ngc – Vandalog – A Street Art Blog

May 2, 2014May 2, 2014

Landing Trains Daily

LTD6

Just got this post in from the LTD ROADCREW 2014. With photos by AVOID pi, words by FISHO ngc and a video by DROID 907, it tells a freight hopping story or two. That’s all I know. – RJ

Dropped off in Spartanburg early morning. Boobed around the small yard office and found a spot under a rail bridge at the north throat of the yard. Waiting games. Weed smiles and a little nervousness. SUNDAY NO BEER.
Me and Avoid are exploring a small tunnel beneath the tracks, beautiful light and a birds nest, cool water no shoes…
A scream from above, the train, the train is coming.
Big scramble up hill
No time for socks
Spartanburg to Erwin first
Pull everything together, It’s all here
one at a time we grab the moving ladders and jump.

LTD1

No cover, exposed ride, catch on the fly with a highway audience
We are rolling, first siding very soon regroup and take a grainer porch together.
Beautiful day the sun is shining
Our porch shakes violently and we laugh.

LTD2

Marion is halfway & beautiful nowhere is loud.
At a siding in the middle of a mountain
A worker is walking down the track, stash gear leave porch, hide behind wheels.
He pulls a switch and walks back. Some routine. Hide again.
Sunset Pretty, plenty of documentation

LTD8

Keep it moving, many tunnels and bridges and curves.
The clinchfield loops.
Put a coat and sleep if you can. The train is not shaking so much anymore, before the violent jolt was overwhelming, physical washing machine, a mans rollercoaster.

LTD4

This is my vacation, my release.
Enough bad memories
We pull into the Erwin yard late night.
We hop off the ride and hop cuplers to the wrong side of the yard, work trucks and a river

LTD9

Go back, cross over more trains and tracks and up a hill.
Find a good flat place to sleep. Goodnight with hits from the apple pipe
Take socks off, sleeping bag warm goodnight finally

LTD5

Awake with sun, feeling good smelling like train dust.
Granola bars and we are walking, town is small. local eyes but no crucifixion or which hunt.
get a hot meal at elms, its a hikers town, good. We assume the trail head identity, remove all train paraphernalia.
ERNIE i mean ERWIN
Head to north throat of yard again and lurk.
Gas stations, fast food, and construction.
We find the cut, a lean two structure, an old roof not resting on thick trees.
Clean it up, stack a wood pile, clear the brush and sprawl out a bit.

LTD93

Talk all day with beer, examine the yard from afar.
Apple pipe. We take turns leaving, going to the store buying more beer or French fries and a pancake.
Lounging around the comfortable jungle we are caught far from guard,
A northbound is pulling out of the yard on a set of tracks we weren’t expecting.
Scramble again… We miss the ride look at it chug away.
Close enough to do it but missed. Just missed
More beer and a walk to the cemetery

LTD3

There is always a train sounding in our heads.
Lost time downing cold ones until it happens again.
Goodbye Erwin and rain is coming
Another northbound is pulling out of the yard. We are drunk and ready.
Right after the engine passes us we are on the tracks, hungry for a ladder.
I hardly remember as some strange force took hold of me and I was suddenly climbing into a gondola full of scrap metal as it began to storm. Confused smiling I look back at the empty tracks and hear screaming.
Avoid and I are on the phone where is Droid?
I see him he is also on a metal death ride and coming for me. Walking along the metal scraps crossing from one car to the next.
He comes and gets me and we move back over the metal piles while the train is howling out of town.
We get to a dirty face small grainer porch and head bang for madness rain and life
Find one more beer and split it.
Wet night ride. Cold & the first siding we leave our porch & move down the string to A’s car.
Regroup and ride nighttime rough sleep with amazing morning fog
Kentucky country ride next to the river and small old towns
Train CC’s in Shelbiana, We are assed out
Get off and walk around the yard, hazy morning feelings.
Find an abandoned building, warm inside
Its 7 miles to the nearest town
We start walking and the rain comes again, harder
Get picked up by a college kid in pickup halfway
He drops us off at a Mexican restaurant
Get drunk before we start our residency program in Pikeville Kentucky

LTD91

Confusion about a whiskey town brought us here.
Phone home for the cavalry
Execute a strange piece of roller graffiti with sourced materials
Its not over, its never over

LTD94

LTD95

LTD935

Photos by AVOID pi aka Adam Void

December 13, 2012December 13, 2012

Baltimore Invades Brooklyn: NGC Crew at Tender Trap

Those who read my posts about Baltimore graffiti have already seen the pieces, rollers, and tags of Maryland-based NGC crew. Recently, for the New York Art Book Fair, the group debuted a zine detailing their quests painting throughout the gritty spots throughout the city. Opening today, “Kids Eat for Free” expands the reach of their exploits from East to West coasts.This show as an extension of their earlier zine, both being accompanied by personal work, documentary photography, and inside jokes. Only instead of taking on Baltimore, NGC took on the entire country.

