suggest a cold drink and tap his brain for ideas. That was plan A. Plan B which was complied in the time it took me to drive from a funeral in Takapuna to the Auckland City Hall was; find Wane (what did he look like ?) grab him (did I have a media pass?) and say, ever so politely; talk. Plan B may have been rough but what was I do to; Plan A had grabbed Elvis and left the building.
As it happened having a plan, any plan wasn’t necessary. Wane needed a drink, a smoke, and dare I say it, more leg-type things to look at. Thus with the room cleared and his crew by his side he promptly left the building. Naturally I followed. I had a media pass and he knew I was coming – surely once I managed to catch up with him our interview would be back on track.
Perhaps. Perhaps however, not.
I manage to catch up to him, I flash a smile, casually wave my pass, get introduced as ‘that interviewer you were going to talk to’ and get my pen out... ready to catch NY-styled lyrical gold...
He managed to notice me enough to nod; “yeah, we’ll catch up’ but his eyes skip out of our conversation and keep a pair of mocha legs company for four or five silky strides, ‘I just gotta get – get – get a – drink, so, later then.’
Wane grins. His pack grins. They all tip their caps, shrug me off and mutter something about a drink that apparently waits for them – over there – that way, the way the legs went.
LADIES AND GENTLEMEN, meet Wane COD. One of New York’s graffiti godfathers.
Well actually he is just Wane. The COD part he shares. Like a surname it announces that he has a genealogy, a family, a group of people connected to him in some intimate and irrefutable way. COD or Children of Destruction is a group of New York graffiti writers that formed around the unified bombing or ‘piecing’ of New York City train lines number 2 and number 5 in the 1980s. Wane, MICHELOB, WEN, LATIN, FACE and WIPS - the 2 and 5 line kings.
Whilst the 1980s may seem like a long time ago now, COD’s appearance on the subway scene actually marks the end of an era; by the late 1980s the trains were ‘clean’; i.e the powers that be had got wise to the writers game and devised ways to paint and prep the trains so they weren’t such appealing and accommodating canvas.
It was during the 1970s that graffiti thrived; when legendary writers LEE, PISTOL 1, FLINT 707 and PHASE 2 emerged; when 3-D top to bottom pieces first graced whole sides of trains and when New York art dealers started to think about how they could go about capturing the rawness of graffiti in a gallery space.
The first ‘tags’ or ‘hits’ however started to appear on the inside of trains in 1970; they had progressed to the outside one year latter and by 1972 trains that were ‘clean’ by day would chug off to work early the next morning freshly bombed inside and out. This is also where becoming ‘king of a line’ started; the idea being that at night you would creep into your local train yard and make your mark on the trains that serviced your neighborhood; your line.
In the late 1970s, as the fame of the graffiti writer grew, some writers jumped at the chance to turn their passion into green folding and Hugo Martinez was the first to set up a professional graffiti collective. Called United Graffiti Artists it was the umbrella that graffiti leaders PHASE 2, STAYHIGH 149, RIFF 170, C.A.T 87 and COCO 144 worked under.
More than this though, during the 1970s it actually seemed that New York as a city as a people were right behind the writers; during the baseball playoffs some well worked trains were lined up outside Yankee stadium to provide the games with a bright carnivalesque background; in the opening sequence of the primetime show ‘Welcome Back Kotter’ there was a fixed shot of well worked trains traveling by; the names DIABLO and PNUT 2 blazing out to the viewers at home. Adding to this new type of visibility, New York Magazine published a comprehensive essay written by staff writer Richard Goldstein which featured The United Graffiti Artists and launched a whole new wave of junior writers; leading to the production of the now infamous documentary style film Style Wars.
To a New Zealand audience the American style seems incomprehensible; here writers tend to go for a name or a word that says something about who they are, what they stand for or what inspires them; think GASP, DEUS or OUCH for example. American crews however tend to use numbers and words that, to an outsider, seem empty or even random. Perhaps it stems from the different ways our suburbs are named or identified. In New Zealand we go by street names which are usually exactly that; a name, a place or a landmark. Our street numbers rarely go beyond four hundred and the buses that service our neighborhoods ‘change’ routes all the time. In America however the streets are frequently given numbers; 2nd Street, area code or borough number 161. Thus the names writers choose; TAKI 183 for example; would tell the local observer that TAKI lived either on 183rd Street or in the 183rd precinct. The words or names however are simply chosen and there doesn’t seem to be an explanation for why the New Zealand and New York style should be so different.
