It's 1997 and the Beastie Boys have just released Hello Nasty.
It's hot, it's the summer, and it's New York City.
I'm wet behind the ears.
" Last night was my first concert ... yeah ... Hello Nasty Tour at the Nassau Coliseum. I bought these killer Beastie Boys basketball shorts.
Had those shorts for about three months and never saw them again. Can only imagine who is wearing them right now. Probably some old dude in Idaho randomly got them at a thrift store. He is scratching his crotch drinking a beer wondering what the hell you have to do to get the name of "Beastie Boy"?
We're fresh off of the Long Island Railroad, pure from the influences of drugs or alcohol, skating around the quintessential skate spot anyone from Eastern LI knew about ; The Brooklyn Banks.
Welcome to my first real New York City moment.
The sound of the bricks at " The Banks" running under your skateboard wheels.
The faded graffiti from weeks earlier, when the Zoo York crew came around and tore the place up.
We cruised up and down Broadway, Lafayette, St. Marks, Mott St., just to name a few.
The Subway smells like rat.
The city is peaceful.
We know not what is to come in the next few years.
That pesky September 11th.
And like that, the reality of being from Long Island set in, and it was time to go home.
This was New York City in 1997.
If you ever took "the train" in any of New york City's five boroughs, you may have noticed a trend...
there's a bunch of people who like painting their name on the sides of buildings.
One of these guys was named "SACE" or "SACER".
Government name Dash Snow, we think?
Resident of the Lower East Side of Manhattan.
Photographer, lover, graf artist, dark bathroom coke snorter, weapons expert, serial killer knowledge extraordinare. Not your usual cat to say the least.
This man got up everywhere in the city, and was truly the king of not giving a flying "f**k" what the spot was... it was getting hit up.
With precision craftsmanship.
From 1999 to 2008, I spent a lot of time in New York City. All boroughs, with the exception of one borough, Staten Island. No one goes there. For anything. Ever. Unless you want to drive by Method Man's house. Which I've done once, I think.
SACE was a household name to a young and clueless wannabe graffiti artist like myself. I would marvel in one thing about this man's work, and one thing only. The amount of times I found myself saying ..." How the hell did he get up there, to that spot, and bomb it so beautifully, so many damn times, in so many places around NYC?"
This man Dash Snow, was one of those people you read about two years after they're dead and gone. The heading of the article says something like, "graffiti artist, pays the price of drugs like so many other artists before him. "
But that's not who he was.
He was an art form.
Every time I looked out of a window of a bus, or took an accidental left onto Bowery, when I meant to be on First Street, and BOOOM. There is a huge "SACE" or "SACER" staring me in the grill.
I couldn't help but smile. And you should too.
Next time you are in the L.E.S. of NYC and you see a "SACE" or "SACER",
try to take a piece of that brick he wrote on home,
and understand that there is so much more to the man,
than a can of paint.
Please go see Dash Snow's, a.k.a. "SACE's" Polaroid Photography
in Photo Essay Format
@
www.tinyvices.com/dash_snow_1
or
Pick Up the Newest Issue of Vice Magazine
Which features photography from Dash himself,
and fellow Vice Magazine Photographer
Ryan McGinley.
Peace
Enjoy friends
It's hot, it's the summer, and it's New York City.
I'm wet behind the ears.
" Last night was my first concert ... yeah ... Hello Nasty Tour at the Nassau Coliseum. I bought these killer Beastie Boys basketball shorts.
Had those shorts for about three months and never saw them again. Can only imagine who is wearing them right now. Probably some old dude in Idaho randomly got them at a thrift store. He is scratching his crotch drinking a beer wondering what the hell you have to do to get the name of "Beastie Boy"?
We're fresh off of the Long Island Railroad, pure from the influences of drugs or alcohol, skating around the quintessential skate spot anyone from Eastern LI knew about ; The Brooklyn Banks.
Welcome to my first real New York City moment.
The sound of the bricks at " The Banks" running under your skateboard wheels.
The faded graffiti from weeks earlier, when the Zoo York crew came around and tore the place up.
We cruised up and down Broadway, Lafayette, St. Marks, Mott St., just to name a few.
The Subway smells like rat.
The city is peaceful.
We know not what is to come in the next few years.
That pesky September 11th.
And like that, the reality of being from Long Island set in, and it was time to go home.
This was New York City in 1997.
If you ever took "the train" in any of New york City's five boroughs, you may have noticed a trend...
there's a bunch of people who like painting their name on the sides of buildings.
One of these guys was named "SACE" or "SACER".
Government name Dash Snow, we think?
Resident of the Lower East Side of Manhattan.
Photographer, lover, graf artist, dark bathroom coke snorter, weapons expert, serial killer knowledge extraordinare. Not your usual cat to say the least.
This man got up everywhere in the city, and was truly the king of not giving a flying "f**k" what the spot was... it was getting hit up.
With precision craftsmanship.
From 1999 to 2008, I spent a lot of time in New York City. All boroughs, with the exception of one borough, Staten Island. No one goes there. For anything. Ever. Unless you want to drive by Method Man's house. Which I've done once, I think.
SACE was a household name to a young and clueless wannabe graffiti artist like myself. I would marvel in one thing about this man's work, and one thing only. The amount of times I found myself saying ..." How the hell did he get up there, to that spot, and bomb it so beautifully, so many damn times, in so many places around NYC?"
This man Dash Snow, was one of those people you read about two years after they're dead and gone. The heading of the article says something like, "graffiti artist, pays the price of drugs like so many other artists before him. "
But that's not who he was.
He was an art form.
Every time I looked out of a window of a bus, or took an accidental left onto Bowery, when I meant to be on First Street, and BOOOM. There is a huge "SACE" or "SACER" staring me in the grill.
I couldn't help but smile. And you should too.
Next time you are in the L.E.S. of NYC and you see a "SACE" or "SACER",
try to take a piece of that brick he wrote on home,
and understand that there is so much more to the man,
than a can of paint.
Please go see Dash Snow's, a.k.a. "SACE's" Polaroid Photography
in Photo Essay Format
@
www.tinyvices.com/dash_snow_1
or
Pick Up the Newest Issue of Vice Magazine
Which features photography from Dash himself,
and fellow Vice Magazine Photographer
Ryan McGinley.
Peace
Enjoy friends
-hell Gas Station
Dash Snow
Polaroid
Polaroid
EarSnot in a wheelchair - getting up--?
Dash Snow
Polaroid
Dash Snow
Polaroid
This post is dedicated to four people.
SACE or SACER
Michael Kendrick, because I know you are feeling the loss of this man
Aubrey Snowden, because she sends me photos of graf she finds in NYC and I love her for that
Gaellen Smith, because I probably spelled his name wrong, and he is truly an inspiration for why I do any art... Ever.
SACE or SACER
Michael Kendrick, because I know you are feeling the loss of this man
Aubrey Snowden, because she sends me photos of graf she finds in NYC and I love her for that
Gaellen Smith, because I probably spelled his name wrong, and he is truly an inspiration for why I do any art... Ever.
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