-Rhiannon

020_20

Press release:

On Thursday December 13, 2012 from 6pm – 10pm The Superior Bugout presents the opening night of Kids Eat for Free with artwork from North Carolina’s infamous NGC crew. Artists FISHGLUE, MTN, RODA and Thomas Bachman share their photos, sculptures, and diatribes of tales from their travels and mischief. Much of the work appeared in Miles Michaels’ 1480 Gallery in Detroit, MI earlier this year in August, and has now traveled with additional new work to Brooklyn.

The artists’ work documents the past Summer, traveling across America’s northeast corridor, southern and mid-western states and New York City stealing freight train rides and paint. Along the way they’ve reworked the visual landscapes of the towns they passed through with colorful signage, roller pieces, and urban scrawlings. The show will be on display throughout the new year.

Accompanying the artwork will be an experimental sound set with MIND DETRGNT BKF playing eclectic samples and sounds from his vast collection of tape cassettes.

NGC

Photos courtesy of the artists

October 1, 2012September 25, 2012

Illegal Baltimore part three: The city’s streets

Part one of the Illegal Baltimore series can be found here, and part two can be found here.

Walking around in the abandoned areas of Baltimore gave me a peace of mind that the NYPD would never allow in New York. However, engaging life-long citizens of Baltimore about the graffiti surrounding them in the streets came with its own merits. The blending of New York and Baltimore-based artists that I saw in the the city’s innards was mirrored in its streets. With the, then recent, invasion of international artists for Open Walls Baltimore, the city had become a hub for any east coast street artist to visit. As long as you had friends in the area or on the roster, chances are you ended up there. Continue reading “Illegal Baltimore part three: The city’s streets”

September 27, 2012

Preview: Graff Zines Hit the NY Art Book Fair

(Left to Right) Droid and R2, Droid and Avoid, and NGC

Opening to the public this weekend, the New York Art Book Fair brings together the academic art history books with the grittiness of zines. This year, several graffiti zines have teamed up to display their wares at the Pantheon Books table. With zines from Baltimore’s NGC crew, 907, and Subway Art Blog, this weekend will be one that you need to fit into your tightly wound schedules (don’t forget it’s also Dumbo Arts Festival). Vandalog was lucky enough to be able to preview these zines before the public and the results were astounding. In the week since I have received these zines I have found myself flipping through them over and over, rereading passages and revisiting my favorite layouts.

The sick rollers and pieces seen in my recent Vandalog posts are echoed within the pages of NGC’s zine. A few of the spots I was lucky enough to see are document within their zine as well as several that remain unseen. An excellent pairing of inside jokes and montaged pages of tags and personal photographs, NGC gives you a taste of what it is like to be writers in Baltimore. Like Natty Bo, it’s cheap, awesome, and sure to show you a good time.

Being only familiar with the street work of 907, I didn’t know what to expect when opening the pages of their zine. The cover is decked with tags by some of the top writers on the East Coast, giving a hint that you are probably in for a read that is going to rock your brain. Droid and R2 have brought some of their favorite cudi spots together with some premium interviews. Between the eye catching pictures and a particularly moving narrative about loss, Droid and R2 have pieced the perfect pairing of opposites for this release.

In addition to his release with R2, Droid and Avoid will be showing their zine from last year, which features stories from their adventures riding freights across the country. In the urban jungle where pretty much everything gets you arrested, their tales of run-ins and writing trains is enough to make any New Yorker want to eject themselves from the city for a taste of the fun.

SubCulture2-notforprint (dragged)-1 — Cover (Courtesy of Subway Art Blog)

SubCulture2-notforprint (dragged) 2-1 — (Courtesy of Subway Art Blog)

SubCulture2-notforprint (dragged) 1-1 — (Courtesy of Subway Art Blog)

Last, but not least, Subway Art Blog has teamed up with the graffiti writer-based zines to prove to New York that, yes, there is in fact still art in the subways. Now in it’s second issue, Jowy Romano has focused this production on etches and scratchitti. By bringing together graffiti writers as well as enthusiasts, the New York zine table provides short reads for visitors of all tastes.

To pick up copies of these zines visit table A12 (Pantheon Projects). The New York Art Book Fair will be open to the public this weekend from:

Friday, September 28, 12–7 pm
Saturday, September 29, 11 am–9 pm
Sunday, September 30, 11 am–7 pm

All photos by Rhiannon Platt unless noted

September 25, 2012September 25, 2012

Illegal Baltimore part two: Rollers

Part one of the Illegal Baltimore series can be found here.

Due to the layout of Baltimore, the city makes the perfect playground for rollers. Built of bridges and tunnels, most of the graffiti spots contain elaborate pieces at eye level with equally as astounding rollers above them. The combination of these tunnels and the large amount of abandoned factories in the area makes for perfect spot to do elaborate, typographical rollers.

Even more astounding to me than the work itself was the number of familiar names I came across in, essentially, middle-of-nowhere Baltimore. People like Reverend, Nugz, Overunder, and Cash4, who had become my household names in New York had found themselves equally as prolific in this city. Through partnering up with local artists such as MTN NGC and Avoid, these New York artists seamlessly blended into the Baltimore scene, creating some interesting visual combinations in these spaces.

Photos by Rhiannon Platt