The aesthetic value of the pieces is also curious; the style of the 1970s and the 1980s is raw, simple and artistically naive. Some artists have chosen to stay true to this style Wane and the COD crew for example. Others however have got flash on it and their pieces are typically sharp, clean and exceedingly complicated. What many people don’t realize however is that there is far more to it than artistic talent, time or talent with a spray can. For every style, from the rough to the spit polished, has a name and an origin and by choosing one ‘way’ the writer is choosing to pay homage to certain other writers from a certain time and place in graffiti’s history.
WHICH brings me back to Wane COD.
Wane’s style is not sharp, clean or of the graphically ‘wowing’ persuasion. Unlike many graffiti artists who are finding ways to put their pieces into neat packages that people are willing to pay for, he has kept to the style and ideology he began with; put your name up, find a bench that’s going to put you near where your mobile billboard passes, sit, watch and pump your fist when it passes.
To enjoy the other side of it; the consumer market that is currently lapping up the subversive, haughty and rather naughty message that spray paint seems to drip in fat drops wherever it passes, Wane and the COD family have created ‘Writers Bench’; a clothing company that celebrates the talent and culture of graffiti. Currently only catering to the bigger sizes they are about to launch their woman’s range called ‘Bunny Kitty’, a name that after watching Wane at play, I understand completely; he and his crew were the last of the great New York train writers and now, with the trains hit-free and graffiti cashing in on it’s pound of cultural cool Wane and his boys are at the front of the ‘gonna get me mine’ queue.
» View more of Wane and the COD family's vandalism at writersbench.com
WANE COD has a problem. He only has one pair of eyes and here on this new playground there are way too many things to look at; lithe legs in little more than nothing skirts, boys flexing their box-fresh sneaks, walls begging for a thick coat of NY-spray freakness, lithe legs in little more than nothing skirts... so many legs... legs... legs... skirts and legs. Yup, Wane has a problem. Not that it seems to be bothering him at the moment; with his flat cap turned to the left just so, his sneaks riding high and his jeans slung low the slight schwing in his walk suggests that he’s actually rather pleased - especially given the way the wind and the rain are playing a violent game of tag outside. Indeed if it wasn’t Boost Mobile Aotearoa Hip Hop Summit weekend most of these skirts would still be at home neatly folded between sundresses and school socks, bikinis and beach towels. But the Summit is the undisputed eye candy festival of the year and thus rain, shine, hail and wind (which Auckland managed to deliver all at once) the skirts had to come out.
Within five minutes however Wane’s mad scrolling eyes get to relax; the discussion panel he was a keynote speaker on has wrapped up and everyone has all but cleared the room. Everyone apart from me and three pairs of swollen tongue sneaker freakers. My plan had been – go to the seminar, listen, jot down some conversation starters, wait till he was done, suggest a cold drink and tap his brain for ideas. That was plan A. Plan B which was complied in the time it took me to drive from a funeral in Takapuna to the Auckland City Hall was; find Wane (what did he look like ?) grab him (did I have a media pass?) and say, ever so politely; talk. Plan B may have been rough but what was I do to; Plan A had grabbed Elvis and left the building.
As it happened having a plan, any plan wasn’t necessary. Wane needed a drink, a smoke, and dare I say it, more leg-type things to look at. Thus with the room cleared and his crew by his side he promptly left the building. Naturally I followed. I had a media pass and he knew I was coming – surely once I managed to catch up with him our interview would be back on track.
Perhaps. Perhaps however, not.
I manage to catch up to him, I flash a smile, casually wave my pass, get introduced as ‘that interviewer you were going to talk to’ and get my pen out... ready to catch NY-styled lyrical gold...
He managed to notice me enough to nod; “yeah, we’ll catch up’ but his eyes skip out of our conversation and keep a pair of mocha legs company for four or five silky strides, ‘I just gotta get – get – get a – drink, so, later then.’
Wane grins. His pack grins. They all tip their caps, shrug me off and mutter something about a drink that apparently waits for them – over there – that way, the way the legs went.
LADIES AND GENTLEMEN, meet Wane COD. One of New York’s graffiti godfathers.
Well actually he is just Wane. The COD part he shares. Like a surname it announces that he has a genealogy, a family, a group of people connected to him in some intimate and irrefutable way. COD or Children of Destruction is a group of New York graffiti writers that formed around the unified bombing or ‘piecing’ of New York City train lines number 2 and number 5 in the 1980s. Wane, MICHELOB, WEN, LATIN, FACE and WIPS - the 2 and 5 line kings.
Whilst the 1980s may seem like a long time ago now, COD’s appearance on the subway scene actually marks the end of an era; by the late 1980s the trains were ‘clean’; i.e the powers that be had got wise to the writers game and devised ways to paint and prep the trains so they weren’t such appealing and accommodating canvas.
It was during the 1970s that graffiti thrived; when legendary writers LEE, PISTOL 1, FLINT 707 and PHASE 2 emerged; when 3-D top to bottom pieces first graced whole sides of trains and when New York art dealers started to think about how they could go about capturing the rawness of graffiti in a gallery space.
The first ‘tags’ or ‘hits’ however started to appear on the inside of trains in 1970; they had progressed to the outside one year latter and by 1972 trains that were ‘clean’ by day would chug off to work early the next morning freshly bombed inside and out. This is also where becoming ‘king of a line’ started; the idea being that at night you would creep into your local train yard and make your mark on the trains that serviced your neighborhood; your line.
In the late 1970s, as the fame of the graffiti writer grew, some writers jumped at the chance to turn their passion into green folding and Hugo Martinez was the first to set up a professional graffiti collective. Called United Graffiti Artists it was the umbrella that graffiti leaders PHASE 2, STAYHIGH 149, RIFF 170, C.A.T 87 and COCO 144 worked under.
More than this though, during the 1970s it actually seemed that New York as a city as a people were right behind the writers; during the baseball playoffs some well worked trains were lined up outside Yankee stadium to provide the games with a bright carnivalesque background; in the opening sequence of the primetime show ‘Welcome Back Kotter’ there was a fixed shot of well worked trains traveling by; the names DIABLO and PNUT 2 blazing out to the viewers at home. Adding to this new type of visibility, New York Magazine published a comprehensive essay written by staff writer Richard Goldstein which featured The United Graffiti Artists and launched a whole new wave of junior writers; leading to the production of the now infamous documentary style film Style Wars.
To a New Zealand audience the American style seems incomprehensible; here writers tend to go for a name or a word that says something about who they are, what they stand for or what inspires them; think GASP, DEUS or OUCH for example. American crews however tend to use numbers and words that, to an outsider, seem empty or even random. Perhaps it stems from the different ways our suburbs are named or identified. In New Zealand we go by street names which are usually exactly that; a name, a place or a landmark. Our street numbers rarely go beyond four hundred and the buses that service our neighborhoods ‘change’ routes all the time. In America however the streets are frequently given numbers; 2nd Street, area code or borough number 161. Thus the names writers choose; TAKI 183 for example; would tell the local observer that TAKI lived either on 183rd Street or in the 183rd precinct. The words or names however are simply chosen and there doesn’t seem to be an explanation for why the New Zealand and New York style should be so different.
The aesthetic value of the pieces is also curious; the style of the 1970s and the 1980s is raw, simple and artistically naive. Some artists have chosen to stay true to this style Wane and the COD crew for example. Others however have got flash on it and their pieces are typically sharp, clean and exceedingly complicated. What many people don’t realize however is that there is far more to it than artistic talent, time or talent with a spray can. For every style, from the rough to the spit polished, has a name and an origin and by choosing one ‘way’ the writer is choosing to pay homage to certain other writers from a certain time and place in graffiti’s history.
WHICH brings me back to Wane COD.
Wane’s style is not sharp, clean or of the graphically ‘wowing’ persuasion. Unlike many graffiti artists who are finding ways to put their pieces into neat packages that people are willing to pay for, he has kept to the style and ideology he began with; put your name up, find a bench that’s going to put you near where your mobile billboard passes, sit, watch and pump your fist when it passes.
To enjoy the other side of it; the consumer market that is currently lapping up the subversive, haughty and rather naughty message that spray paint seems to drip in fat drops wherever it passes, Wane and the COD family have created ‘Writers Bench’; a clothing company that celebrates the talent and culture of graffiti. Currently only catering to the bigger sizes they are about to launch their woman’s range called ‘Bunny Kitty’, a name that after watching Wane at play, I understand completely; he and his crew were the last of the great New York train writers and now, with the trains hit-free and graffiti cashing in on it’s pound of cultural cool Wane and his boys are at the front of the ‘gonna get me mine’ queue.
» View more of Wane and the COD family's vandalism at writersbench.com
Graffiti stills sourced from writersbench.com
sebar seven cod wrote: